Present Drifter

Chapter 22

My mom's hands are still resting on Kenneth's shoulders. I feel my arm begin to shake as my eyes dart around my backyard. Kids run around so joyfully. Keep your cool. You're at your brother's birthday party. You cannot get upset.

My mom turns to look at me and smiles. I force a smile back at her and swallow down my pains of the past. She raises her eyebrows at me as if she can tell I'm in distress.

I've been trying so hard to figure out how to get back here. This is not how I thought it was going to happen. Victoria killed Asher. Victoria, not Walter.

I watch with my fake grin as my mom squeezes Kenneth's shoulders and then proceeds to walk over to me.

"Are you alright sweetie?" She asks with eyebrows furrowed in concern.

"Yea, I'm just happy he's happy," I answer. I move my gaze back towards Kenneth as he slumps in his chair, smiling happily at his large rectangular cake. My mom follows my gaze with her own and I see her smile out of the corner of my eye.

"Alright." She pauses. "I'm going to cut the cake."

I nod as she walks back to the table. Carefully, she lifts up the cake knife and cuts one of the corners off of the cake and pushes it on a plate towards Kenneth. He grabs a nearby fork and with seconds has blue and white frosting smeared across his face. His teeth poke out in his smile and it makes me giggle.

This is the joy that I saw in Oliver that I see so rarely in Kenneth. Oliver. My smile fades as the joyous kid comes back into my head. He witnessed the whole thing too. He almost died. What is with all the death in my past lives.

Asher. It wasn't me this time. He died to save me, to save Oliver. And then I traveled back here. Not when I died, but when he did. None of this makes sense anymore.

Asher knew about the past lives, so does Daxon? I need to talk to him.

My mom walks back towards me with two plates of cake in her hands. As she comes to stand next to me, she slips one into my hands. We both watch in silence as Kenneth sits happily with his friends while they enjoy his birthday cake. I slowly pick up my fork and take a bite of the pirate cake. I close my eyes as the chocolate dessert fills my mouth. I've missed modern food.

Next to me, my mom also dives into her piece. She seems just as happy as Kenneth. At this point his joy is so simply contagious just because we rarely get to see it. I hope it slowly becomes more frequent. Seeing his past version happy almost all the time was so refreshing, so hopeful.

Asher and I were so happy, so hopeful. I really need to talk to Daxon.

"Mom?" I ask. She turns to look at me with widened eyes and gives me a small nod. "Would it be okay if I went out for a little bit?"

"Where to?" She asks.

"I really need to talk to Daxon about something," I explain. She turns away and nods her head.

"Alright," she says without any further questions. She gives me one last smile and takes my plate from my hand. "Be careful."

"I will," I say while reciprocating her smile. I let my hand drop as she takes my plate and turn around back towards the house.

When Dax and I were together, it was really nice because we only live a couple minutes away from one another. It was so easy to just hop in my car and drive over to see him. He would always come over whenever he knew I was upset. Dax was really good with Kenneth too.

The first time he ever came over, he got Kenneth to pass around a soccer ball with him. Kenneth had never attempted any athletic activity but there he was kicking a ball around. It was the first time I knew that I could be happy with Dax. He made my little brother happy and he cared about him. That meant more to me than he probably knew.