Page 7 of Through Any Fire (Any x #1)

O n the eve of my wedding, I sit cross-legged on my bed, a handful of pictures scattered on the duvet.

My entire life—until I left the Bianchi residence—lies around me.

Pictures from my parent’s wedding, my birth, our old dog Coco, Mason’s birth, the lake house where I learned to swim…

and where I fell in love for the first time.

With the weight of my impending nuptials, I feel as if I’m floating outside my body.

Tonight, I’d finally succumbed to digging the old, dusty shoebox out of its permanent hiding spot in the back of my closet.

Each time I almost forgot about it, some unwanted memory cropped up, reminding me of its presence like a beacon in the night.

It isn’t anything special, just an old sneakers box, but the contents inside are priceless.

One in particular catches my eye. The one I’d avoided looking directly at for the last fifteen minutes.

It’s like looking through a portal to another world where life was simpler.

It sends me tumbling through time. Down at the dock, I’d sat at the edge with my feet dangling in the tepid water alongside him , near a cracked, anchored dinghy.

As we spoke, our fingers crept closer until our pinkies touched.

Then he finally gathered his courage and grabbed my hand, and we laughed at the awkward tug.

That was the first of many trips to the lake house. This picture is from the last.

We spent the entire summer sneaking up north when we could, and when school started up again in the fall…well, that was the beginning of the end. I think we both knew it, but neither of us were brave enough to admit it. To say it out loud.

My hand shakes as I pick up the photograph, a candid shot of a younger Cal as the sun set behind him.

His face is how it’s frozen in my memories, slightly rounder than it is now, and his shoulders are relaxed.

Cal stares out at the water with a serene smile, pointing at something in the distance, but I don’t remember what.

All I could focus on was him . A sharp ache in my chest burns.

The photo was from the last time we made it to the lake house. I drop it back onto my bed.

It lands over the crumpled envelope I’ve done my best to avoid.

The worn envelope is wrinkled from years of clammy hands gripping either side, trying to build the courage to open it.

He sent it to the Bianchi estate about seven years ago, when I still lived there and my family was whole.

It’s addressed to Ren Catrone, so I knew it was from Cal—he was the only one who could get away with calling me Ren—but I couldn’t bring myself to open it.

I told myself it didn’t matter what he had to say, didn’t matter what secrets the letter could contain.

But that didn’t stop me from almost opening it about a hundred times.

After a while, it became a fixation, so I shoved it into the shoebox to force myself to forget about it.

Even so, temptation drew me to the shoebox.

And now, on the eve of my wedding to the sender of the letter that has taunted me for so long, I almost break.

It tugs at me, whispering sweet promises that are surely lies.

It doesn’t matter what it says, I tell myself.

If Cal really wanted to apologize, he would’ve found me and said so to my face.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve cycled through each possible emotion a human can process.

First, it was shock, barely registering the soft music played in the bridal boutique.

When I was younger, I imagined my wedding to Cal.

I thought about the millions of dresses I’d try on, worried about the height of my heels, how I’d do my hair…

Every single detail had been planned out until all I was missing was the groom himself.

It was foolish, and I knew it then, too. But it didn’t stop me from spending hours fantasizing about the possibility.

I bought the first wedding dress I tried on. It didn’t matter what it looked like, if I liked it. It’s some sort of silk slip and hangs in a white garment bag in my closet. I can’t bring myself to look at it. Teenage Loren would be so mad.

Next it was avoidance, and I threw myself into my work, barely even stopping to eat. If I didn’t leave my room, I couldn’t notice that Mason still hadn’t come home. Alice had to hand deliver each dinner for three nights and practically forced each meal down my throat.

When I hit the anger stage, Jude, Jenna, and I closed down Poor Folks, drinking until almost three in the morning.

Upon waking the next afternoon, I remembered why I stopped mixing my liquors and spent half the day puking my guts out until there was nothing left.

Jude was, as predicted, back in the gym, teaching a class by ten that morning. I will never know how he does it.

Since then, I’ve wandered through my days as if heading toward my death. And in a certain manner, I sort of am. I’m ending life as I know it .

Now, I sit on my bed on the cusp of my teenage dream realized, and I think I’ve finally entered acceptance. Staring at the sum of my life’s major events, I can’t help but feel a certain ache loosen in my chest. The photos are few, but I place them back in the shoebox.

