The fire had dimmed by the time David and Jon finished speaking. Without a word, I released their hands and walked up the path toward the house, crawling back into the hammock. Their voices carried up to me, concerned about my lack of response. I willed myself not to listen. I couldn’t process any more information, even if I’d wanted.
Drifting in and out, I slept for a couple hours until later when the screen door squeaked open and closed. I knew it was David before he approached.
“Bria, you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Jon’s asleep on the couch.”
“Of course he is.” I smiled, rolling over to look at him. He smiled back. Even here, in the midst of everything, Jon managed to remain on schedule.
“You found your things.”
“Earlier. You were still by the fire.” While the guys had been down on the beach, I’d gone inside to change and wash up, quickly returning to my hammock, to rest in its cradling comfort. “Thank you for bringing them.”
“Of course.” He held out his hand. “Come inside with me?”
I took his hand but shook my head no, the open sea air too calming to leave.
“I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be worried.”
“You haven’t said a word. About anything.”
“I know.” I tugged at his hand and motioned for him to lie beside me. He looked over my face, the only light that of the moon glowing overhead. I could tell he wanted to join me, would’ve if we were alone. There was so much we hadn’t fully discussed ourselves, what we had shared on the cove.
“Come inside.” His voice was quiet, conflicted.
I sat up and leaned against his arm. “I want to stay here.”
He sighed, kissing my forehead before turning to leave.
I didn’t let go of him. I couldn’t. “Stay with me.”
“Bria . . .” He glanced toward the house. I knew he was thinking of Jon.
“Just for a while.” I looked away, not wanting him to feel manipulated but unable to release him. “I need you. Please.”
At this, his arm relaxed and he took my face in his hand, examining it again in the moonlight before he finally relented and climbed inside the hammock beside me. Immediately, I rolled onto him, resting my head against his chest, breathing him in. He wrapped his arms around me, and the gnawing hole that had been aching inside closed.
Something in me released and I began to weep, my body shaking uncontrollably against his. He held me close, kissing away my tears. Then for hours after I’d stopped crying, he whispered happier memories in my ear, some bringing a simple smile to my lips and others making my heart race in delight and our quiet laughter to fill the air. We lay together until the sun came up again; our newest sunrise memory together, full of warm coral skies and soft morning light, bright with hope, even with clouds clearly on the horizon.
The minute he heard Jon stirring, David rose and headed around to the back of the house, his footsteps soundless but heavy, his head bent in thought. I got up and made my way down to the beach, lifting the length of my navy maxi dress and knotting it so it didn’t drag in the water. The wind whirled about as I waded into the ocean, letting my toes sink into the wet sand.
The screen door slammed, and Jon and David’s voices carried out on the breeze. This time I didn’t tune it out. I stared out over the water, watching the clouds sweep in, picturing them leaning up against the railing and I listened. I listened to everything they said and everything they didn’t say. I listened with my head . . . and I listened with my heart.
“Going home?” David asked, his shuffle recognizable against the wood slats of the porch.
“Yeah. I’ve got to get back. I’m . . . sorry this happened.”
“Your father’s actions are not yours. You can’t take responsibility for him all the time.”
“No. And neither can you.”
“No.”
They were quiet for a minute. The waves crashed and rolled before me. I could feel the weight of their stares on my shoulders.
Jon cleared his throat. “She was upset last night.”
David paused for a beat. “Yes.”
“I’m glad you were there for her. You always seem to know what she needs.”
David sighed. “Sometimes.”
“Most times,” Jon replied in all seriousness. “What you have together . . .” he trailed off sadly.
“It’s . . . indescribable.” David finished for him. For a split second, I felt as if he was standing next to me on the beach, taking my hand.
“Good.” Jon’s laugh held layered sarcasm. “I don’t need details.”
I blushed a little at their banter and David laughed back. Then he spoke what must have been troubling him since the cave house. “She hasn’t let go of you, Jon. I don’t know that she will. What she wants. Anytime I bring up the future, she shuts down. Won’t talk about it. And when I have to leave . . . I don’t know what will happen.”
“I do.” Jon took in a heavy breath. “You’ll stay with her.” His voice was filled with a resigned acceptance. “I watched it happen, struggled with it for weeks, until I realized I had to accept it . . . or end it. Trust me. Even when you’re gone, you’re always with her.”
David was quiet. He said nothing in return.
“It’s okay. I know you can’t say the same to me. I know I’m fighting a losing battle. But until she says stop, if there’s any chance at all, I won’t walk away.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
It was Jon’s turn to stay quiet.
