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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

RHYS

Paintball was Chase’s idea.

“You need to let off some steam before you combust and take the house down with you,” he said. “And what better way than legally shooting your friends?”

That’s how I ended up in the middle of a muddy clearing just outside New Hope, crouched behind a half-rotted barricade while paintballs cracked against plywood, and someone (probably Logan) screamed like he was auditioning for a war movie.

The smell of earth and paint clings to everything. My chest heaves as I duck from a spray of neon orange, heart pounding more from adrenaline than cardio. We’d been playing for maybe thirty minutes, but my limbs already ached.

Probably because I hadn’t slept in days.

Arden pops his head up from a stack of tires and takes a hit to the face mask. “Goddammit, Logan! That was my ear!”

“War has no mercy!” Logan yells from behind a tree, absolutely thrilled with himself.

Chase belly-crawls toward me and slams his back against the barricade with a grunt. “Okay, this is officially the best bad idea I’ve ever had.”

“You say that every time we do something dumb,” I mutter, reloading my paintball gun.

“Yeah, but this time, it comes with bruises and a whole lot of laughs.”

Hayden runs past, yelling something unintelligible before tripping over his own feet and face-planting in a patch of mud. Paint explodes on his back. “I’m fine!” he shouts, which is the universal code for definitely not fine.

For a minute, the chaos is enough to distract me.

Almost.

But Ally still lives in the back of my mind. Like she always does.

I’ve been trying not to think about her. Trying not to check my phone every five minutes. Trying not to stare at the empty spot on the couch where she always curled up, or the hoodie discarded on the kitchen stool, or the way the house felt like it was missing its heartbeat.

She left. Not dramatically. Not angrily.

She just… disappeared.

After the seizure, after the hospital, after I told her I loved her—she vanished without a word. No goodbye. No note. Just gone.

And everyone else knows where she is.

Chase and Arden had been weirdly cagey all week like they were walking around with a secret tattooed on their foreheads. I don’t need a psychic to tell me they are keeping something from me.

I should be pissed.

I am pissed.

But mostly, I am scared.

Because if Ally doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want me , then what the hell am I even doing?

I let out a calming breath and peek around the edge of the barricade. Logan is sprinting towards us with way too much enthusiasm. No idea why he is here, but when he found out we were coming, he decided to gate crash.

“Okay, truce!” Chase shouts. “Time out! Everyone gathers at base before Rhys starts throwing actual grenades.”

We reconvene in the staging area—a sad collection of benches and half-empty water bottles—faces red, shirts stained, bodies sore. Arden is peeling off his mask, already bitching about the welt forming on his collarbone.

“Hayden, you tripped over literally nothing.” Arden teases.

“No, I tripped over a—" Hayden pauses, then looks down. “Okay, fine. It was air. But it was aggressive air.”

Logan hands me a water bottle and claps me on the back. “You look like someone kicked your puppy.”

I grunt. “I’m fine.”

Chase tosses his gear down and flops onto a bench. “Alright. We dragged you out here, made you sweat, let you shoot Arden in the crotch?—"

“He what?! I thought that was Logan!” Arden screeches, making us laugh.

“—and now, we talk.”

I blink. “Talk?”

Arden sighs and sits down with a groan. “Yeah, man. You’re spiralling. And you keep pretending you’re fine. But you’re not.”

Hayden leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “We get it. You love her.”

The words slam into me like a hit to the chest.

Chase gives me a small nod. “And she loves you too.”

I look away. The ache behind my ribs tightens. I don’t want to be talking about this right now.

“Then why did she leave?” I ask, voice low. “Why didn’t she say anything? Why am I just… sitting here like an idiot, waiting for a message that’s never coming?” I let out the words I’ve been holding back. Showing my friends just how much this is fucking with my head.

No one says anything for a beat. Then Arden clears his throat.

“Because she’s scared,” he says. “Not of you. Not of the love. Just of what it means to let someone in when the worst already happened.”

Hayden adds, “Ally’s a runner. You know that. But it doesn’t mean she’s done.”

I run a hand through my sweat-damp hair, frustration bubbling up like lava. “Why won’t you tell me where she is?”

No one answers.

I stand. “Just tell me. I need to see her.”

Chase stands, too, slowly. “She asked us not to. Said she needed space. She’ll come home when she’s ready.”

I stare at him, heart pounding. “So that’s it? You all just get to protect her, and I’m the one stuck in limbo?”

Logan finally breaks the silence. “You told her you loved her, right?”

I nod.

“Then you did the brave thing. Now it’s her turn,” he says, and I let his words play over in my head.

Until something in me cracks.

I sit back down hard, burying my face in my hands. My throat burns with all the unsaid words.

“I can't help wanting her,” I admit. “Even now. Even when she’s gone. I wake up and reach for her without thinking. I look at the door and expect her to walk through it. I breathe, and she’s there in all of it.”

No one laughs. No one teases. Just silence.

Until Chase speaks. “She’s your gravity. We get it.”

And somehow, that makes the tears spill over. I don’t sob. Don’t fall apart. Just let the emotion take up space for once. Let my friends see just how much this is hurting me. I love Ally with everything I have, and we finally have a chance to be together. Fully. I miss my best friend.

She’s my gravity.

And I don’t know how to function in free-fall.

I wipe my face and turn towards Chase, my voice sharp. “You should’ve told me. Both of you.”

Chase winces. “I wanted to. But she asked us not to.” I see his guilt, but I know how much they love Ally.

And they will protect her just as much as I would.

Arden nods slowly. “We aren’t choosing sides, man. We are just trying to respect her need to breathe.”

“While I suffocate? Well, it feels like betrayal,” I snap. “Like I’m the only one left out of the loop, like I don’t get a say.”

Chase steps forward, calm but firm. “You got your say when you told her you loved her. But love isn’t a contract, Rhys. It’s a risk. She needed to step away to sort out her head. A lot has happened recently.”

I look at them—these guys who are my brothers, my family—and all I feel is the sharp edge of missing her.

“I’m not mad that she left,” I say. “I’m mad because I wasn’t enough to make her stay.”

Hayden, who’d been mostly quiet, speaks up. “She’s not staying away because you weren’t enough. She’s staying away because she doesn’t know how to be enough. Not yet.”

The silence that follows settles deep into my chest.

Chase sighs. “You’re allowed to be hurt. Just don’t let that hurt burn down the people trying to hold you up.”

I sit back, exhausted. Not from the game, not from the heat.

From having her love just out of reach for so long.

“What if I lose her?” I ask. Scared of what their answer may be.

Logan gives me a rare, serious look. “Then you fight harder.”

And that is the thing.

I will.

Even if it means waiting.

Even if it means breaking first.

I’d fight for her.

Every damn time.