Page 128 of What's Left of Us

“That depends.”

I wait for him to finish talking.

“Are you going to get in the way? Because I don’t want to waste my time chasing something that you get in the middle of. I mean it, Danforth. I’ve got a lot riding on me.”

And I don’t? “I won’t get in your way.”

He eyes me down like he’s trying to detect the lie. Whatever he sees must be enough. His chin gestures toward my arm. “How are you anyway? Really?”

My lips twitch as I roll the bad shoulder and feel the tight muscles tug on the marred tissue underneath. “I’m going stir-crazy trying to get back here.”

He doesn’t offer me any sympathy or condolences. “I’m not asking you this to be a dick, but what are you going to do if you don’t get cleared to come back?”

My nostrils flare with irritation at the question. “I don’t know, Beau. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

Although he seems understanding, he still puts a hand on my good shoulder and says, “It wouldn’t hurt to think about it.”

*

The phone buzzingby my ear wakes me up from a dead sleep. My arm groggily reaches over to pick it up without looking at the caller ID. “This is Danforth.”

“Can you meet me?” Georgia whispers, cracking one of my eyes open to a pitch-dark room.

The blackout curtains sometimes make the morning seem like night, so I pull the phone away from my ear to check the time. “It’s two in the morning,” I tell the woman who used to sleep in the spot beside me.

I’ve never let myself wander to the right side of the bed since she left. Shortly after she moved out, I could still smell the lingering scent of her shampoo on the sheets. I washed them, but her presence clung to every facet of the room, making it hard to forget the body that used to keep me warm on cold nights like these.

“I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important.”

Closing my eyes, I use the pad of my thumb and index fingers to rub my tired eyelids. “What is so important that you need me and not Luca Carbone?”

He’s not you,she’d once said.

She’s right.

But I wonder if she got her manipulation tactic from her father when she said those words to me because I don’t know what to believe anymore.

“Sandy’s Diner,” she replies. “In an hour.”

She’s not asking.

“And if I don’t show up?” I ask, suddenly more awake than I was a few minutes ago.

There’s a brief pause when I hear the tiniest exhale of her breath. “Did you mean what you said that day at the coffee shop? That you were done?”

If you let me walk away today without you, our memories will be what’s left of us.

If I tell her yes, would she feel victorious knowing it was just another lie between us? That if I meant it, I wouldn’t show up at the diner? I don’t know what she wants—what she expects.

Because the truth is, I’m not done.

Not until Nikolas is behind bars.

Not until Conklin’s murder is avenged.

Not until I can go to sleep at night without having nightmares or thinking about her.

So, I don’t answer her question.

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