Page 78

CHAPTER

FIFTY-SIX

REMI

“I’m sorry.” Those are the first words out of his mouth.

I pulled in behind him, and I saw Storm’s WRX in the driveway, too, the porch light on.

Cortland is leaning against his truck, and I’m standing at the hood of my car.

“Thanks for calling me,” I tell him, my words clinical.

He looks down, his keys fisted in one hand. He’s wearing a gray sweater over a white, collared shirt, and black jeans. “Remi.” He takes a breath. “I’m sorry about last night?—”

“Why?” I question, crossing my arms over my chest. “You were right about everything.”

He pulls his lip ring between his teeth, glancing down at the space between us. “I wasn’t,” he says, his words hoarse. “I was a fucking dick, and after what you told me about your stepdad,” he looks up, “I shouldn’t have even let you go?—”

“Let me?” I repeat, proud my voice is calm.

Cold. Exactly what I wanted it to be. I think about walking out on Silas, how good it felt.

It won’t feel that good to walk away from Cortland, but I think I have to do it all the same.

Sloane’s words ring in my head. About him not having changed. About Maya, too.

“Baby,” he whispers, his voice quiet as he straightens from the truck and steps closer.

I take in his bleary eyes, the lines beneath them.

I hate that I feel something for him. That I want to forgive him.

That I want to pretend all the bad shit never happened between us.

“I’m so sorry. I was just…” He trails off, swearing under his breath as he looks down.

“Why did you call me?” I ask him, ignoring his apology.

I’m kind of sick of them. “Why did you even give a fuck about it?” I don’t take my eyes off of his.

“Have a nice life, remember?” My throat feels scratchy as I repeat his words, but my voice doesn’t waver.

“I would’ve found out about the fire just fine on my own.

” I offer him a fake smile. “I don’t need you looking after me anymore, Cortland. I think tonight I found my voice.”

His eyes narrow. “Did he hurt you?—”

“Didn’t you hear me?” I step closer, tipping my chin up. “I don’t need you anymore.”

“Remi.” That word is a rasp.

“I should go.” I hate saying those words, but now that I’m speaking all the painful truths, I can’t stop. “We both know this isn’t going to work out.”

“Baby. I’m sorry.” He sounds like he means it, but I think about his anger last night. Hurled all over me without a thought to how I might feel about it. Without getting outside of his own head and trying to feel my pain. “Last night I was stupid. It was a knee-jerk reaction because?—”

“Because someone informed me that the shitty thing I went through was a crime?” I supply for him.

I hug myself tighter, arms still crossed over my chest. “Some people don’t process they’ve been assaulted until much later, after the fact.

It’s actually a good thing Silas is such a piece of shit.

He was quick to spell it all out for me. ”

Cortland stares at me, his face cast in shadow with the porch light at his back. His expression is unreadable, and for the first time since I decided to be brave, I want to crumble again. I want to sink into his arms. I want to go inside with him.

I want to pretend last night didn’t happen, because everything before it was so damn good.

And I think I see that same defeat in his eyes. Resignation. It almost reminds me of those hazy memories of my mom, passing out on the couch. It’s the mark of an addict. Yeah, we’re fucked, and yeah, we can’t figure this shit out, but for now, it feels good to give in.

But just like my mom, eventually, the high will kill us both.

“We had a thing in high school,” I say, pushing memories of Mom from my mind. Thinking instead of those I keep locked up tight. In the basement of my brain. “We had a thing, and you messed it up.”

He doesn’t react at all, so I keep talking, stepping even closer until we’re only a few feet apart and I can smell him.

He smells so good. Like home.

“We don’t even know each other very well?—”

“Remi, we went to school together for two fucking years.”

“And you spent both of them letting Maya Bell suck your dick.”

He shakes his head, his jaw clenched. “I dumped her when I saw what she did to you.”

“But what about before? She didn’t suddenly become a bad person in that gym, Cort. She was always a bitch.”

He nods once, taking a step toward me.

I have to tilt my head back to look at him.

“I know,” he says, his voice low. “I didn’t care because she was an easy fucking lay.”

My heart leaps, but I don’t say anything.

“I was a horny high school boy, Remi.”

Anger makes my pulse pound in my head.

“And I already told you.” Another step, and we’re more than close enough to touch, but neither of us reach for the other. “I didn’t want to fuck up your life?—”

“My life was already fucked!” I hiss those words, my hands clenched into fists. I take a breath, my chest heaving. But I can’t stop it. The memories bursting through my dam. And always with him.

Always.