“Are you still going to tell her before you go?” David asked.
“If she’ll let me.” They both laughed at my stubbornness. Down on the shore, I laughed with them. “You still okay with it? I can try to work around it, focus on that night.”
They must have made a few more decisions by the fire as I slept, about who would tell me more, who would tell me what.
“Almost told her myself this morning. She didn’t ask about the syncing though, and I didn’t want to force her to discuss it.” He was quiet for a minute, drumming a rhythm on the banister when he came to his conclusion. “If it helps you to explain what happened, I’m okay with it. It’s strange. It was always important to me to be the one to tell her, but now . . . I guess I feel on some level she already knows.”
“I think she does too,” Jon said quietly. They stood in silence for a while, maybe they were watching me, maybe they were watching the storm forming in the distance. “I better do this. Before that thing hits.”
“You could wait. Til you have more time.” I pictured David nodding at the horizon.
“No. I’ve waited long enough. Too long.”
“Okay. Safe travels, brother.” They were hugging one another goodbye, slapping each other’s backs, then Jon’s footsteps headed down the porch stairs.
“Oh. Here.” David’s feet dragged after him. “Bria’s coffee. I was just about to bring it down to her.”
Jon walk back over to him. “Ugh. You and your cinnamon.” He laughed with playful disgust.
“What?” David laughed back. “She likes it.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
Jon approached, kicking up small tufts of sand under his feet as he walked. The screen door slammed in the distance and I knew David had gone inside, probably trying to give us some space. Tossing his duffle to the ground, Jon held out the coffee cup in my direction.
“From David.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at him over the rim. “Smells good.” I couldn’t help but tease him a little.
“I’m glad.” He chuckled to himself, his blue eyes taking me in from my sandy feet and knotted dress to my windblown curls. “Can we talk for a second?”
“Of course.” I lowered myself onto the sand beside him, motioning toward the bag. “I take it you’re leaving.”
“My father awaits.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder, taking his hand in mine. “I’m sorry everything turned into such a mess. We just wanted you here with us. Wanted you to have some fun.”
“We, huh?” he whispered, a hint of defeat evident in his voice.
I shot up straight. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“It’s okay, Bria. It’s okay.” He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me back to him, kissing the top of my head and taking a deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell you before I go.”
“Okay.”
“Do you remember when you asked me if there was any time I’d lost control, like you did the night of the ballet?”
I nodded. “You said it happened once.”
“It did . . . and that one time was the night I met you.”
I searched his face, thinking back on that night, trying to remember anything, any sign of him losing control. He shifted and sat up away from me, running his palms along his pants.
“This is harder than I thought it would be.”
“It’s just me.” I rubbed my hand along his arm, unsure of how to comfort him. “Take your time.”
He looked out over the stormy horizon. “I don’t think I have a lot.”
“We can talk when I get home,” I offered.
He exhaled sharply before turning his gaze back on me. “And when will that be?”
I stared at him blankly. I honestly didn’t know, hadn’t even thought about it until this moment. My heartbeat quickened with regret as his blue eyes flashed in pain, recognizing my uncertainty.
He reached down, grabbing a handful of sand, clenching and releasing it, letting the grains run through his fingers. Then, clearly deciding that old wounds were more easily discussed than new ones, he brushed off his hands and offered me a reassuring smile as he carried on with his story.
“Ona was there that night. Did you know that?”
“She never told me that.” I returned his smile in surprise. “Why didn’t she sit with us?”
“She was there before the show began. For an entirely different reason.”
“To see David?”
He shook his head. “To see me.”
I looked at him curiously.
“Right before you arrived, I was heading back to my father from meeting with David backstage. And I felt this tug at my elbow. I looked up to see Ona’s eyes, peering at me through a nearly closed door. She looked so fragile, so afraid. She pulled me into this small room off the corridor and started apologizing that this had to be so rushed. That your grandfather had wanted it to go much differently but as usual, your mother had a different plan in mind that had thrown it off course.” He swallowed briefly. “Then she handed me a letter and told me it was from Sam.”
“Wait,” I interrupted, trying to follow him. “But Grandfather wasn’t alive.”
“He’d written it months before and asked her to give it to me.”
“What, like he knew he wasn’t going to live much longer?” I tried to suppress the indignant tone of my voice, but I couldn’t help it. This all sounded so strange to me.
Jon answered cautiously. “I think he knew he wouldn’t be around when we met.”
