Page 36 of Entangled

With a scoff, he drops his arms. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

He walks away and I chase after him, pulling him to a stop at the threshold of the hallway. “I didn’t mean it that way. Luca is gone… I-I…”

“You what? You thought you would come here and accuse me of murder?”

Needing to feel him close, I wrap my arms around his neck and try to place a kiss on his stubbly cheek, but he easily shoves me off.

“Do you think I killed my wife too? That all these disappearances are because of me?!”

“No,” I reply, but my voice is weak and I’m exhausted. Dylan’s trial is getting closer. Emotions are running high.

I try to hug him again, but he won’t have any of it. Shrugging me off, he walks away, disappearing down the hallway. “Go home, Willow.”

“Grayson!” I call out.

Striding back down the hallway, he jabs his finger into my chest. “If you think for one damn second that I killed my wife, daughter, and some fucking eighteen-year-old kid, then you can fuck right off! I’ve been through hell this year! I don’t need your paranoid shit on top of it. Don’t you think the cops investigated me, snooping around my home for clues and invading my privacy at a time when I had lost what meant the most to me in the world? My wife. My daughter.” His voice breaks and he steps back, shoulders slumping. “Leave, Willow. You’re just a kid for crying out loud. What are you doing with a middle-aged man like me? Fucking your dead best friend’s father?”

I draw in a sharp, shaky breath as my eyes fill with stinging tears. “You want me gone, Grayson? Is that it? You think I’m naïve because I’m young? That I can’t be as fucking holy as your dead wife?”

He slaps me.

Breathing hard, we glare at each other. Grayson, with his hand still raised, and me, cradling my stinging cheek.

Without another word, I walk out.

* * *

“I’m going back home,”my brother says the next evening, appearing in the doorway to the living room as I’m channel hopping.

“Okay.”

Pushing off the doorframe, he steps deeper into the room. I’m wrapped up in my bathrobe on the couch, and he’s freshly showered, dressed in jeans and a navy shirt. Looking over my shoulder, I furrow my brows. “Now?”

“No.” He takes a seat in the armchair. “I’ll stay until after your birthday.”

“Oh.”

“I, uh, I feel bad leaving you.”

I settle on an episode of The Office. “I’m used to it, Liam. Everyone leaves.” I meet his eyes, and we stare at each other across the coffee table. The flickering glow from the fireplace casts his face in shadows.

“Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He nods before flicking his blonde hair out of his eyes. “Will you, uh,” he drags his gaze across the room, “ask Mom to phone me when she gets home?”

“Of course.” We both know she won’t be home for a while. She never is.

Slapping the armrests, he rises to his feet. “I’m going out to meet up with a couple of old friends from high school.”

My attention is already back on the TV. “Have fun.”

“Don’t stay up too late,” he says, but the joke falls flat. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I hum in agreement, switching the channel again.

The front door sounds shortly after. The silence that follows drowns out the TV. It doesn’t matter how much I turn the volume up. It screams, clawing at my skin until I break down in a sob.

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