“It was already fucked, Cortland.” I think of Mom, dying on that couch.

Of the ambulance, and the emptiness, and Silas’s unrestrained cruelty.

For all her faults—disappearing during the night to sell her body for more , passing out during the day because she was doped up on pills, fighting with Silas and denying her problem—her presence kept Silas in check.

And for all of his faults, of which there’re too many to list, he loved her.

It’s why he was cordial to me, when she was alive.

It’s why he stayed with her even when the cops delivered her on our doorstep instead of taking her to the station when she was found giving some dude a blowjob in a parking lot for pills.

Just like with Crystal, Silas liked my mother. He loved her.

And I know she loved me, too. We would watch horror movies while she faded in and out on the couch, but she’d hold my hand until she couldn’t anymore. She would stay clear headed enough to feed me, until the end, when she was just… gone.

She loved me.

And when she died, all that love disappeared. From her. Silas.

It wasn’t until I met Sloane three years later that I got any love back again.

Then Cortland… he felt kind of like love, too.

“What happened to you?” Cortland whispers now, and he takes another step, until we’re toe-to-toe.

His words make me uncomfortable, because I’m thinking of all the things that happened to me, and as I do, he doesn’t even factor in there.

While he was supposedly avoiding me to keep me from hurting, I was hurting all the more.

“What happened to you?” I counter, looking into his eyes. Thinking of his words about his mom being a cunt, and his brother trying to kill himself. I remember his brother in the stands, cheering Cort on. Sometimes, Tristan would glance down at me with a shy smile.

He looked just like Cortland in so many ways.

But he never introduced me to him.

I think of that question Cort asked me in the tent, and I repeat it back to him now. “Has anyone ever taught you what love looks like?”

His brows pull together, and for a moment, we just stand there, looking at each other.

Finally, he takes a breath and nods, looking over my head. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “My dad.”

I think about my own dad. A man I never met. He died shortly after the one night stand he had with Mom. Before she was even an addict.

Mom never spoke ill of him. He never even knew I would exist. I feel hollow about that. Wondering what would’ve happened if a car hadn’t crossed the center lane and hit him head on.

How would my life be different?

Would I have stayed away from boys like Cortland?

“My brother,” Cortland continues with. He scrubs his hand over the back of his neck before he drops it, still staring out into the night over my head.

His eyes shift to mine.

“You.”

I shake my head. “You don’t love me.”

He shrugs. “The fact that you can even stand in my driveway,” he reaches out a hand, brushing his thumb over my bottom lip , “ this close to me… ” He drops his hand and takes a deep breath, looking up at the sky. I see his jawline. His chest heaving.

He meets my eye again.

“That’s taught me enough.”

I look at the ground, feeling his touch linger even as his hands are by his sides. “Maybe it just means I’m stupid.”

His hand cups my face, tilting my chin up.

Goosebumps run down my arms.

“Finding forgiveness where there shouldn’t be any?” His lips tilt up into a smile. “That’s not stupid, Remi, baby.” He traces my lips with his finger. “That’s fucking brave.”

I hold his gaze. “Brave things can be stupid.”

His eyes search mine for a long moment, and I wonder if he’s going to say anything at all.

Then he does.

“Did you know?” he asks quietly.

“Know what?” Despite having no understanding of what he’s trying to ask, my heart races all the same, his thumb still over my bottom lip.

“The risks?” I see him swallow, the muscles in his neck flexing. “With me?”

What a loaded question.

But there’s a simple answer. “Yes,” I whisper, meaning it.

“Then it wasn’t stupid. If you thought for one fucking second this would’ve been easy, or felt good, or fuck, if you thought it would’ve been fun…

” He drops his hand. “That would make you stupid.” He slides his hands into his pockets and looks up at the stars.

“Nah, Remi,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re brave.

Because you knew it’d hurt.” He smiles a little, a dimple flashing in his cheek as he dips his chin.

“You knew it, and you did it anyway, facing it head on. Fucking brave.” His eyes lock on mine, his voice little more than a whisper.

“And watching you leave, even after what I did… what I said, me calling the cab…” He shrugs.

“That shit hurt like hell.” He smiles small at me.

“I knew that might happen, too. But I know that no matter where this world takes us, I’ll never forget you, baby.

” He steps closer to me, but keeps his hands in his pockets.

“That’s worth all the pain to me. Having a love that’ll never leave my fucking head. ”

I frown at that. “So are you brave, Cortland, or are you stupid?”

He laughs a little. “To tell you the truth, Remi, baby, for you,” he dips his head to mine, staring into my eyes. “I’m a little of both.”