Thick rain poured down outside, and the air felt dense with energy. I gave K.C. a sweatshirt to cover her head when she left around midnight, and then I locked up the house and jogged upstairs to my room.
For the first time in years, I wanted in that tree.
Tate and I used to climb in and sit in it during storms—or anytime, really. I hadn’t seen her in the tree for years, though.
Sliding up the window, I poked my head out into the wind and the rain and immediately froze.
Hell.
Tate was in the tree.
My fingers clenched the windowsill.
The first thing that came to mind was an angel. Her hair flowing and shiny. Her legs dangling, long and smooth. She looked perfect where she was, like a painting.
And then I remembered that Satan was also an angel.
You’re a miserable piece of shit, Jared. Her words today had cut me more than I wanted to admit.
“Sitting in a tree during a thunderstorm?” I taunted her. “You’re some kind of genius.” She popped her head up and twisted around to face me.
The look in her eyes—that I could see, anyway—wasn’t angry the way it usually was with me. She wouldn’t look at me completely. No, her eyes were guarded and a little sad.
“I like to think so, yes,” she said, facing away from me again.
Her demeanor had me puzzled. She wasn’t timid, but she wasn’t engaging, either. Did she feel bad about what she said to me today?
Well, I didn’t need her pity. I wanted her fucking anger.
Don’t feel sorry for me.
I wanted her to sit there and own what she did. Don’t apologize and don’t shy away. Get mad at me, Tate.
“Tree? Lightning? Ring any bells?” I continued to antagonize her. I knew there was some danger sitting in a tree during a lightning storm, but it’s nothing we hadn’t done a hundred times when we were kids.
“It never mattered to you before,” she spoke up, emotion gone from her voice as she looked out to our glistening street.
“What? You sitting in a tree during a storm?”
“No, me getting hurt,” she shot back and shut me up.
Damn her.
Every fucking muscle in my body tightened, and I wanted to shake her and yell, “Yeah, I don’t fucking care if anything bad ever happens to you!”
But I couldn’t.
I did care—goddammit—and I wanted to punch a wall because of it. Why the hell did I care about anything she did? Who she dated? Who she screwed?
But then, I guess I’d be miserable, too, if my parents hated me.
Her words spread like tentacles through my brain, sucking the life out of everything good I’d ever thought about her. Every memory.
I had to cut her out of my heart and my head.
“Tatum?” I almost hesitated but forced out the rest. “I wouldn’t care if you were alive or dead.”
And I turned my back on her and finally just walked away.