Page 67 of Where We Belong

Even without an answer, I wait a little longer to leave the porch, as if I don’t want to give up just yet. I really hoped I could talk to her this morning. I don’t want her getting the wrong idea for even a second longer, but I guess that’s not up to me.

Chest tight, I turn and I stumble down the steps, the cool wind cutting my face. I round the corner to my truck and think of places where I could find her when suddenly, she’s there.

I don’t know why I didn’t think about it in the first place. Of course she was on a run. I’m such a mess, functioning on three hours of sleep and two cups of coffee, and my brain is only half working.

She doesn’t spot me right away. Her breaths are short as she slows to a halt, her eyes fixed on her digital watch, earbuds in. While she’s distracted, I grab the opportunity to watch her, just for a minute. Her hair’s up in a short ponytail, and even with a simple black windbreaker and leggings, she looks absolutely stunning.

My staring is cut short when she tenses and looks up, as if she felt me there. The moment her dark gaze meets mine, I know this will not be good. The affection that used to reside there is gone, replaced by blocks of ice thicker than those hanging from the roof, drip-dripping onto the porch behind me.

“Hey,” I say like a dumbass.

She takes her earbuds out and studies me from head to toe before saying, “Hi.”

The sound of her voice is almost enough to make me lose my balance. It’s so…wrong. I feel like I’ve stepped back to that night in September, when poison spilled out of her eyes every time they met mine. The velvet-soft tone I earned over the months has vanished.

I go to ask her how she’s doing, but change my mind before a word comes out, feeling like that might detonate a bomb. Instead, I jump straight into it and take a step in her direction. “I feel like apologies aren’t enough at this point, but I swear I can explain.”

The corners of her mouth tighten, but still, she remains silent. I don’t miss the way her gaze catches on my bruises, yet she doesn’t ask me where they came from. Maybe she doesn’t care anymore.

“Something really important came up, and I was called away. I swear I didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”

She crosses her arms in front of her, almost like she’s hugging herself. I wishIcould hug her. “And you couldn’t call? Text?”

“I…” The words die in my mouth because I could’ve. Ishould’ve.“I was fucked up. It was a really nerve-racking thing, and I could barely think straight.”

She bobs her head slowly, still standing way too far. I take a small step her way, but that only forces her to pull back. I freeze.

“So what was it?”

“Huh?” I say.

“What was it, that important thing that made you forget everything?”

My jaw clenches at the one question I feared was coming. The truth is, there’s nothing I want more than to tell her everything. To let her know the way I felt when I heard my sister’s frightened voice on the phone. To tell her how, when I got to the mansion my sister had sent me to, I knew things were bad. How I didn’t even knock at the door, just stepped inside the house and started shouting my sister’s name until she dashed out of a locked bathroom and jumped into my arms, her entire body shaking like a leaf, a thin satin robe covering her barely-dressed body. How she told me not to go find Cameron and to just take her home, but how he came out of the basement right that moment, two middle-aged men with him. How I didn’t need to know the details of what had gone on because wrongness was thick in the air. How I jumped on him and started hitting left and right, not caring how many punches he was getting in, until one of his friends pulled me off. How I thought of finding a way to actually kill the guy, but Francesca grabbed my hand and pleaded with me to leave. How she fell asleep almost instantly in the car, and how I spent the drive back home lost in rage and grief and sadness. How I brought her inside my apartment and laid her down in bed before falling asleep on the couch myself for a few hours. How by the time I’d realized what had happened and what I had missed, it was way too late to call or text.

But the only thing I do say is, “I’m so sorry, but I can’t tell you.”

A soft snicker comes out of her mouth, and she turns toward the cabin.

“No, Lex, wait. I swear, if I could tell you, I would, but I promised.”

“It’s fine,” she says, looking so fuckingnotfine.

“Please, you have to believe me.”

“I do. I think,” she says.

I take a careful step closer. “So we’re good?” My heart speeds in almost-relief. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

“Yeah, we’re fine.” She doesn’t meet my eyes when she adds, “But there won’t be any making it up.”

“I’m sorry?”

“We’re good, but I think friendship’s probably where we should leave things.”

My heart splatters to the ground.

“I don’t… I don’t get it. You said you understand.”

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