All these girls who didn’t know me, feeding me all that bullshit they believed, like whatever they felt could possibly be real.
I love you. Shea’s voice washed through me on a haunted memory, soft and sweet and said as if it were a plea. As if she knew it was going to be rejected. Shunned when it was real, real, real.
Remorse nearly overwhelmed me.
Why did she have to be real? Be different? Love me when I didn’t have the right to love her back?
I escaped out into the night, hitting the back lot where I hopped in my truck, both my car and bike still back in Savannah waiting to be shipped here in California since we’d packed up and left so fast.
City lights blinked past, my mind straying where it shouldn’t as I wound back up the hill toward my house, regret chasing me the whole way home.
I found Austin in one of the big recliner chairs in the theater room, and I plopped down beside him, pretended like everything was fine—better than fine—and watched a movie with my baby brother that was already half spent, praying to God that all of this was worth it.
When the movie finished up, rolling through the credits and switching back to the main menu page, Austin stretched. “Good show tonight?”
“Yeah, it was good.”
At least that much was honest.
My brow lifted as I looked across at him seriously. “Fitzgerald came by. We get to keep the label.”
I knew it’d been eating at Austin since he found out the reason we got sent to Savannah in the first place.
Relief blew across his face, a smile to match. And if that didn’t push at my ribs, nudging at my hope. “That’s good, right?” he asked.
“It’s really good, Austin. Things are good,” I promised.
“Awesome.” He stood from the recliner and pushed a fist out in front of him. “Going to call it a night.”
I bumped him back. “All right. See you in the morning, little brother.”
His smile turned shy, like a little boy who just needed the affirmation. “Night, Baz.”
He left and I sat in the dark against the stagnant glow of the screen for who knows how long. Finally I gave in and dug my phone from my pocket, wondering why I chose to torture myself. But God, knowing it was there was too much of a temptation to ignore. I clicked into my pictures, scrolled through to the one I wanted. Shea’s back was pressed up tight to my chest, those super soft waves all bunched up in my face as she rested her head on my shoulder, her smile sweet and open and telling, my arm holding her close, my phone in my other hand while I snapped the picture of us. Afterward, we’d started making a bunch of goofy faces into the camera, Shea bursting into a fit of laughter. God, I loved that sound.
This was one of those impulsive, normal things I’d done with Shea, taking pictures of us like this girl somehow could belong to me. But this was the only kind of forever I was going to have with her.
Gently, I ran my thumb across the screen, touching that gorgeous face, wishing that forever was real.
Dark. Light. Heavy. Soft.
Trouble.
Trouble.
Trouble.
A smile pulled at just one side of my mouth—sad and adoring—and with every part of me I hoped she was hating me so she wasn’t suffering like I was, so she wasn’t sitting there missing me the same way I was missing her.
“ONE…TWO…THREE…GO!”
Kallie squealed and took off running. I lumbered along behind her, pretending I couldn’t keep up, right at her heels as I chased her through the soft grass in our backyard. She was barefoot, that wild mane of blonde curls flying behind her. A belly full of giggles released into the air as she threw her head back and laughed.
She raised both her hands in the air when she crossed the finish line, which was nothing more than a hose stretched out over the lawn. “I win, Momma! I win!”
She danced around in delightful four-year-old celebration.
From behind, I tackled her, my movements gentle—protective—filled with every ounce of love I held for her as I tumbled with her to the ground.