I pressed my forehead against the cold wood. I tried to get a grip, but it was impossible. It all came rushing back, not like a wave, more like the dead thud of a body you couldn’t un-see. I hadn’t even opened the door, and it was already killing me.
I remembered the songs he used to make up, the way he had bounced around like a puppy on speed. He’d laugh until he cried, run his mouth and get into trouble. Usually from Rowan, who had always been the calm and brooding one. But Logan? He had been a live wire, charging everything up around him.
But he was still dead. And it was still quiet.
I wrapped my fingers around the handle. Cold. Solid. Familiar. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the memory waited on the other side—louder than the silence. It never left me. Even after six years, I could still see the image burned behind my eyelids. It was there when I went to sleep, and it was there when I woke up.
I thought of Logan’s funeral. Of Rowan. Of the words that still echoed, louder than any goodbye I’d never said.
Rowan never knew I’d been there that day. I had hidden in the background so no-one would know I’d come back to say goodbye. It had been so cold, as though all the warmth had been sucked out of the entire universe. I couldn’t look at Rowan without wanting to scream. Without wanting to cry. Without wanting to throw my arms around him and tell him how sorry I had been for leaving him.
Yet, I had done none of those things. I had just left again, leaving behind everything I had ever known.
And now I was back.
I pulled away from the door, and staggered back down the stairs, away from the memories, away from Rowan. And away from my own damn heart.
It hurt worse than I imagined. Worse than anything.
Logan. Rowan. The past. It was pressing down on me, suffocating me the longer I stayed in that house.
I knew I’d choke if I stayed.
So, I ran.
Chapter Four
SADIE
Icould have snapped the tension in the room like a twig.
Dad sat in stony silence at one end of the small rectangular dining table, a newspaper spread out in front of him as if it were some kind of shield. It was possible he was just used to being alone, and the newspaper was a habit. Or maybe, he thought looking at me would make him crack, and he was just as lost as I was.
Despite my best efforts to have somewhat of a decent conversation with him, I hadn’t pulled a single word from him since asking how his shift had been the night before.
“Good,” he had said.
So, we were down to one-word answers. Great.
I sat hunched at the opposite end of the table, nibbling at the crust of my now-cold peanut butter-loaded toast, more out of habit than hunger. The sight of it turned my stomach, but I kept picking at it anyway, like finishing it might trick me into believing I still had an appetite. For this place. For this life.
Nothing felt the same since I’d come back. The emptyhouse matched the empty streets of Barrenridge, and the chasm between me and Dad made that feel generous.
I pushed my plate away, drumming my fingertips against the table. It didn’t help that my run-in with Rowan the previous night made me feel even more insignificant. Images of him crashing through my window, drunk and as beautiful as ever, flashed through my mind. The nerve of him to show up like that after he’d reduced our past to nothing more than a footnote in his life—just my brother’s best friend.
Yeah, I was still holding onto that. I knew I’d probably use it against him at some point if the need ever arose.
If I didn’t already regret my decision to come back to Barrenridge, I definitely did now. But then again, where the hell else was I supposed to go?
At least Marcus had left me alone. Though knowing him the way I did, silence had always been another kind of trap.
Dad glanced over the top of his paper for a split second, his face unreadable. No-one in the world could shut down like he could—I was his daughter. Then he sighed and dropped the paper on the table in front of him, folding it neatly like it was the most important thing in the room.
“Jasmine stopped by the station earlier this morning,” he said, tapping his fingers against the side of his coffee mug. The steam had now evaporated, the contents just as cold as his stare.
My muscles tightened, and I stood too fast, my knees buckling as I stumbled to the bin and dumped the rest of my sorry excuse for breakfast. It landed with an unceremonious plop against the bottom, my stomach dropping with it.
Then I washed my plate with too much force and set it clattering onto the drying rack, a deliberate move in the hope Dad would drop this conversation.