Page 93 of What He Never Knew

I was alone.

And with my chest on fire, with tears in my eyes and a fiery scream scorching my throat, my knees gave way to the final blow. I crashed to the floor, hitting rock bottom in the most literal sense.

It was right where I deserved to be.

Reese

Sarah didn’t show up for our lesson Thursday night.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. I shouldn’t have stared at my phone, counting the endless texts and calls I’d sent her way that had gone completely unanswered. I shouldn’t have ever imagined a world where she and I would make it, where we would be together, where I was anything more than the absolute fuck up I’d always been.

But I was. And I did.

“Something a little cheerier, Reese?” the manager of The Kinky Starfish suggested, a tight smile on his face as he greeted a customer walking past us. He lowered his head again once she was gone. “It’s Friday night, for God’s sake. The people want to dance.”

I nodded in response, cracking my neck before I launched into one of my favorites from Bach. Even though the music was joyful, I played the piece as if from a distant world. Everything was hollow. Everything was void.

And Sarah was avoiding me, working in the kitchen instead of out on the floor.

I knew she was there. I could feel her presence, a familiar buzz that warned my body she was near. It used to warn me to stay away, to keep my distance, to remember what I could and could not have.

I should have listened to it, then.

Now, it only served to punish me, to remind me what I’d lost, what was so close yet so out of reach.

It was the worst brand of torture.

The night passed in a sort of gray fog, my fingers flying over the keys, a forced smile on my lips, a voice that seemed to be someone else’s greeting the patrons and talking between pieces. To everyone else in that room, I imagined I seemed the same. But inside, I was burning.

It wasn’t until my first break that I felt a tiny flash of relief, and I told the patrons I was taking a half hour, even though that was twice what I usually took. I needed a moment. I needed space.

I needed Sarah.

And I was on my way to the kitchen to find her when I ran into Charlie, instead.

“Reese,” she said, hand wrapping around my bicep and pulling me to a stop just before I hit the swinging door to the kitchen.

I let her turn me, heart squeezing at her proximity, at the voice that I knew so well, at the warm chocolate eyes that I could close my eyes and see perfectly. But it was different this time. I didn’t want to reach for her, to hold her, to inhale her scent and imagine the days when she was mine.

I just wanted her to leave me alone so I could go find Sarah.

I hadn’t seen her since she showed up at my house unannounced on the anniversary of my family’s death. I’d dodged her calls, her mother’s calls inviting me to dinner, her father’s calls inviting me to have a drink and play a round of golf, her brother’s calls saying he wanted to catch up. I loved them, and I knew in my heart they would always be a sort of family to me.

But I’d needed space. I’d wanted to heal. And Sarah was helping me do just that.

Until I ruined everything.

“Charlie,” I greeted, scratching the back of my neck. “I was just about to head outside to smoke. Could we talk after my set?”

“No. We can’t. This is important.”

Her reaction surprised me, and it wasn’t until then that I saw the bend in her brows, the concern etched on her little face. She pulled her hand from where it held my arm, crossing her own over her chest.

“Graham has been trying to reach out to you. So have I.” She swallowed. “Weallhave, and you haven’t answered any of our calls.”

“I’ve been busy,” I explained.

Charlie paused, like she was waiting for more — busy doingwhat, she seemed to ask me with her doe eyes. But I didn’t feel the need to explain further, not when the only thought on my mind was getting inside that kitchen and talking to Sarah.