Page 55 of My Sweetest Agony

But I don’t try to stop them.

I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

He’s truly gone now, ripped away and scattered by the tide, taken from the person he loved most in the world, who now trembles in my arms.

Red-hot anguish sears through me, threatening to consume me and burn me down to ashes like those we just scattered.

And I want to let it.

Goodbye, Drew.

16

IVY

Cam kills the engine, plunging my street into utter silence.

This early in the morning, nothing is stirring. No vehicles. No people. Even the summer crickets aren’t chirping, quieted by the coming dawn, or our loud arrival scared them away.

I scan the neighborhood Drew and I loved so much.

The towering trees along each curb, the ones nearest the streetlights casting leafy shadows onto the pavement. The quiet homes lining each side of the street—all dark, their residents fast asleep in their beds. Husbands and wives snuggled together. Children tucked in with kisses and fairytales. All sweetly oblivious to the turmoil brewing inside me just outside their closed doors and windows.

It’s so peaceful, so perfect.

Then my gaze lands on my house.

With the porch light off, it may appear like the rest of them—a place where a happy family slumbers undisturbed by the turbulence of the world outside—but it doesn’t feel like they do.

Not to me.

Not when I know how empty it is inside.

Not when no one is waiting for me to crawl into bed with them.

No one is there waiting to hold me.

Nothing but cold sheets and another sleepless night without Drew waiting for me behind that door.

And the ride back from Strathmere has left me shaking in a way that has nothing to do with the thrill of being on Cam’s bike.

It’s a cataclysmic crash.

A full-blown collapse of my ability to remain strong or pretend that everything will be okay.

The tears at the beach were merely a fraction of what I’ve bottled up inside me, and as it vibrates under my skin, seeking release, I know that if I’m alone tonight, it will be with intrusive thoughts and suffocating grief.

And I’m not sure I’ll survive it.

Not alone.

Cam glances over his shoulder at me, holding out his hand to help me off while he searches my face carefully, taking in every detail and cataloging it behind his darkened eyes. I slide my palm into his and swing my leg over until I’m standing on the pavement beside the bike on shaky legs.

He starts to pull his hand away, and all the air rushes from my lungs on a panicked exhale as I tighten my grip.

One of his brows rises. “Ivy?”

My bottom lip trembles, and I stay standing through sheer will alone on knees that want to buckle. I don’t want to need this. I don’t want to need him. I want to be strong enough to walk through that door myself and spend the night alone, the same way I have every night since Drew died.