“How could he have possibly known that?” This time my sarcasm was palpable.
“Because, Bria, he was the one keeping us apart,” Jon snapped.
I quieted, guilty, as he quickly assessed the sky and then looked back at me, tilting his head in a quiet request to continue with my improved compliance. I smiled back, understanding my questions were slowing him down. He’d probably answer most of them if given the chance.
“Ona knew the night was a set up for our meeting and she cautioned me to keep the evening short and casual until I could read what Sam had written. And that the letter was for my eyes alone. She said it was crucial for the three of us that I follow her advice. Then she told me to get back out there before I was missed . . . and I did.”
He paused and took a stuttered breath, closing his eyes, the way he always did when he was willing himself to remain calm. When he opened them, they glistened with tears and mine filled in response. It was clear he’d been carrying this burden far too long.
“Before I walked out the door, Ona took me by the face . . . with her soft little hands.”
I smiled, knowing just the gesture he was talking about.
“She looked me in the eyes and said she knew she was right about me. She told me I was so much more than just my father’s son. She knew I was filled with my mother’s light, that I’d be a good man, and that Sam was right to ask me for help.” He wiped away a single renegade tear from his eye as he fought back his mix of emotions. “No one had ever looked at me like that. Like she could see the person I wanted to be.” He swallowed and cleared his throat.
“When I walked back into the hallway, the letter tucked inside the chest pocket of my jacket, my father was not ten feet from me and turned from his conversation just in time to see me step in line beside him. He eyed me warily, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to escape again, but I wanted to go find David, to see if he’d gotten a letter too. It seemed like Ona’s advice fell into what we’d planned; we’d already decided how the night would go. We wouldn’t allow my father to force an arrangement on any of us. Friends first. That was the only way.”
“We’d known for some time, everyone’s expectations. That you were to end up with one of us. I’d heard about you from my father for years. Well, not about you—about the plan for you.” His voice held a grim disapproval. “David had been hearing stories from your grandfather, along with so many other things, who then shared them with me.” He reached down and began tracing patterns into the sand, his long fingers leaving deep trails. “I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with Sam, but I’d like to think I learned a lot from him, through David . . . and I’m thankful for that.” He abruptly stopped his tracing and wiped the sand clean. “That’s why it kills me that I let him down . . . Ona too.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.” I ran my fingers alongside his, swirling designs in the sand.
He took my hand in his and stared down at them as his haunted voice came out shaky and tense. “Bria, when you lost control, you hurt yourself. When I lost control, I hurt all of us. I made the biggest mistake of my life . . . and I’ve been paying for it ever since . . . we all have.”
I remained still, speechless at the severity of his words. He looked up at me and his eyes flashed with the pain that night had caused him, growing red with emotion, the blue popping out at me from behind misted veils, the gray clouded skies churning around us.
“When you walked in, when I saw you—more beautiful than any picture, any description I’d seen or heard—I knew I was in trouble.” He looked me over, entwining his fingers in mine, reaching up with his other hand to caress my cheek. “I memorized your face in an instant . . . and I knew I could spend the rest of my life looking at it and never see it enough.”
Lightning struck in the distance, startling us both and he dropped his hand from my face, blinking several times to collect himself. “My heart slammed against my chest. The letter felt like it was burning its way into my skin. I could hear Ona’s voice. Keep it casual. I tried looking for David. I knew if I could get the three of us together, I could get some perspective. Then the lights lowered. It was too late.”
“I watched you . . . watch him, taking in every note to the core. I knew you were drawn to him, already connected. You could barely contain yourself and he’d . . . he’d never played so well. I watched you slip away from me before we’d even had a chance, before he’d even said hello, and then I knew. I knew exactly what the letter said.” He took a breath. “You’d been designed for David. And you would never be mine.”
My eyes studied his, trying to decide if what he was telling me was in fact the truth. That our hearts, our lives, were not born of free will but were all orchestrated before birth in some strange intersection of design and predestination. He nodded and brought his hand to my face once more.
“I just wanted a chance, Bria. I thought maybe time and distance from him would give me a chance. That’s the last thought I remember thinking clearly.”
“What did you do?” I whispered.
He pulled my forehead to his trembling lips and slowly released me.
