That was all it took.
Seconds later, I was leaning across the car, my face pressed against my big sister’s shoulder.
She held me while I cried out all those years of unnecessary hurt and resigned myself to the new pain.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BRETT
“Brett Walker! What the hell did you do to her? And what are you doing out here? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve screamed at you?”
“Yes,” I answered without turning around. “Your voice, much like a group of cats fighting in an alleyway, tends to transcend time and space quite easily.”
Camille clipped me around the back of the head and sat down next to me on the sand. “Ass.”
I slowly nodded, flicking a broken shell up into the air. I’d been doing it ever since I got off the phone with Connie and she told me she was going to see Lani. I didn’t know what else to do. I wanted to go after her, but I knew by the look in her eye it was the wrong thing to do. Sending her sister was the best option I had.
“What did you do?” Camille asked me, her voice now much softer than her previous screeching. She nudged her elbow into my arm. “Come on. Tell me.”
“Graduation. I spoke to Stevie Lewis before we all left about the party we were having.” My voice was completely flat, and now, I held the shell in my hand instead of flicking it up and down. “He asked me if Lani would be there, and I laughed. Told him no, why would she be? The only reason we were friends was because of your friendship with her. I looked out for her for you. That she was only the girl who’d helped me keep my GPA up. That she was nobody more than your friend. She was nothing to me.”
Camille took a deep breath in, but she didn’t speak.
My thumb ran over the light grooves of the cream and brown shell. “I’m why she left. Me. Because I was a naive fucking idiot, and I broke her heart. I was in love with her but my ego got in the way. She loved me and she heard. I’m the fucking reason for everything. The reason you lost your best friend. The reason I lost mine. The reason Connie rarely saw her sister. The reason the rest of her family have barely have seen her since. I’m the stupid fucking reason she left, because I hurt her so badly she couldn’t be here anymore.”
She punched me. Straight in the upper arm. It hurt like fuck as the sting from her fist radiated across my skin, but I didn’t yell at her. I didn’t do anything except pick the shell back up because I’d dropped it.
“You deserved that,” she muttered, rubbing her knuckles against her thigh.
“Yep.” I flipped the shell over and looked out to sea. “I broke her and now she hates me so much I can’t fix it.”
“Some things aren’t meant to be fixed. Some things have to stay broken because they need to be replaced.”
“I figured that much out. Except I’m the thing that needs replacing for her. She deserves somebody who can love her right.”
Camille slowly turned to face me, her eyebrows raised. “Are you admitting that you’re still in love with her?”
“Never wasn’t,” I replied simply. “I just hid it under my anger. How could I get over her? I never had closure.”
“And she’s Lani.”
I swallowed. “And she’s Lani.”
“You have to do something,” she said quietly.
“Like what? Midnight serenade about how sorry I am? Write her a fucking love letter? Ask the Doctor to bring the TARDIS to go back in time and change everything?”
“God, you’re one mopey bastard when you don’t get your own way.” Camille stood up. “Do something, Brett, Jesus! Make her listen to you, even if you have to break into her car and plant a CD with a recorded apology on—wait, no, don’t break into her car. That won’t help.”
“Ya think?” I quirked an eyebrow. “It’s not as simple as you think it is. You didn’t see her, Cam. You didn’t see the look in her eye when she was letting it all go. Nothing I do will ever be enough, because there will always be a part of her that will hurt. And I can’t take it away.”
“That’s your problem!” She pointed her finger down at me. “You can’t take someone’s hurt from them. It’s a part of them. The way you made her feel will forever be a part of her life, and I bet if you asked her, she wouldn’t want you to take it away.”
“Thanks for that, Dr. Phil.”
She kicked me. Actually fucking kicked me. “You can’t take that away, you insensitive shit, but you can make it better. You can’t say sorry enough because sorry isn’t a word, it’s a feeling. You have to show her that you’re sorry.”
I took a deep breath. “Cam?”
“Yeah?” she said softly, sitting down next to me.
A lump hit my throat hard. “Don’t let her leave town.”
“Why?”
I peered over at her, looking at her properly for the first time since she joined me here on the beach. “Because I don’t know if I can lose her again.”
She smiled sadly and rested her head on my shoulder. She wrapped an arm around me and squeezed. “She’s your person, isn’t she?”
“My person?”
“Yeah, you know. Your person. The one whose soul clicks into place against yours. Evens you out. Makes you whole. She’s your person.”
The lump in my throat felt all too thick as I looked back out at the water. She was right. There was no doubt about it.
Lani Montana was my person.
“What do I do?” I said in a low voice, running my hand through my hair.
Camille sat up and moved onto her knees. “Make her believe it.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek.
“Where are you going?” I looked up as she stood.
A grin spread across her face. “I’m going to make sure she doesn’t leave town. And I’m taking Raven with me.”
Was it too late to retract a request?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LANI
A distinct lack of privacy was one of the things I’d forgotten about Whiskey Key. It didn’t matter that I’d begged to be left alone after my mammoth cry. It didn’t matter that I said all I wanted was to eat pizza and work. I was ignored, and the last two hours had not been what I’d expected them to be.
Namely because Camille showed up with Raven right behind her. And with Raven came two large-ass coolers of alcohol for cocktails and a box with different glasses. Apparently, it was blasphemy to serve cocktails in the wrong glasses.
“Holy shit,” I said, looking at the boxes. “You’re a portable cocktail bar.”
Raven laughed, flicking her black hair over her shoulders. “That might not be a bad business choice, all things considered.”
Connie wrinkled her face up. “This seems highly unfair to the pregnant woman.”
Raven turned her bright blue eyes in my sister’s direction. “There’s another cooler in the car. You get corresponding mocktails.”
“And you just became my new best friend.”
She laughed and stood up with a wink. “I’ll be right back.”
Camille grinned. “Am I not the best friend ever?”
“No debate about it,” I said. “But I’m a little upset I can’t just mooch around in my bed with my laptop.”
She snorted. “Over my brother? No. Oh, by the way, I punched him for you.”