Kat’s heart dropped to her stomach. “NO!” she called out, scrabbling from the bed toward him, catching her foot in the sheet. “No, you don’t have to go anywhere. Please. Don’t go.”
He avoided her eyes, looking past her, alarm making the muscle in his jaw jump. “I can’t be here.”
“Yes, you can,” Kat urged, grabbing at his biceps. “You have as much right to be here as I do.”
“Kat—”
“If you go, then I’m coming with you.”
Before Carter could answer, the door of the bedroom swung open, smacking the back wall of the room with the momentum with which it was forced. Kat turned to see her mother glaring at the two of them: Kat in Carter’s T-shirt, and he, bare but for his ink and a pair of black boxer briefs.
“Get out,” Kat growled.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Eva’s eyes trailed down Kat’s state of undress.
“Eva,” Nana Boo chastised. “That’s enough.”
“Get some clothes on and come downstairs,” Eva insisted through thin lips, ignoring Nana Boo. She shot daggers at Carter, causing Kat to move protectively in front of him. “Alone.”
“I’m not doing a thing—”
“Now, young lady,” Eva interrupted. She whirled like a dervish and marched out of the room, thumping down the stairway.
“What does she want, Nana?” Kat asked, desperate to feel Carter’s arms around her. He didn’t move.
His stillness and silence were terrifying.
“I don’t know,” Nana Boo replied with a despondent shake of her head. “I’m so sorry to both of you. She called asking if I’d spoken to you. I told her you were here together. I had no idea she planned on coming … I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Kat urged. “It’s her, not you.”
Glancing over her shoulder at Carter, Kat’s stomach rolled violently when she saw his face: angry, barricaded, and closed off from everyone around him.
Even her.
“I’ll give you a moment.” Nana Boo sloped out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Kat sniffed and moved toward her suitcase, ignoring the waves of dangerous calm rolling off Carter. When she started talking, the words came out quickly, bumping into one another.
“We’ll go. We’ll get out of here. I don’t want to be here with her. Nana can lend us the car again and I’ll grab my bag; you can grab yours—”
“No,” Carter interrupted.
She stopped, stock-still in the center of the room.
“Go downstairs and see what she has to say.” His voice was intense and direct, but his eyes flitted around the place, searching for a way out.
“But we can leave together,” she insisted.
Carter bent to grab his sweater. “No, you need to speak to her, Kat.”
Hurt gripped Kat’s heart. She folded her arms, holding herself together. “Why? Why do you want me to talk to her?”
“Because it’s time you did.”
She watched him sit and pull on his socks. “You … can’t leave,” she whispered. Her voice broke. “I need you here.”
“Kat.”
“Please, Carter. Don’t listen to her. Everything she says—it’s not true. It’s not. Please.”
Her breathing started to accelerate, as the thought of him walking out of the door grew more vivid in her mind. Unable to move from her spot for fear that she would shatter, she gasped, “Please. I’ll talk to her if you promise you’ll stay.”
They remained silent for an age, staring at each other, neither of them seemingly wanting to speak. The atmosphere around them was charged but uncomfortably different from how it normally was.
“Peaches, I can’t—”
“You can.”
“I’m no good for yo—”
“Don’t you fucking dare say that!” Sadness gave way to anger. “You are good enough! Christ, you have to know that!”
Carter didn’t answer and continued to look down at the floor. Kat’s heart fractured painfully. Jesus, they were back at square one.
Kat took a tentative step toward him. “Promise me you’ll stay. Promise me you won’t leave.”
He scrunched his eyes shut and bit his bottom lip, but she didn’t care. She needed to hear the words. At that moment, it was the most important thing. Nothing else mattered.
“Carter.”
“Okay,” he answered in a lifeless voice. “I promise.”
“Promise that you won’t leave. Say it.”
He lifted his head and looked at her, but something deep in Kat’s heart told her he was seeing straight through her, and it hurt. It hurt so much.
“I promise I won’t leave.”
He was so crushed, so broken, and Kat hated that she was helpless in putting him back together. “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”
Silently, she moved around the room, pulling on a pair of jeans and sneakers. She tied his T-shirt at her right hip and pulled her hair up into a loose ponytail.
“I’ll be right back.” She stood at the doorway with the crumpled brown envelope in her fist. “And then we’re out of here.”
“Kat, I—” She waited for him to continue but, instead, he cracked the knuckles of his right hand and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
With a lead weight in her stomach and a splintering heart, Kat opened the bedroom door. “I’ll be right back.”