I let my feet take me back downstairs, where a couple of my uncles have filtered in through the front door. They shake the big, white snowflakes off their shoulders and give me a kiss on each cheek. My mother is already cooking a feast for everyone that will end up here today, so I grab an apron and join her in the kitchen.
She gives me a sad look. “I knew you’d come back to us, Serena,” she says. I think she means it in a nice way. It’s supposed to be a compliment, as if this is where I belong.
It feels more like a curse.
23
Kit
I see the exact moment Robbie gets the bad news. He pulls out his phone, powers it up, and horror slowly spreads across his face. His hands tremble as we sit in the cockpit, waiting for the walkway to extend and the air crew to open the plane’s door.
“Everything okay?”
Robbie’s stare is haunted as he turns to look at me. “I need to make a phone call.”
I nod, wishing I could give him more privacy than the confines of this small space. I turn my head away, as if that changes anything.
“Hi, Mom. Just landed. Uh-huh. Is she okay?” He pauses, pinching the bridge of his nose. I watch him in my peripheral vision, wanting to give him space but understanding something’s wrong. “I know I should have answered, Mom, but I had to board the plane.”
Getting an earful from mommy dearest about ignoring her calls? Is that all that’s wrong? I glance at Robbie and immediately know it’s something more distressing.
“I’m at Bradley right now. I’ll see if we have a pilot on standby who can finish my run today.” After a few more words he hangs up the phone, turning to look at me. “I need to go home. My grandmother’s just had a stroke.”
I stare at him, eyes widening. “What?”
My friend closes his eyes, guilt written all over his features. “That’s why my mother kept calling. It must have happened right after we hung up the first time. I’ll call headquarters to see if there’s a pilot who can take over from here. I’m sorry, Kit.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. Is Serena okay?”
“My mother said she’s flying home. She should arrive in New Haven this evening.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, shaking my head.
My heart twists at the thought of Serena traveling on her own across the country, rushing to get over here. If we’d known only an hour or two earlier, we could have gotten her on this flight, probably for a fraction of the price of whatever she paid.
Robbie’s knee bounces up and down as we wait for the doors to open. It’s taking forever—or at least, that’s how it feels. The seconds drag on, one by one.
I text Serena, asking if she’s okay, but the message doesn’t deliver. Maybe she’s in the air already. Sighing, I slip my phone back in my pocket and glance at Robbie. He looks twisted up, hurt.
I’m powerless.
This changes everything. She might not even end up in Woodvale if her grandmother is sick. She might decide to stay close to family. My chest aches at the thought. I’d gotten so used to the idea of having her around that anything different feels empty. Bland. Pointless.
“Are you okay?” I ask gently, wishing there were something better I could say.
Robbie looks at me as if he’d forgotten I was sitting here. He nods. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
It’s a lie, but we both pretend it’s not. I can tell by the lines on his face that he’s in a lot of pain. Even from just one weekend with his family, it was plainly obvious that they care about each other. They’re close.
“Do you know your grandparents?” Robbie asks, his voice wobbling at the end.
I shake my head. “Nah. Never met them.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
I pinch my lips into a smile, shaking my head. “It’s all good. Although I will say, I was a little jealous of your big family. I always wanted that when I was growing up.”
“Overbearing parents and nosy aunts and uncles?” He forces a smile, his shoulders relaxing.
I shrug. “Yeah. Thought I’d have a couple of kids by now.”
Robbie chuckles, but the sound is dipped in sadness. He lets out a long sigh. “I’ll probably take some time off,” he says, staring out through the plane’s windshield at the airport in front of us. “I don’t know who they’ll assign to this route.”
“Someone lame, no doubt,” I answer, scoffing. I miss my small, red skydiving plane more than ever. Doing this route over and back across the country without Robbie seems even more pointless than it did before.
My thoughts drift back to Serena. “I’ll keep your sister’s room for her,” I say, my throat tightening.
What I want to say is, I care about her. I want to be with her. I want to get off this plane and wait for her, wrap my arms around her and make sure she’s okay.
But I don’t say any of that. Why would I? Now is not the right time. Everything has shifted, and I’m not even sure if Serena is thinking about me at all. My conversation with Robbie earlier seems pointless, now. I wish I hadn’t said anything about my feelings for his sister.
When we finally disembark, Robbie’s departure delays our flight back to Seattle. A replacement pilot gets called in, a boring, older man with a big white mustache. He grunts at me to say hello, and when we board the plane again, I feel the death stares of the grumpy passengers.
I’m sick of this.
I don’t want to be a commercial pilot. I don’t care about the money. The only reason I enjoyed it was because Robbie became a friend to me—the only friend I trusted since my life imploded.
Now?
He’ll be gone for a while. Serena is hurting. I’ll be going back to a cold, quiet house.
My day drags on. I check my phone whenever I can, breathing a sigh of relief when I finally see Serena’s name. She tells me she’s on her way home and apologizes.
My chest aches. By the time my workday is over, I collapse into my room in the staff quarters in Seattle, folding my arms behind my head on the bed as I stare at the ceiling.
The phone rings, and my heart jumps when I see Serena’s name.