“I was supposed to bring you to see David after the performance. I was supposed to. But I couldn’t make my body steer that direction. My thoughts, my mind, were clouded, like I was on a strange auto-pilot. One goal, one focus, one mission. You. We sat there on that bench, Bria, and David was on the other side of the building . . . waiting. For hours, just waiting. Never dreaming that I’d betrayed him. Never dreaming that after you left, I went straight to my father and told him my concerns. Knowing full well what would happen. That he would ship David off . . . and that it was quite possible he would never have the chance to see you again.”
“Jon!” I jumped back from him, my legs and feet scrambling in the sand, and looked up at the house to see if David was anywhere near. What must he have thought, have felt? Jon followed my eye line.
“He’s forgiven me, Bria.”
I stared at him, a stranger. My Jon was capable of no such behavior, no such betrayal.
“I tried to make it right.” His eyes begged mine not to end the conversation here, to let him explain further, but looking into them all I could think of was that night on the bench; that while he was comforting me, David was alone, unknowingly awaiting his exile.
Another lightning bolt struck in the distance, shocking me back into focus. I inched a little closer to show him I was listening again, but not within reach of his long limbs. I couldn’t imagine being touched by him right now. He expected it, staring at me sadly across the space, letting the rest of his story fall out in stumbled emotional words.
“The minute I saw my father’s reaction, I knew I’d made a huge mistake. The fog lifted and I realized what I’d done, only it was too late to stop him. I ran to find David, but he’d finally gone. Racing to his building, reading the letter along the way, I felt worse with every line. Because I was right. You had been designed for David, but not for the purpose of a relationship. It was for the protection of our company, the future . . . the world even.”
“Sam said the idea came to him as he was designing you, and he saw similar patterns to David’s naturally occurring. He thought if he encouraged it further, paired with the special ability he was working into you, he’d have a powerful duo that could take on anything.”
“You were created to sync with anyone you desire and who wants to sync with you, Bria. You were trying to with the ballerina, physically anyway, only she had no understanding, no knowledge of how to sync back. That’s why you ended up in that state. But you were created to sync with David on all levels more quickly, more powerfully, more fully than you will with anyone . . . ever. Sam had to make you that way. He had to know that if needed, the two of you could shut me down if I went off the rails, if I chose to walk the same path as my father.”
“If I didn’t, which he hoped for, he truly thought he was giving us choices we wouldn’t have otherwise. The way he described it was that he knew he could control the body, but the heart and the spirit had a will of their own. If you ended up with David, that would mean our parents weren’t able to force you into a marriage with me. If you ended up with me, then you would’ve loved me enough to walk away from a connection with David. Either way you wouldn’t be forced into anything against your will. In his mind it was a fail-safe. Until he brought the two of you together.”
“Early on he could see you ignited something within each other he hadn’t expected or planned. As children, whenever you were together, you were unstoppable. The suppressants lost all effect. He’d find you at the tops of the palms at the cove, swimming beyond the rock enclave in the roughest of seas. You would run so fast, he couldn’t keep up, and finding you both became an endless game of the most dangerous kind of hide and seek. He’d no choice but to separate you until you were older.”
“He told few his reasons, and even fewer knew about his design choice. He let it be assumed that my father was the cause for the separation. And he’d kept me apart from you as well, to spare me. Knowing how hard it would be already to be constantly pushed in your direction, when the outcome was not likely to be as expected.”
“During the last part of the letter, he told me he needed me. That he was going to ask something of me that was terribly hard, but there was no one else to do it. No one else he trusted to do it. He needed someone to protect you, Bria. He knew your mother would move you in with her once he was gone and she wasn’t fit to care for you. He’d assumed, quite rightly, that Jon-Paul would send David away once he learned of any attraction you had for one another. He thought too that this would be for the best. He knew your response to the suppressants would be affected the longer you were together, and he wanted you without all the pressures of this world for as long as possible. He wanted David more adapted to regulating life in the field full time before trying to make it work with you. He asked me to watch over you and I did, starting right then, by trying to fix my mistake.”
“I ran to David and I told him everything. What I’d done, what Jon-Paul was making moves to do, and what the letter said about the two of you. He’d no letter of his own but pieced together from what Sam had told him over the years, it all made sense. I thought we should call Ona, plan to meet up. I wanted the two of you to see each other just once before he left. Maybe it was my guilty feelings, maybe I wanted to see it for myself, before David was gone and I convinced myself again that I should be with you. But David . . . he said no. He wouldn’t meet you before he left. That it was better, if he really had to be gone for years, it was better we didn’t do that to ourselves. It would only make it harder . . . on everyone.”
