For the first time in months, a smile overtakes me. A big one. A big, fat, genuine smile that almost hurts, it’s so wide.
“I told you she’d like the Zs,” Frieda says to Paul. They used to date and now . . . well, I’m not sure what they are now. Ginny claims they’re friends with benefits, but I don’t like to pry. Whatever they are or aren’t, they’re still close and love to bait each other as often as they can.
“There’s no accounting for taste,” he says, but he’s smiling, too. We all are. Finally, I’m smiling right along with my friends, and I’m not faking it.
As Will drives me to his house that night, I finger the raised letters on the back of my new shoes. A small sound of disgust precedes, “Paul’s right, you know. Those things are bloody hideous.” He shakes his head in exasperation.
I clutch one to my chest. “Hush. I love them.” And I do. Not because they’re pretty—which, admittedly, had I picked out my own, these would not have been the ones, but because they’re symbolic of my life right now. My friends chose to get me bowling shoes because they like having me around. Not because they have to have me around, or because Fate made them, or because they’ve got some skewed perception that I’m somebody important, but because they want me around. And that makes these shoes more precious to me than gold.
His cell phone rings, a special tone that alerts the both of us to just who is calling. I chew my bottom lip, sneaking a look his way. His focus remains on the road. Eventually, the phone goes quiet. He turns the volume up on the radio; a sad country song fills the cab, which is fitting for the rest of the drive back to his house.
I pad toward the kitchen sometimes around three a.m., in search of a glass of water after awaking in a cold sweat from another nightmare in which I lost Jonah. Months after leaving Annar, I still dream about him nearly nightly—not the lucid dreams we shared for so long, but the kind where I have no control over what happens. Tonight we’d been in a forest, and when the dream died, all that’d been left behind was blackened bits of trees upon charred ground.
I was the one to leave, and yet, every single time I lose him in a dream, it cuts me to the core.
My hands are still shaking when I flip on the kitchen light, and then I jump when Will’s still form at the table comes into view. He jumps, too, his chair clattering loudly in the night’s silence. “Jesus, Zoe! You scared the shite out of me.”
“I’m not the one sitting in the dark!”
He smiles sadly, and it’s then I see his cell phone on the table. I drop into one of the chairs as he rights his fallen one. “Want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head, just like I knew he would. He and I, we’re excellent at avoiding the big issues in our lives, which is probably why we gravitated toward each other so quickly. I resisted getting to know him all of a week before I couldn’t help myself. I needed a friend and Will seemed like he’d fit the bill nicely. And I was right—I’d heard the term kindred spirits before, but never had it applied like it does now with this guy. It sounds awful, but one of the biggest draws toward Will is that, like me, he puts on a good front. Inside, he’s just as much damaged goods as I am.
Helpless that there’s nothing else I can do but be here for him, I motion to the stove. “Want some warm milk?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He stands up before I can protest and digs a pan out of the cupboard.
“The better question is, why are the two of you up at three-bloody-o’clock in the morning?”
I turn around to find Cameron Dane shuffling into the kitchen on well-loved slippers. His barely graying, sandy blonde hair is wild, his thin robe riddled with holes, but his handsome face is one of kindness. Acceptance. And, at the moment, paternal amusement. My eyes go wide in guilt. “Did we wake you up? I’m so sorry!”
He drops a kiss on my forehead before sliding into the chair next to me. “Just worried about you two, that’s all.”
Will pours milk into the pan, adding a few ingredients that make it his special recipe. As he stirs it, I stare at his phone and wonder how long he was in here. How long the call was tonight. How much heartache he’s in.
“Want some, Dad?” he asks without looking up from the stove.
“Don’t mind if I do.” It’s then that Cameron also spies the phone. His dark eyes are troubled but unsurprised. Like me, he knows better than to push, though. “What’s got you up at this god awful hour, hen? Everything alright?”
As I cannot tell him the truth, I smile weakly. “Just thirsty.”
Will looks up from the pan. “Coming right up.”