Page 61 of Remember Us This Way

“The next time you kiss me,” she says, her hands shaking again. “It better be because you’re mine and I’m yours.”

I stare at her, horror blasting through me at the idea of her pushing me away. “I’ve always been yours, Zoey.”

“No, you haven’t been mine in a long time. You’re barely a figment of my imagination.” I see the exact moment her heart falls out of her chest and shatters on the ground between us. “I want something real with you, not this almost there bullshit. I’m not doing this sneaking around thing where you get to push me away and then have me when it’s convenient. You’re either all in or all out.”

“Zo—”

“Don’t,” she tells me, pulling out of my reach, tears spilling from her eyes and tormenting my already shattered soul. “I don’t want to hear how you can’t, how you’re hurting and drowning in a sea of guilt and darkness, because I am too. I’ve been hurting since the day Linc died, and I needed you. You were the one person who could have eased that ache inside me, and you weren’t there. You made me suffer alone, Noah. You broke me, and now you want to waltz back into my life, thinking you can slide right back into place. That’s not how this works.”

She pauses, tears pouring from her eyes as she holds my stare, unaware of just how deeply I’m crumbling inside. “I want you to come back to me, Noah. I want it more than anything, but only when you’re ready to really let me in.”

Unable to keep the distance, I step into her, pulling her straight back into my arms as she buries her face against my chest. I hold her there, my hand knotted into her hair as she falls apart. “I promise, Zozo,” I whisper, closing my eyes as the agony claims me. “I want to give you everything you deserve, and I have a lot to make up for. I know you feel like I’m not yours anymore, and that’s on me, but you have to know that I’ve never stopped belonging to you. It’s always been you, Zo.”

“It hurts,” she whispers against my chest.

I hold her tighter, my hand roaming up and down her back. “Give me your pain, Zo,” I murmur, hating myself for everything I’ve put her through and vowing that I will never make her feel this way again. “Let me take it away.”

25

Noah

THREE YEARS AGO

Zoey’s hand clutches mine so damn tight her knuckles turn white, but I don’t dare let go. I can’t because, at the front of the church, my little brother’s body lies broken beyond repair in the black casket my mom spent the last three days agonizing over.

The past week has been a blur. Mom and Dad have fought. Random people I don’t know have knocked on our door, offering their bullshit condolences. The police. The funeral home director. Tears. Hazel. But all I’ve seen is darkness.

It’s like a cloud hovering over me, bearing down on my shoulders, getting heavier every day, and I’ve tried to hold it back, tried to push it away, but it’s too fucking hard. Everybody is relying on me to be strong. Mom keeps looking at me as though I can somehow make her pain go away, and Dad? Dad has been nothing but an ass these last few days. But Zoey needs me the most, and I’m trying to be strong for her, but I’m slipping. I can’t take it anymore.

The guilt, the anger, and the darkness are eating me alive. It’s agony.

I killed my fucking brother. He’s lying there in that casket because I sent him away.

This is all my fault.

Zoey was right. I should have told him that Mom was planning a movie date for him and Hazel, and he never would have tried following me to the park. He never would have been out on that road. I wasn’t even nice to him.

Some old asshole stands at the front of the church, talking about how much Linc will be missed, and Zoey’s head falls against my shoulder as silent tears roll down her face. Keeping my eyes on the old asshole, I grit my teeth, anger burning through my veins as I reach up and wipe the tears from Zoey’s cheeks.

This dickhead never even met Lincoln. How dare he stand there and tell everyone how much he’ll be missed. He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know what kind of kid he was, what he liked, what he didn’t. Doesn’t know he was probably going to grow up to be East View’s biggest menace, and he sure as fuck doesn’t know that over the next few years, he would have eventually figured out that Hazel James was going to be his whole world, the same way Zoey is mine.

With each passing second of Linc’s funeral, the numbness takes over, and when it finally comes to a close, I break away from Zoey and storm down the long aisle, barely able to breathe. I break out into the hot Arizona afternoon, gasping for air with my hands braced against my knees.

I can’t do this anymore.

Everybody needs me to be something, to hold them up, but how the hell am I supposed to do that when I can barely get through the day? I always thought I was strong. I thought I was everything that Zoey would ever need, but I’m fucking pathetic. I killed my little brother, and soon enough, she’s going to see it. She’ll know that I’m just a worthless fraud and realize I’m not good enough for her, not anymore. How can I be what she needs?

The cloud of darkness grows heavier, the guilt weighing down on me, pulling me further and further until I’m drowning in my own grief, and as I drop to my knees outside the church, I can’t fend it off a second longer.

I fucking break.

It claims me, filling my veins and pulsing right into my soul, staining it with its ugliness, infecting me with nothing but guilt and anger. Where there used to be hope, love, and a beaming excitement for my future, there’s nothing but charred ruins.

I can’t be the person they need me to be. I can’t be anything.

Not anymore.

I’m drowning, and anyone caught in my orbit is going to be dragged down with me and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do to stop it.

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