Page 82

CHAPTER

FIFTY-NINE

CORTLAND

Hurts like hell.

That’s how it feels, watching her drive away, spinning her tires as she backs out. It hurts like hell.

I press my fist to my mouth, a scream lodged in my throat.

Don’t go, baby.

I want to yell it. I want to run outside and flag her down. But that gunshot rings out over and over in my head and I’m worried Chase’s dad is following us. Following her. If I told her the truth, she’d refuse to leave, and I can’t do that to her.

I turn away from my bedroom window and shrug off my shirt. I drag my nails down my arm and sink to the floor, my head on my knees as I scratch and tear and rip my skin.

It feels so good.

I bleed for her, and I pinch the skin, fire up and down my arms.

“I’m nothing,” she said that night on my couch.

I dig my nails in deeper, crying out at the pain.

“You’re not nothing, baby.” I whisper those words as I hurt myself more, feel more. Cry more. “You’re not nothing. And you deserve far better than I could ever give you.”

I don’t sleep most of the weekend.

When the Monday morning sun rises through the crack in my curtains, I’m already showered, dressed, and headed to Dad’s.

His truck is parked under the carport and I pull in behind him.

I told Mom last night I was done with Remi. Then I hung up on her.

Thinking of how Remi looked at me, utterly cold, of Storm holding her back… I scrub my hand over my neck and get out of the truck, slamming the door closed behind me, spinning the loop of my keys over my finger as I head to the little porch, the screen door barely hanging onto the hinges.

But it’s all Dad can afford at the moment. In West Virginia, he’d have help from my uncle. Mom agreed him and Tristan could go. I think she just doesn’t give a fuck anymore, not that she ever really did.

It’s not a legally binding agreement, and she could change her mind at any time, but it’s a start. So is their separation over the last few months. One step closer to divorce.

I let myself into the house, closing and locking the door at my back. It smells like coffee and bacon in here, and even though it’s early, I’m not entirely surprised to see my dad at the stove in the kitchen, straight down the hall from the doorway.

I glance to the right, past the living room, and see Tristan’s bedroom door is closed.

“Morning,” Dad greets without looking at me. I messaged him this morning to tell him I’d be over.

“Morning.” I walk through the hallway, over the rickety wooden floors.

I sink down onto one of the chairs at the square table set in the corner of the kitchen, dropping my keys, my head in my hands as I close my eyes.

Exhaustion consumes me, and being here, safe, comfortable around Dad, I just let myself breathe.

I listen to the coffee machine starting up again, hear the pop and crack of the bacon, but Dad leaves me alone.

I think about Remi. About her hurting herself. The same way I drug my own nails down my arm last night. I hope she didn’t do the same.

A lump forms in my throat. I want to call her. She didn’t call me after she left, and I should’ve followed her. Should’ve made sure she got back okay.

But she’s an adult. She’s strong. And she’ll have a far better life away from me. Still, I think about her stepdad. The things he did to her. Me leaving her to only find comfort with him.

Fuck.

I must say it out loud, because Dad speaks. “Something on your mind?”

I pick my head up, leaning back in the chair, opening my eyes, hands shoved in the pockets of my sweats as I watch Dad fork the bacon onto a plate lined with a paper towel.

“When are y’all leaving?”

Dad glances over at me, his own eyes bleary and red, a mug of coffee in one hand while he tends to the bacon with the other.

He’s in his plaid pajama bottoms and a white shirt.

“Next week,” he says, looking back down at the stove.

He sets down the fork, takes a sip of his coffee. “You staying here?”

I glance down at the table. No use in transferring again. It’s not like I’ve been much help to Tristan here, and besides that, Mom was his poison. Away from her, he’ll be golden. He’ll heal. Being surrounded by people that love him—Dad, my uncle and his wife—he’ll thrive.

He doesn’t need me.

But then again, staying here, being so close to Remi but unable to touch her, I don’t know if I can do that, either.

“I want to quit school,” I tell Dad quietly.

For a moment, he doesn’t say a word. There’s just the sound of popping bacon, the coffee machine running its course.

I hear him set down his mug. Flip off the stove.

I keep staring at a scuff on the table.

“What would you do?” he finally asks me.

I shrug. “Work with Uncle Clave.”

Another pause. Then, “All right.”

I smile at the table, not bringing my gaze up to his. “Just all right?” I ask him. “Don’t wanna lecture me about all the future I’m wasting?”

“I’m not your mother.”

I nod, swallowing down another lump in my throat. I think about Greg firing off that round last night. I could tell Dad. He’d be pissed on my behalf. Might take his own guns down to Greg’s property and shoot a few bullets through his head. Storm almost did just that.

But it wouldn’t be worth it.

There’s no point in discussing it. Or Mom, Maya, and Chase at the game. Just wasted fucking words.

“Why’d you stay with her?” I ask him quietly. “After you knew she was… how she is?” I finally look up and he’s looking away, cupping his mug with both hands, leaned against the counter beside the stove.

He takes a drink, still staring at the linoleum floors, as if he’s thinking about his reasons for the first time himself.

“I thought we’d work it out. She’d always been ambitious.

