Page 24 of Promise Me Nothing
I’m really glad you came home. I don’t like having to deal with this on my own.
I nod, feeling the pang of having been gone too long.I’m sorry for not coming home sooner. I should have been here more.
No. No way. You still have a life to live. I’m just glad you’re here now. Unlike somebody.
She means our dad, the expression on her face morphing into something unpleasant and resentful.
I roll my eyes, not wanting to get in an argument it right now.
Let’s not talk about him, okay? He isn’t important.I lean forward and kiss her forehead.I’m exhausted and need to head to bed. Wanna go get breakfast together in the morning? I’ll take you to Mary’s.
She beams.Yes, please.
I give her one more hug and then hop out of bed.
“Night,” she calls to me, then snuggles back in under mom’s fluffy down comforter.
I close the door behind me and make the short trek back down the stairs and out to the guesthouse, kicking my boots off at the entry and tugging my jacket off just as quickly.
A six-hour drive down the center of the state was instead a long ten-hour journey along the coast, and I am shattered from the draining day behind me. Similarly to my decision to visit the pier, I’d hoped to have some sort of calm, some modicum of clarity come over me.
Instead, I’m just sore and achy and tired, and my mind has been in no way relieved.
I strip off the rest of my clothes as I make my way into the master bedroom, foregoing a shower, even though I desperately need one. Instead, I plop right onto the bed, feeling almost dead to the world within just a moment.
But I do have one more thought right before I slip all the way into dreamland.
Even though it’s highly unlikely, I wonder if I’ll get to see the pretty blonde from the pier again while I’m in town.
CHAPTER SIX
Hannah
That night I lie in bed and wonder what the hell I got myself into by coming here.
I thought it would be simple. Spend time with my brother. Get to know him a little bit. Learn about his life. Maybe find some sort of common ground or friendship or something that makes me feel like we’re connected.
But within only a few hours I’m realizing things are probably going to be a lot more complicated than that. Lucas lives in such a different world with what seems like a completely different set of rules.
I don’t know if I’ll fit.
Though I guess that’s my biggest fear no matter where I am.
Unable to sleep and feeling restless, I crawl out of bed and crack my door open, listening to see if anyone else is awake.
Everything is super quiet in this house, and as I’d trudged to my bed earlier this evening, the sound of my footsteps the only noise I could hear, I’d wondered how Lucas lives here without anyone else. It just seems like it would be… lonely.
When I see no one in the hall, I pad softly on the carpet past the other rooms on the third floor, then tiptoe down the stairs.
The house is quiet, though the living room windows are cracked open, the breeze from the water rushing through and filling the space with damp air and cooler temperatures than I’m able to feel in my bedroom, which faces away from the ocean.
I open one of the sliding doors and step out onto the front-facing balcony, getting a good look at Hermosa Beach at night.
Well, I guess, in the early hours of the morning.
There isn’t much to see under the night sky, when the beach is asleep and so much of the view is cast in darkness. I can see the Hermosa Pier to the south with a string of lights leading from The Strand all the way out to the tip. I can see the dim lights on a handful of large boats still out on the water in the distance.
But most of what can be seen is just the concrete path of The Strand, separating homes from the sand, rows of lights illuminating the path as it stretches from the south to the north.