“Then he told me something else. That if there was a point when I thought you loved me, thought the two of us would be happy together, that I shouldn’t let him stand in the way. I told him he was crazy. He hadn’t seen you, your response to him. There was no way that would work. It would make it even more complicated. And I’ll never forget . . . he looked right at me and said if I thought after all I’d done in one night, that I could spend years with you and not fall in love, I was a fool. And I told him I knew only two things for sure. I would absolutely fall in love with you and in the end, you would absolutely choose him.”
I could barely breathe, barely able to process everything he’d just told me. As my focus realigned with the present, I realized we’d been sitting in a heavy mist, the storm nearly upon us.
“Do you still believe that?” I asked quietly.
“That you will choose David?” His voice softened like mine. “I used to tell myself if you ever looked at me, just once, the way you’d looked at him . . . that I’d try for us. And you did. You did.” He sighed and nodded, running his hands through the sand once more. “The first night I kissed you . . . after you’d returned . . . from meeting him.”
My heart skipped. There was no response I could give him that would undo that truth . . . and he knew it. He simply smiled at me with a mournful wistfulness and then stood, shaking the sand from his clothes.
“There’s one more thing you should know, Bria.” He took a large breath. Whether it was from having to deliver more heavy news or he was simply glad to be near the end of his revelations, I couldn’t tell. “People have had visions . . . prophecies. About you, your future.”
“Blanca,” I whispered, knowing where this was heading. I could still feel the weight of her milky eyes on me, the kindness, the hope, in her touch.
He nodded. “In all of them you are sitting with a child in your arms and an outline of a man is leaning over your shoulder looking down on the child . . . your collective energy radiating out into the world . . . bright and yellow and golden, healing it, uniting it. Most believe the man in that vision . . . is David.”
I swallowed, taking in his words. “What do you believe?”
The sorrowed strands of gray that had woven their way through the blue of his eyes dissipated, leaving only their light, and love. “That he is faceless for a reason. Even if it’s only so you have a choice, Bria. He is faceless for a reason.”
I crossed the space I’d put between us and wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging him close, letting my head rest against his chest. “Same heart,” I whispered, listening to the steady beat. Then I looked up, letting my eyes take in his face. “Same good heart.”
His gaze revealed his relief that I’d forgiven him, and he leaned down and brushed his lips against mine, in the same sweet gesture he’d done for years. I pressed back firmly, and he kissed me softly, lingering in our closeness.
“I’ve got to go,” he whispered as he pulled away.
The sound of a helicopter approached in the distance. I looked at him, troubled. “Is that for you?”
He laughed. “Well, David’s not leaving too. You think he’s the only one who travels by helicopter?”
“No.” I smiled. “It’s just . . . do you take them often?”
He nodded with a grin, then tilted his head at me. “You’ve just never seen me leave before.”
“No. No, I haven’t.”
He released his arms from around me, grabbed his bag and took off running. I held my hand up to block the wind, surprised to find Ash was the one piloting the copter. I waved as it took off from its hover over the water and turned to find David sitting on the steps of the porch. I wandered over and sat, uselessly trying to wipe the sand from my feet and my clothes.
“We need to go too.” He watched me. “I don’t want to ride the storm out here. I’ve already packed the boat.”
“Okay,” I said, absentminded, my thoughts still caught up in everything Jon had just told me. “What’s Ash doing back already? I thought he and Avery were on their trip?”
“We’re not the only ones Jon-Paul likes to play games with.” David looked me over again, trying to read my demeanor. He reached out and tucked a few strands of curls behind my ear, running his thumb along my jawline. “You okay?”
“I think so.” I looked away, watching one of the palms dance in the stormy wind. “I do have a couple of questions though.”
“I thought you might.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
I paused for a minute before I said exactly what was on my mind, knowing it might throw him a bit. “You knew. About us. You knew before that night.”
“Is that a question?”
I looked back at him only partially amused by his joking demeanor.
His gaze grew more serious. “What makes you think that?”
“You didn’t get a letter. And there’s no way Grandfather didn’t tell you himself.”
He looked down at our feet, then back out over the water. “I knew.”
“And you found us, on the bench, didn’t you? You never would’ve waited for hours.”
He nodded.
I stared at the side of his face, trying to understand. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I nearly did.” He picked up a stone from the path and threw it clear across the beach. “I was headed to you both and then I stopped . . . and I just stood there, watching you on that bench. I could tell how Jon was feeling, even from a distance, and all I could think was . . . this is how it’s supposed to be. This is normal. This is not prophecies and genetic manipulation. This is not my being gone on lethal missions while you sit at home, alone, knowing nothing about it, just trying to get through high school. This is what you both deserved. A chance at normal. I knew I’d never have that . . . never . . . but you both could.”