“Hey,” I say, breathless. “How are you?”
“I’m okay.” Her voice is quiet. “In my childhood bedroom, which is slightly weird.”
I chuckle, relaxing into the pillows as the sound of her voice calms my racing heart. “How’s the family?”
“Surviving. My mother is struggling.”
I grunt in acknowledgement. Warmth flows through my chest, and I feel relieved that Serena wanted to call me. After a day worrying about her—and worrying about us—it’s nice to know she was thinking about me.
“I’m sorry I left,” she says softly.
“Stop. You had to.”
“Yeah.”
Silence hangs between us, my eyes tracing patterns in the popcorn ceiling above. I take a deep breath. “Do you know how long you’ll stay?”
Tension ripples through the phone, hitting me right in the middle of the chest. I almost don’t want to hear what Serena says, so I brace myself for her words.
“I’m not sure,” she answers after a pause. “My mom needs me right now. She’s spending a lot of time at the hospital. Nonna lost her speech and she looks weak. She can’t walk. The doctors don’t know if she’ll recover or how long it might take.”
A sharp inhale tells me Serena’s trying to hold back a sob. I close my eyes, wishing I could wrap my arms around her.
She steadies her breath, letting it out in a low, shaky sigh. “Kit,” she starts, and I know the bad news is coming.
I clear my throat. “Yeah?”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to go back to Woodvale. Not yet, at least. I have to be here for my family. My mother will have to take care of my grandmother. We might need to find a home for her, which means we’ll have to clear out Nonna’s house and sell it to pay for her care…” Serena’s words drift off, her pain ringing bright and clear in her voice.
I bite my lip until I
taste blood. My heart hurts. It takes me a moment to swallow back the pain before answering, but I manage to get my voice mostly normal.
“I get it,” I say, hoarseness the only evidence I’m struggling.
“I like you, Kit,” Serena whispers. “I really do. It’s just…”
“You don’t have to explain.” I don’t want to hear the excuses. I don’t want her to let me down gently.
It was a fantasy to think I’d found a woman as beautiful, smart, funny, driven—you name it—as Serena. It was never going to work.
“I have feelings for you, Kit.”
My chest collapses. “But…?”
“But I need to be with my family right now.”
“I know.” It doesn’t make it any easier, though.
Another thing I know? This is the beginning of the end. We spent all of what, a couple of weeks together? Sure, there’s chemistry. There’s a flame. But it’s not enough to stick. It’ll be forgotten.
I close my eyes and let out a long sigh. I’m an asshole. She’s going through some of the worst pain of her life, afraid for her grandmother’s life, and I’m here thinking selfish thoughts about dating her.
“I’d better go,” she says softly. “I just heard the front door open.”
“Okay.”
We say a quiet goodbye, and I feel more confused than I did before. She didn’t break up with me, but it felt almost like a pre-breakup. Like she’s setting the groundwork to tell me she won’t be coming back to Woodvale. She’s starting to cut ties with me, and soon it’ll all be a distant memory.
Am I a jerk for hating this? The distance. The loss. Not because her grandmother is sick, but because it’s the beginning of the end of a relationship that barely existed in the first place.
I toss my phone aside, scrubbing my face as I groan.
24
Serena
When I open my bedroom door, Robbie’s standing there. His eyebrow is cocked and he searches my face. “Was that Kit?”
“Are you eavesdropping now?” I snap, heat rushing to my cheeks. My brother flinches, and I relax, sighing. I drop my head. “Yeah.”
“He called you?”
“I called him.” I don’t elaborate.
“He told me you two were…involved.”
“I don’t know what we are anymore.” I sigh, holding back tears. Robbie stares at me, trying to put together the pieces of my broken reality.
What pieces, though? The fact that I might have feelings for a man who lives on the other side of the country? The fact that I’m torn, now, between my family and my future? The fact that I felt alive for the first time in my life when I was in Woodvale, but I can’t bring myself to leave here?
Here are the facts: Nonna’s sick. Mom’s drowning in grief and paperwork and horrible decisions. Robbie might be here for a short while, but he’ll need to earn money and he’ll be back in the air within a week or two. My sisters have kids and families to take care of. My uncles and aunts can’t agree on anything more important than whether they should drink red wine or white with dinner, so they’ll only add to my mother’s burdens.
Conclusion?
There’s only me. I’m the one who’s left to support my mother while my grandmother either recovers or deteriorates. All I have pulling me away from my family duties is a temporary position at a small elementary school across the country. I can easily call Woodvale Elementary and refuse the job for personal reasons. They’d understand.
My heart stutters.
There’s Kit, too. He’s something pulling me away from here. But how could I choose a man I just met over the woman who has stood at the center of our entire family?
I can’t.
I need to stay here, even if it means the end of my budding relationship with the first man who’s made me feel like living a life for myself.
Emotions wear me down. As the days pass, exhaustion settles into my mother’s bones, and I stand beside her as support. I know this is where I need to be.
My grandmother will need constant care, and the doctors aren’t hopeful about her chances of recovery. They give us pamphlets for care homes and we keel over at the cost of them. Mom cries a lot. I try not to, but mostly fail. I was right. We’ll need to sell her house.
