Page 42

41

Calista

After

I stood outside the house for what seemed like a preposterous amount of time. The thumps of Jerry’s tail were a metronome that pulled me into a state of hypnosis.

The moment it slowed down, I snapped out of my stare. The cold had started to bite at my skin, seeping into my thin sweater, and I tried to convince myself that the lights would be on as soon as the door swung open. Even though I could see no one was home from the darkness of the windows.

My hand hovered over the keypad, frozen as flashes of the gun pressed to my forehead and the knife at my neck replayed in quick succession. Jerry’s tail picked up again, faster now that he’d heard me walk up the stairs, and those faint threads of panic started to dissolve under the steady comfort of his excitement.

The house wasn’t quiet. It was filled with Jerry’s loud huffing snorts of excitement, his nails clip-clapping on the floorboards, and his tail hitting the wall. But it was empty.

I stayed calm the first time I checked every room.

Maybe he’d parked somewhere else and had already gone to bed.

Maybe he was in the backyard with the pillow spread, waiting for me to join him, all the wishes he’d seen crossing the night sky collected and ready for me to use.

By the time I’d circled back to the living room, Jerry on my heels with his tail still wagging, panic had started to wind its fingers around my heart.

I walked back into the bedroom, my eyes drawn to the corner where his empty duffel bag had sat for months. The same one he’d packed up to take to Artington, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember if he’d brought it back in.

Did he even bring it inside?

The kitchen was clean, spotless, like no one had been there. Like no one had lived in it the way we had for the last week.

“Fane?” I called out, this edge of panic to my voice that I didn’t recognize when all that met me was silence.

My mind felt like it was floating in a fish tank by the time I made it back to the living room on what had to be my fourth—or maybe fifth?—–search of this small, shit box house. One that he’d single-handedly turned into a home just by being in it, breathing in it, laughing in it.

My heart sank right into the soles of my feet at the fact that he’d told me he loved me, over and over, and I’d been too fucking scared to say it back.

Even when he’d shown up. Even when he came back. Even when he voiced that question into the dark of our room, his arms wrapped around me, like he thought having the love that was meant to be his withheld was what he deserved.

And I’d let him believe it.

My feet were already moving before my brain could compute. I slipped Jerry’s collar over his head, and we were already jogging to Delilah’s car when the front door slammed behind me, jolting me back into my body. Back from where my mind had been loitering in the memories the house behind me held.

This is what he’d felt.

I was certain of it. This had to be a fraction of what he’d felt when I crept out of our apartment, refusing to look at his sleeping, crumpled form on the couch, and left. When he woke up to find me gone.

I’d been a coward then.

The thought that I’d always known I was innately soft was trying to cover my thoughts like a blanket full of static. Whenever you tried to throw it off, it latched on to an arm or a leg.

I’d run then because I didn’t think I was strong enough to withstand whatever conversation needed to follow. I’d been a coward and not what Fane deserved.

He deserved someone to show up for him, to be patient while he found the words he wanted to say. Someone to help him pick up whatever broken pieces he was still trying to collect, his own hands still ravaged while he’d bound mine and helped them heal.

Tears slipped down my face, silent and regretful. All this time, I’d been running back to Darling, watching and waiting for him to come home, for him to fly around that goddamn bend in the road, when I should have been running to meet him halfway.

The car zipped down the dark, empty highway, my sights set on the stretch of road in front of me that would take me back to Artington.

I’d find him. He didn’t even need to meet me halfway. I’d follow him all the way to his doorstep so he knew that there was no one else in the entire world who loved him like I did.

That I was so fucking lucky to be the person he’d picked. Like when our eyes locked at the bar, those violet all-seeing eyes of his had looked right at me. Bright and assessing. They’d seen everything and decided that if he was going to love someone for the rest of his life, it was going to be me.

I was so focused on the patch of road illuminated by the headlights that I almost missed the truck that flew past me, heading back to Darling. Almost missed it, but not quite.

“Fane!” I yelled his name like the chance of him hearing me through car doors and wheels on pavement was remotely possible. Jerry jumped in the seat next to me, startled out of his mind.

I did a double-take at him because he was sitting right in the front seat with the seat belt pulled across him.

I knew that I had done it, but I couldn’t really remember doing it.

The image of that split-second moment when our windows lined up flashed through my mind—Fane’s confused, amused frown directed right at us.