Ready to get the hell out of Beckley as soon as she could.

” He smiles softly, a faraway look in his eyes.

“I supported that. And her. But soon I realized I’d never be able to live up to her definition of success, and she made sure I knew it too.

” The smile slips, and I feel sadness bubble up in my chest, thinking of all the ways my dad probably felt like a failure.

He turns to look at me. “Then we had you. Tristan not long after. For a while, she was a good mom. Then she just… wasn’t.

” He shrugs. “She was controlling, and in some ways, it did seem like she cared so much, about the both of you. And by the time I realized that just wasn’t true, I was under her thumb, too.

And it was so hard to get out of it.” I see him swallow, holding his mug by the handle as he turns toward me, one palm on the counter.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get out sooner. She was so hard on you, and I thought maybe it made you better.

But I know now…” He shakes his head, then sets his mug down.

“I should’ve done better. For both of you. ”

I nod, forcing back my own emotions as I stare at the table.

“It’s okay,” I tell my dad. “You did the best you could.” I don’t know if that’s true, but I know for a while, my mom had warped my head too.

I could never do wrong, but I could never do enough, either.

Never live up to her expectations while at the same time she put me above everyone else.

It was a fine line to walk between. A hard thing to balance. No room for error and no room for growth.

Before either of us can say anything else, I hear the door creak open down the hall from the living room, and slowly, Tristan comes padding in, barefoot in his boxers with no shirt.

He stops abruptly when he sees me, his hair a mess, then he smiles, takes a seat beside me. “Why are you here?” he asks, raking a hand through his hair.

“Good to see you too,” I tell him with a smile.

He laughs, white teeth flashing. Then he rubs his hand over his opposite arm, and I see the still-healing wound on his wrist, but he no longer seems to notice it as he looks at me, grinning. “Good morning,” he finally mumbles.

I think about how his life might be in West Virginia. All the things he likes that people might make fun of him for. But he grew up there well enough, and it’s really not much different than here. I know Dad and Uncle Clave will take care of him.

“You hungry?” Dad asks him, and he nods, glancing over at Dad for the first time. Then he turns to me.

“Are you moving with us?” There’s hope in his words, and I feel my muscles tense. Because I don’t know. Remi is here. Storm.

I don’t know what to do.

“I’m thinking about it,” I tell Tristan truthfully, watching as he lights up while Dad passes out plates, then brings the platter of bacon to the table. “What do you think about that?”

Tristan pulls his chair toward the table and smiles. “That’d be cool,” he says, reaching for the bacon and putting a piece in his mouth before it ever touches his plate. He’s chewing, speaking over it, and for a second, when he asks, “What’s going on with Remi?” I think I’ve misheard him.

Dad clears his throat, sitting down across from me and forking bacon onto his own plate.

I haven’t reached for anything yet. Not the orange juice Dad set out or the cups or the food.

I just blink at my brother, completely oblivious to my tension as he snatches more bacon from the center plate.

“What?” I finally ask. I know he knows what happened, but I had no idea he knew about what recently went on.

Before he puts the bacon in his mouth, he shrugs. “I heard you two were talking.”

I glance at Dad, who is staring down at his plate, his hands under his chin, stacked on top of each other.

“Oh yeah?” I ask Tristan, fisting my hands on the table.

“Yeah,” he nods, looking up at me, then sitting up straighter, glancing between me and Dad, finally realizing we’re all slightly freaked out by this conversation. He shrugs. “What? I pay attention.”

Yeah, I see that.

“I’m not talking to her anymore,” I tell Tristan.

He frowns, dropping his hands to his lap, his light eyes holding mine. “Why not?” he asks, dark blond brows furrowed together.

I arch a brow and resist the urge to look at my dad. Why fucking not? I clear my throat. “It just… wasn’t going to work out.” I try to push back the grief. Thinking of her in the tent. In my truck. At my house.

That momentary fantasy of her having my kids, helping me cook in my kitchen, giving her space and freedom and money to write whatever the hell she wants.

I don’t read many books and I don’t think that’d ever change, but if she wanted to write ‘em, she could do just fucking that. It was a childish dream.

It’s time for me to grow up, and that means letting her do the same. Without me.

“Is it Mom?” Tristan asks quietly, looking at his plate, his shoulders hunched. Something like rage sweeps through my veins as I think about her yelling at him. Belittling him. All the ways she tried to break us down.

“Yeah,” I finally say, not giving a fuck if I shouldn’t give him another reason to hate her. “It’s Mom.” And Chase, his dad, Maya, fucking everyone. It’s not the money Mom has for me that I give a fuck about anymore.

It’s Remi’s safety.

Tristan’s.

Dad still hasn’t moved during all of this.

Finally, Tristan speaks again. “Don’t let her ruin everything for ya, Cort.” Then he grabs another piece of bacon and pops it in his mouth.

I stare at him, a smile curving my lips. He didn’t ask about Remi. About me wanting to be with her, or her wanting to be with me. He didn’t question how that could work. Why we might feel that way toward one another.

He just accepted it.

I look to my dad, and find him watching me, dipping his chin slightly. Almost as if to say, “Your move.”