Kit texts me daily, but always waits for me to call. I can feel him withdrawing, as if he knows it’s the end of whatever we had—if it even existed at all. These days, my time in Woodvale feels more like a dream than anything.
Four days after I arrive in New Haven, my mother and I head to Nonna’s house and start sorting through her things. It’s hard. It’s like grieving for someone who’s still alive, which racks me with a strange sort of guilt that feels heavy and painful and cold.
But my mother cries on my shoulder, and I know I need to be here. That first day, we manage to sort through the living room photos and nothing else.
As I lie down on my childhood bed, feeling broken and tired, I swipe my finger over my phone screen and let my thumb hover over Kit’s name.
I want to hear his voice. I crave his arms around me all the time, and I wish he were here to hold me up, just like I’m trying to do for my family. But I drop my phone back down and sigh, letting tears leak out of my eyes as I curl up into a ball.
What’s the point of calling him? I’ve already emailed the school in Woodvale telling them I won’t be able to take the job. My future is pretty much set. I’m not going anywhere.
Calling Kit will only make things harder.
It’s a week until Christmas, but I don’t think we’ll be doing much celebrating this year.
In the morning, I wake up to a text from Kit. It’s just an emoji of a kissy-face, but the sight of it makes me cry. I want him here, desperately, but I know I can’t have him.
Maybe I should just break things off. Tell him that I’m not going back to Woodvale. Explain that I like him, but I need to be with my family.
But even the thought of doing that makes pain shatter across my chest. I’m not ready.
I head downstairs to find my mother in the kitchen, planning the menu for Christmas dinner. My shoulders round, but I take a deep breath and pick myself up, painting a smile on my face.
“It’ll be nice to have people over without sadness clinging to everything,” I say, but the words feel empty. Sadness isn’t clinging anymore. It’s burrowed deep into all of us and made itself at home.
That night, Kit calls. My heart jumps when I answer, closing my eyes at the sound of his voice.
“Hey, you,” he says, warm honey flowing over the phone and heating up the cold ache in my chest. “Guess what?”
“What?” My lip twitches, trying to smile.
How could I break it off with him? I’m not strong enough. His texts and phone calls are the only good thing in my life right now.
“Lydia promised me two pumpkin pies all to myself if I spent Christmas at her place,” he says. I can hear the grin in his voice.
“Yum. Wish I could have a slice.”
“I’ll save you some.”
My chest constricts.
“Kit…”
“Don’t, Serena. Please.” His voice is a whisper, and I stop talking. I know what he means. He means don’t break things off. Don’t withdraw. Don’t push me away.
What’s the alternative, though?
My weakness wins again, because I say nothing. I curl up on the bed and listen to his voice, letting a wave of calm wash over me.
“I miss you,” I whisper softly, knowing I shouldn’t say these things out loud. It’ll only make it harder in the long run.
“I miss you too,” he replies, and I like hearing the words a bit too much. We hang up the phone and I grip it to my chest, sighing heavily.
What are we doing? Why am I stringing him along when I know I won’t be going back to Woodvale? It’s cruel. The kindest thing to do would be to let him go.
I don’t, though. While I have to be the strong one with my family, I can’t be strong with Kit. E
very night, I crawl into bed and dial his number. As soon as I hear his voice, the pain in my heart eases, and I’m able to fall asleep.
We do this for three weeks. Through to the end of December, all the way past Christmas and New Year’s. Every night, we call each other and I fall asleep to the sound of his voice. Every morning, I tell myself that I need to pull away from him, but by the end of long, painful days, I’m ready to crawl back to him again.
That’s how I know I’m in trouble. Night after night, I keep going back to him.
I won’t be able to let him go.
25
Kit
In the new year, Robbie comes back to his regular route with me. When he sees me in the staff lounge in Seattle, he wraps his arms around me and squeezes me tight.
“Nice to see you too,” I grunt, pulling away.
“Missed you, man.”
“Same.” I grin. “Looks like I got lucky with you as my first copilot. The rest of these people are boring as hell.”
Robbie laughs, but there’s a sad edge to the sound. He slumps into a chair, letting out a long breath. His uniform crumples beneath him, but he doesn’t move to straighten it out. I stare at my friend, wanting to make sure he’s okay—but there’s only one thing on my mind.
“How’s Serena?”
Robbie’s eyes flick to mine, understanding written all over them. “What’s going on with you two? You guys still talking?”
I chew the inside of my lip, averting my gaze. Then, gathering my courage, I meet his eyes again. “Yeah. We are.”
Robbie nods. “That’s good. She needs someone.”
I take a deep breath. “I like her, Robbie. A lot.”
Robbie’s face grows slack, his eyes taking a distant stare. “I heard her talking to you on the phone almost every night. What are you going to do?”
My stomach clenches as I run my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I think it could have been serious, but Serena keeps talking about staying in New Haven, and Finn keeps asking me to come back to the skydiving business…”
Don't Need You: A Brother's Best Friend Romance (We Shouldn't Book 3) Page 15