Page 97 of Raise Me Up

I’m too lost in my head to notice the elevator doors dinging open.

“Stas.” Liam’s stern voice snaps me to attention.

He’s several strides down the main hall already. I rush to catch up to him as he walks out the automatic front doors.

I hadn’t checked the time in Beau’s room, but the sky has turned a dusky blue, and crickets chirp from the manicured bushes, oblivious to the fact that their season is over. If you can even say Texashasseasons.

“I’ll give you a ride back to your car,” Liam mutters, cutting toward his Pantera parked under a streetlight.

I watch him walk away without sparing a glance back. He hasn’t looked at me since he got here. It’s like he’s already rebuilt his walls, no footholds or weak points detectable this time.

My heart begins to crack. Pain slithers along the fracture lines, threatening to split me into jagged pieces right here on the sidewalk of a busy hospital. I doubt even the best surgeon could put me back together.

This is the end of all good things, isn’t it?

This isn’t how Liam’s birthday should have gone.

Forcing my legs to move, I shove down every sick feeling churning in my gut and hurry after him.

The silence in his car is deafening. Forget the fact that I couldn’t form sentences without bawling right now. I don’t think anything I say will reach him. He just wants to stubbornly drown in his guilt.

I reflect on our conversation at my apartment the first night he came to me. How he’s clinging to the past, convinced his existence revolves around causing pain, all thanks to a horrible man who had no right parenting him.

Our time together should be proof that he’s capable of loving not justoneperson buttwo.

Actually, fuck that. Liam Beckner takes care ofeveryone.

Why can’t he let us take care of him for once?

When Liam pulls into the garage, he’s quick to get out. He opens the passenger side door for me, but he makes no attempt to touch me. With his head held low, he tucks his hands in his pockets.

He looks small.Fragile. More like the boy who would climb through my bedroom window late at night.

Would he push me away if I tried to hug him? I wish I had an instruction manual for his moods.

Tears sting my eyes. Before they can spill, I break for my car and lock myself inside. I’m breathing heavily as I struggle to jam the key into the ignition with blurry vision.

“Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry,” I chant.

By the time I get my stupid old car started and look up, Liam’s garage door is closed, and he’s nowhere in sight.

It’s okay. Everything will be okay.He’s not going to let this separate us.

But I can’t say that with confidence. Liam has a history of pushing people away. He’s done it once before with Beau.

It hurts to think we’ve come this far, and he might succumb to the twisted belief that he doesn’t deserve to be loved in return. That he’s somehow bad. Wiredwrongon the inside.

With shaking hands, I call my twin.

“Hey, sis. What’s up?”

An accented voice speaks softly in the background, and I instantly regret calling. I have to remember that his boyfriend is living with him now. Hail can’t be at my beck and call when I get like this.

“Stasi? Did you butt call me?”

Eyes squeezed shut, I tap my forehead on the steering wheel. “No. I’m here.”

“Why do you sound like that?”