I pulled the car off onto the shoulder of the road, my hands shaking because I fucking hated driving at night. My eyes still blurred with tears as I got out and stalked right for him.

I watched him climb out of the cab of his truck, that small, amused smile still tugging at his lips. His mouth opened like he was about to say something, but then he caught sight of me. His expression went blank, and we both froze, the few feet left between us feeling like a bottomless chasm.

“You left.” My chest was heaving, my voice scratchy and clogged from the onslaught of tears that refused to stop. “I got home, and you were gone. All your stuff was gone, and I couldn’t find you or call you or—”

He stepped forward, his hand wrapping around the back of my neck like it was instinct—like he needed to touch me. The rough pad of his thumb brushed against my cheek, swiping away the tears. His brow furrowed as he shook his head, a small, almost helpless gesture.

“Baby,” he murmured, shaking his head again. “I was just driving home.”

“Where did you go?” I felt my face crumple, words cracking under the weight of that one question.

“I…” He cleared his throat, his expression twisting into a cringe, like he hated what he had to say but couldn’t take it back. “I can’t tell you. It’s a surprise.”

I tried to step back to look at him properly, but his hand was locked onto me. “What?”

“I had an idea,” he said softly with a small shrug. “I went to try and see if I could get it sorted, but it ran a little over. I texted you, and then remembered you don’t have a phone. I tried calling your mom, but she declined the call.”

A choked laugh blubbered out of me, and I reached up to try and swipe a hand under my nose, realizing that I probably looked fucking insane.

“I thought you left,” I said again, like it was the perfect explanation for the reason I looked like…like this.

“I’m not going anywhere, Calista.” The edge of sadness in Fane’s voice wasn’t acceptable, and the idea that he didn’t fully grasp that still made me mad.

My hands pushed against his chest, my fists clenching and unclenching. I pointed a shaky finger at him, dropped it, lifted it again, and dropped it once more.

He looked equally as bemused as he did terrified.

“I heard you,” I blurted out. I cleared my throat and swiped my tears off my face with the palms of my hands. “The other night, I heard you.”

He didn’t say a word. Just tilted his head in that way of his, waiting, patient as ever.

“When you asked me if I could ever love you again—I heard you.” My voice cracked, but I pushed through. “And the thing is, I can’t tell you that.”

I watched as his body seemed to fold in on itself, like he was bracing, trying to shield whatever soft underbelly he had left from the blow he thought was coming.

“I can’t,” I continued, the words tumbling out. “Because there is no again , Fane.” It was my turn to shake my head in my own helpless gesture. “I never stopped. How you don’t get that is baffling to me.”

I was waving my hands in panic now. Making the shape of hearts and gesturing between the two of us with something that resembled jazz hands. Finally, I closed the distance. I walked right up to him and pressed my palms on either side of his face.

“I am so in love with you, Fane Mackenzie. Do you hear me?”

His whole body shuddered beneath my touch, and I felt his arms circle around my waist.

“I thought I made you sick,” he rasped, his eyes glassy and glowing and beautiful and looking right at me.

“I’m willing to look past it,” I laughed, and it was full of sniffling and more tears, but happy tears. All the excess of the love I had for him that had no place else to go but out. When he dropped his forehead to mine, I pulled him tighter to me, relishing the feel of his broad, solid form beneath my hands.

This man, who was brighter than any sun.

When he kissed me, it was old and new at the same time. It was the only thing I was ever going to need, but then he pulled back and his eyes darted over my shoulder.

“Jerry’s in the front seat.”

I turned in his arms to look at our big, goofy dog sitting in the front seat, looking at us with nothing but adoration.

“He is.”

“He’s wearing a seat belt.”

I nodded, “That’s right.”

Slowly, like an avalanche, Fane’s laughter started to rumble out of him. The vibrations of it pressed into my back where he clutched me to him, picking up speed until it surrounded us, coating us both from head to toe. I turned back to face him after his chuckles had died down, the smile on my face a permanent thing.

“Fall into me, Cali,” he whispered into the quiet night that pressed in on us, wrapping around me like a promise. “I’ll catch you.”

“I know.” I didn’t even hesitate, the conviction in my words was clear, and all the shooting stars and unused wishes that flew overhead were unneeded entirely.

“How?” he asked, his chest pressed to mine and our hearts beating in sync.

“Because you already have.”