“And you felt nothing? Not a sense of betrayal from him, a curiosity about me?”
“I felt a lot of things.” He turned his head, letting out a small exhale of sarcasm. “Mostly though . . . I felt relief. That it was settled. I would live my life for the company . . . and he could live his for you.”
I gaped at him in disbelief, shocked and somewhat offended by his response. “So you just walked away from me, from any chance at us, without even looking back?”
He reached down and sent another stone skipping off into the distance. “From the idea of you, I suppose. I didn’t know you. I didn’t know what I’d be missing.”
My veins turned to ice. “I don’t believe you. I don’t even think you believe you.”
His head snapped back in my direction, cocked in agitation.
I brought my face close to his, letting my eyes wander over it in search of the truth. “I know what I felt while you were playing. You can’t tell me you didn’t feel something too.”
“Of course I did.”
“And you knew it was me?”
“The idea of you.”
I turned away in disgust. “Stop saying that.”
He leaned around me, forcing me to meet his eyes again. “Sam, Ona, Blanca . . . they filled my head with so much speculation I didn’t know if it was true, or if it was just me wanting it to be true.”
I stared into the depths of his gaze, challenging his words like never before. “You will never convince me that anything we experience together doesn’t feel real. I’m on the other end of it. I know better.” He swallowed his guilt as my eyes filled with tears. “I searched for you for a year. Did you know that? They wouldn’t even give me your name. All I had was your song. And it haunted me.” I shook my head at him in dismay. “I missed you. I missed you every day. And I—I hadn’t even seen your face.”
His eyes softened. “I’m so sorry, Bria. I didn’t know. I thought I was doing what was best for you.” He reached out to hold me, but I dodged his hands and stood, whipping back around.
“How? By handing me over to Jon like some sort of lost puppy?”
“No!” he shot back. “By offering you a chance at a normal life. With someone who was better for you. Someone who loved you, who could be there for you . . . always.”
I looked at him, astonished. “And what if that had happened, David? What if Jon hadn’t kept his distance from me all this time?”
“Then I would’ve kept mine.”
My eyes burned, indignant. “And you think that would’ve worked?”
“Do you think you’d be happy with Jon?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then what are we fighting about, Bria? What are we even fighting for?” His voice had never been that hollow, that angry. He turned to go, but not before his eyes grew dark, pain and sadness overtaking their light.
I sat on the porch for a while, wiping the tears from my eyes, before the outline of David reemerging from the mist came into view. He marched up the steps, saying we needed to leave, before heading inside, the door slamming behind him. I stood and followed him in, looking around the bright white living room one last time, skimming the row of bookshelves lining the wall just past the entrance. More of my grandfather’s journals. He’d worked here too apparently.
David turned the corner from the hallway, nearly knocking me over. He grabbed my waist to steady me, meeting my eyes, his reflecting a similar sadness to mine. His hand tightened its grip around me, automatically pulling me closer, but then . . . he let go and took a step back, distancing himself completely.
“Have I left anything behind?” His simple question made my heart sink even lower.
“No.” My voice continued shrinking, the space between us growing larger by the minute. “But you never do, do you?”
It wasn’t until we were well underway, speeding opposite the storm, that I realized my fear of his leaving without return was what had sparked my anger at David over his decision to walk away from Jon and me that fateful night. But he’d acted out of care and concern, out of love. Could I say the same for myself . . . toward either of them?
What are we even fighting for? His words echoed through my mind. Look at the position I was putting him in. I wanted him to say he loved me from the start, to own those feelings, but I’d watched him slaughter an army of men—a challenge issued simply for dating me—and I couldn’t even tell him if I loved him differently than Jon . . . more than Jon.
How blind had I been? How selfish? To demand more from another, give nothing in return; it was the worst kind of cruelty. Tears streamed down my face. Jon and David spent years putting me ahead of their own feelings. I claimed to love them, but had I ever done the same? How had Avery put it all those months ago? This wasn’t just about me anymore. As usual, she’d nailed it.
I wiped my cheeks and stood up straight. I’d been staring back at the storm, shadowed clouds tumbling a dance with the lightning across the sky. I turned away and looked toward the sun with a sudden clarity. I knew exactly what I needed to do and just who to help me do it.