There’s a knock on my door, and Alice peeks her face in.

“Hey,” she murmurs. She pushes into my room and crosses to me.

Her angelic face is flushed, and sweat beads along her temple.

Her insanely long blonde hair is in a fierce ponytail, with only a few frazzled pieces sticking out, and her face is rosy.

Combined with her athletic wear and damp hairline, I’d wager she just came from the gym. “Ready for tomorrow?”

I summon what I hope is a reassuring smile.

“Hi,” I respond as I shut the lid on my shoebox. “I sorta have to be…right?”

Alice openly searches my face, probably looking for any sign I want to run, disappear into the wind.

I’d done it once before; I could do it again.

Her wise-beyond-her-years eyes narrow as she waits for me to be honest with myself—and her.

But the memory of holding an infant Mason flashes in my mind.

Our father died in service of the Family almost a decade ago.

Our mother is probably swimming at the bottom of a bottle of gin somewhere… I can’t run. Not this time.

Moreover, I don’t want to.

Alice perches on the edge of my bed and arches a brow. “I don’t know, do you?” Her voice is gentle, concern pooling behind her blue eyes. Her sincerity distracts me for a moment. “Are you sure about this?”

My gaze drops to my duvet as I play with a loose thread on my leggings. Her gentle hand covers mine, stilling my anxious fingers. I look up to see concern in the pinch of Alice’s brows .

“For Mason, I have to be.”

“Lo, we—”

“No, Alice. Any favor I had with the Bianchis is gone. And I can’t get any more information out of Leon. It’s like Mason’s a ghost.”

“I know.” Her shoulders drop.

“I’ll be okay. If there’s anything I can be sure of”—my throat tightens over a sudden knot—“it’s that Cal can’t hurt me physically.”

Alice’s lips press into a flat line. She shakes her head and stands to leave, then crosses the room and pauses at my door. Gripping the wood, she looks back at me, apprehension furrowed in her brow. “I still think it’s a bad idea.”

A crestfallen sigh escapes me as I look at the single worn photo I left out. The one that shows a cheesing six-year-old Loren cradling a newborn Mason. “I never said it wasn’t.”

The next afternoon, I rush through my makeup and tie my chestnut hair in a messy low chignon, only pulling two pieces from the middle part to frame my face.

My hazel eyes are slightly bloodshot from the tears I succumbed to late last night—or was it early this morning?

—but I’ve tried to hide the residual emotion with a brown smokey eye and pencil liner.

I blink matching brown mascara onto my lashes and swipe mauve lipstick over my lips.

My mind empties as I move on autopilot. Do my makeup. Fix my hair. Get dressed.

I’d already packed my car up this morning, opting to leave mostly everything here, save for my favorite clothes, laptop and notebooks, makeup, and a few other bits and pieces I can’t live without.

By leaving most of my belongings here, it appeases the trembling part of me that believes I’ll return one day.

Or rather, in seven-hundred and thirty days, should we find Mason.

My silk robe slides off easily, and I step into a white lace panty.

I tuck the matching bra away and ignore the mounting frustration building inside me.

Cal will never see it, but something selfish inside me insisted I have at least one thing I would’ve had if this were a real wedding.

A somber weight settles over my shoulders as I slide into my off-white silk dress.

It’s tapered to my waist and falls just past my knees with a cowl neck and very, very low back.

The thin straps are practically decoration; it’s not like my small chest needs much support.

If not for the color, it could barely pass for a wedding dress.

A quick knock precedes a muffled “You decent?” from Alice, as I look over my shoulder toward the vanity. I do not remember the back being this low. Not that I remember much of the fitting, anyway. Oh well.

“Yeah, come in,” I respond as I move to perch on the edge of my bed and slip into my black heels. With a sharp inhale, I slap a smile on my face as Alice enters.

She looks me up and down and returns my grin. “You look beautiful, Lo. You sure I can’t come?”

I shake my head, and her smile wobbles. If I hadn’t been looking at her, I would’ve missed the crack to her facade, but it would be a cold day in hell that I’d bring Alice into Cal’s world. She is everything light, and I’m heading straight into the darkness.