Page 94 of Not Another Yesterday
“Fuck, Ran, please just tell me you want her back,” Shane says.
I try to swallow again, but my throat has gone desert-dry. I nod. “Yeah. I just don’t know how badly I fucked it up, how irreversible this is, because I—”
Tori interrupts, eyes wide. “It’s not!”
“God, fuck yes!” Shane says, grinning like a cheshire cat. “Jesus, it’s about fucking time, asshole.” He claps a hand hard against my shoulder.
“Yeah, well, let’s just hope she’ll take me back.”
I didn’t need Randi or my grandma to tell me what I already knew—that Cat isn’t just someone I love. She’s the light I reach for when everything else goes dark. But what I did need was space. Time.A damn minute to sit with all of it. With my grandma’s visit. The revelations from Rashana. Cat’s fears. My fears.
Almost two years have passed since the day my mother stopped hurting me. One year since the trial, since she pleaded guilty, and still, I never stopped living like it could all get taken away from me at any second. I never stopped being afraid. The fear just morphed. I was no longer afraid of my mother. I was afraid of myself—amafraid of myself, because I don’t knowwho the fuck I am or who I will be.
After my family’s middle-of-the-night “pep” talk, they sent me to bed rather than work. But I didn’t go to sleep. I sat there in the quiet darkness and did the one thing I’ve never allowed myself to do before. I imagined my future.
What do you want, Ran? What would make you happy?
I didn’t come up with a ton of answers, not with how sleep-deprived I was, but what I do know is it was Cat who made me stop existing and begin living. Those moments and memories I have of being happy are filled to the brim with her. She’s there front and center, in my periphery, in the background. Sometimes just her scent or her voice, but she’s always there.
It’s her. Always has been. Always will be. To me, she’s life.Mylife.
Maybe I don’t have to take it all on alone? Maybe. Maybe the hurdles between us—hers, mine,ours—aren’t insurmountable?
“You should talk to her right now, man,” Shane says.
I shake my head. “No, the things I have to say can’t be said in five minutes. There’s a lot she and I have to talk through. This can’t be rushed.”
Shane nods. “So when?”
I sink my teeth into my bottom lip. “I don’t know. Maybe after dinner. If I can get her alone.”
I have my work cut out for me. My resolve to unshatter what I’ve broken comes with the realization that it’s time for me to break down every piece of wall I’ve built over the years. There’s no way around it. If I want a future with Cat, if I want to spend every second of therest of my life with the most perfect girl in the world, then I have to give her all of me. No defenses, no secrets or half-truths, no masked emotions. I have to make myself vulnerable. I have to show her every ugly, sharp-edged piece of me. Let her decide if I’m still something she wants once she understands the depths of my darkness.
As we pull up to the barn, my eyes catch on Miranda sliding the big door shut. I shift the truck into park.
“Whew,” Tori says, hopping out. “Good thing Cat didn’t hook up with that Levi guy. That would have been awkward.”
I freeze. “Wait. What? I thought… I thought she and Vada…” My brain stutters. “I thought shedid.”
Tori stops, brows raised. “No. They hung out with those guys, but Cat told me she didn’t sleep with Levi because… well, because she loves you, Ran.”
My stomach drops. I was solidly convinced she’d slept with him. To be fair, my intel came from a long, messy game of telephone: my brother heard it from Zack, who heard it from Summer, who heard it from Vada. Classic friend group nightmare.
But now? Knowing she didn’t? It makes what I did with Miranda—just yesterday—even worse. Cat made her wariness over my friendship with Miranda more than clear. There’s no world in which sleeping with Miranda is forgivable. Still, I have to try. I have to show up—allof me—lay myself bare and do what everyone’s been urging me to do: let Cat decide.
“Well, shit,” Shane mutters with wide blue eyes. “I shouldn’t have pushed you to hook up with those girls,” he says apologetically.
My brow dips for a second, until it dawns on me that he’s thinking of Aubrie and Allie the night Cat and Vada went to hang out with Levi and that other dude. “No, wait, I—”
“Rony!” Miranda bounds toward us, then comes to a stop next to me. Her eyes, though, drift over Shane, slow and deliberate.
I sigh.This is so Randi.
“Holy shit, Rony, is this your boyfriend?” she asks, smirking.
In a heartbeat, Tori wraps herself around Shane with a look on her face I can’t honestly say I’ve seen before. “Nope, he’s mine.”
I tense. I know Randi and her personality. She comes on strong. No damn filter. It doesn’t bother me, but Tori doesn’t know Randi from Adam, other than what she’s heard about Randi, obviously. I’m sure Cat has shared her worries, and knowing how close the girls are, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Tori has a preconceived opinion of Miranda.
