Page 153 of Catch the Sun

I stare at him, lips parted, eyes flaring. I’m not sure how to respond, so I move in closer until I’m standing over him, watching as he keeps looking out the window and tapping his feet. “McKay,” I murmur. “Is this about Brynn?”

Jesus, he looks terrible. The sickest I’ve ever seen him.

“Yeah, sure,” he forces out. “So, do you have any regrets?”

“Of course. Everyone does.”

“What do you regret?” he wonders.

“I regret not being a better brother to you and for making promises I could never keep. I regret not being a better son to Mom and Dad. I’ve kept myself awake at night, wondering if I was the reason Mom walked out on us. The notion eats me alive.”

“None of that’s true,” he says brokenly. “The knife hardly left a scratch on you. I’m talking aboutrealregret, Max. The fatal kind.”

I shake my head, confused. “What is this actually about?”

He finally stops rocking and fidgeting and tears his gaze away from the window, looking up at me. “Whatever happens…I hope you know how much I’ve appreciated everything you’ve done for me. I’ve seen it. I’ve seenyou,” he says. “And I’m sorry for not being there, for not being the brother you wantedme to be. I’m sorry for leaving you stranded with Dad, for abandoning youwith a shit ton of responsibility when you deserved nothing more than to live an easy, carefree life. For making you feel like you’ve been all alone in this. I’ve always wanted the best for you, I swear. Even when I seemed ungrateful and self-absorbed. My coping mechanisms were fucked and I regret all of it. I regret so fucking much, Max.”

His face falls back to his shaky hands as thunder booms outside the house, rattling the walls. I flinch, glancing out the window. Rain pours down in buckets, ricocheting off the glass as my brother’s words ping-pong between my ribs.

“McKay—”

“You left the mower out in the backyard,” he mutters.

I blink at him, my frown deepening. My eyes pan back to the window he keeps staring at.

“I can put it away,” he says, standing. “We can’t afford a new one.”

As he sweeps past me, his collar drenched with sweat, I grab him by the arm and shake my head. “I got it. Sit. You look like you’re going to keel over,” I insist. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He digs the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and nods. “Yeah, okay.”

“Hold tight. We can talk more when I come back in.” I spare him a final glance before heading out back and stomping toward the lawn mower, filled to the brim with uneasiness.

I’ve never seen McKay like this before. I know he took the breakup hard, but it’s not like him to confide in me, especially with deep, uncomfortable topics. For years, he’s kept me at arm’s length.

Zoned out, I push the lawn mower into the shed, the rainfall a roaring soundtrack to my dark thoughts.

Hunched over to tighten the gas cap, I jerk upright when I think I hear Ella’s voice.

Yelling, shouting, begging.

What the hell?

A popping noise follows. A thunderclap.

I freeze, pivot, race out of the shed.

Heart stuttering, I glance up, my face doused in cold rain. The sky continues to untether as lightning flashes across gray clouds in veins of pale yellow. I wonder if I imagined it. Maybe it’s just the storm.

Maybe Ella is haunting me.

Anxiety prickles as I pull the door of the shed closed and swipe a hand through my sopping wet hair.

I’m jogging back toward the house when I hear something else. Something I know I don’t imagine.

A scream.

A bloodcurdling, stricken, ice-fraught scream.

---