Page 77 of From the Wreckage

Everett

Sleep won’t come. It hasn’t in days.

I lie awake until the walls close in. Until every shadow feels like her ghost. Until the silence becomes so deafening that it threatens to split me apart.

Every step is a landmine of memories. Her laugh. Her hand brushing mine. Her lips tasted like coffee and hope. I tell myself that if I run fast enough, I can outpace the ghosts. But they’re stitched into me now.

I round a bend, and headlights cut through the trees. My chest heaves as I slow, my shoes grinding gravel. The light grows brighter, closer, until a dark blue SUV pulls into Grayson’s drive.

I stop dead, sweat slicking my skin.

There she is. My angel.

The one I want more than my next breath. The one I can’t have.

The driver’s side door swings open, and she stumbles out.

My heart stops.

She looks wrecked. Pale. Broken. Her sweatshirt hangs crooked off her shoulders, her hair tangled, her steps unsteady. A sob rips from her chest as she bolts toward the front door and vanishes inside.

I stand there, frozen on the trail, my pulse roaring in my ears. Something’s wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong.

My fists clench at my sides, the need to run after her almost overpowering. To throw open that door, gather her in my arms, and demand to know what happened. Then kill whoever made her cry like that.

But I can’t.

I don’t have the right. Not after all the ways I failed her. Not after she begged me to fight, and I stayed silent.

So I stand there in the shadows, the ache in my chest deepening as her sob echoes in my memory.

The one thing I know for certain settles in my bones like a curse: She’s drowning.

And I can’t do a damn thing to save her.