Page 129 of Wreckage

Troy scoffed. “Go to her apartment and beg until she talks to us?”

I let out a weak chuckle. “Sounds solid if we planned on doing that. We agreed to give her the space she wanted and be nearby in case she needed someone.”

He sighed. “I know, but I also think we should prove we’re not pieces of shit and are serious about this. Let's show up and let her know in person that we’re waiting for her and that we will be right there the moment she tells us she’s ready.”

“And if she’s never ready?”

He tightened his hands on the wheel. “She will someday. Faith, Adrian. Me and you. Together. We’ll wait.”

“You’ll stay with me?” I asked, my voice soft.

“I can’t leave,” he said. “It doesn’t feel right anymore."

The therapist I saw once called it separation anxiety and had even given me pills for it.

I took them at first, but they didn’t do shit for me except make me tired.

I wasn’t going to fix my anxiety with meds. I would fix it by getting Elena back—our missing puzzle piece.

Making our family whole again would fix what was wrong. I knew it to my bones.

As we neared the city,I let out a slow breath. My nerves had slowly started to make me jittery the closer we got to home.

“What if she rejects us?” I asked softly, asking what I’d been asking on repeat.

Troy was silent for a long time.

I could feel the weight of his thoughts because they were similar to mine. He didn’t say them aloud like I did.

“We just keep begging,” he murmured. “We talked about this. It’ll be OK.”

I turned to him, my heart pounding. Troy glanced at me, his voice steady.

“We do whatever it takes,” he continued. “And if it takes forever, so be it. Are you in for the long haul with me?”

“Until the death,” I whispered.

“Everything will be OK,” he repeated as if he had just kept saying it would make it manifest.

I let out a breath, accepting it. Because if that was what it took—If forever was the price to get her back?—

Then so be it.

I would accept this punishment.

Chapter 46

Elena

Ihad been home for weeks. It didn’t feel like home anymore. Everything was too normal. Too loud. Too… city. In the wilderness, there was only silence and an expanse of hopelessness. It didn’t feel that here. I had food. Water. Clothes. Heat. But it was almost too much.

The walls were the same pale blue, my couch was still the overstuffed, soft piece in the center of my living room, and my bed was still the same thick, coziness it had always been. Even the air had the same scent of fresh flowers and linen as if nothing tragic had happened.

ButIhad happened.

The crash had happened.

Dean was dead.

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