“Neither was I—and I know I fucked up, letting myself feel these things. It’s my problem, not yours.” His jaw clenched, biting off the ends of the words. “Yet here we are.”
“Hey. I’m only saying that—”
“No, you’re right. You made your intentions clear from the first. And that’s fine—that’s fair. But it’s too much.”
He leaned back, unwound my arms from his body and stood, pulling away. Time slowed; I faltered, blinked through a disorienting glow as he crossed to his drafting table, as if about to start a fresh sketch. Instead, he leaned over, pressed his hands to the table surface, braced his shoulders against a sudden tremor.
I shifted to face him, gasping at the sudden dig of metal against my shin—one of his X-Acto knives, peeking from under the futon. I’d knelt on the handle. I scooped it up and stood, fiddling it absently between my fingers. A string of words fought its way to the surface, only to knot around itself and emerge backward and sideways and utterly wrong.
“Connor, when we first started this, I wasn’t looking for anything real. You know that. You said you were fine with it, you didn’t care about the whole thing with Grey, but—”
“Don’t you say his name. Don’t you dare fucking say anything about him to me. Ever. Are we understood?”
“Excuse me? ‘Are we understood?’ ” His words lit the fuse of my fury and blew it back across the room. “Should I tell you in person to fuck yourself, or do you prefer a text?”
“Goddamn it. Lane—”
“Stop. You do not get to say you love me, then speak to me like that. Do it again, and it’ll be the last time you see my face. How’s that for total honesty?”
I saw rather than heard him sigh, and even the soft rise and fall of his shoulders made me ache, nudging my anger downstream. Everything was so fucked up—if he turned around, we could at least try to dig our way through to something better. I’d tell him every thought I’d ever had, then I’d kiss him until the stars went dark. He’d never have reason to doubt me again, if he would simply turn and look at me.
Instead, he spoke, and ripped the world from beneath my feet.
“You should leave now.”
“Connor, don’t do this. Look at me. Please.”
“Go.”
And so I did. I grabbed my bag, turned and left, and that was it. Connor and Lane, barely a thing, ended before we’d really begun. The fallout of total honesty.
I was outside before I knew it, was halfway to the road when the car swerved in, lunging into a parking spot like a dying beast collapsing in its burrow. It ejected a bitter, furious mystery of wild hair and wilder eyes, and I almost didn’t know her until we were toe-to-toe.
Sadie and I hadn’t really talked since the morning after the party, when she’d woken, hungover, wrapped in my sheets. Neither she nor Grey had mentioned any change in their relationship status, and I’d figured she’d swept my part in that whole mess of a night briskly beneath her already lumpy rug. Now she stood before me in pieces, and I could barely think of a reason not to crumble right alongside her.
“Sadie? Are you okay?”
“Am I okay? Well, Lane Jamison, that is a very good question. Tell you what—why don’t you go ahead and ask your fucking brother if I’m okay?”
Her eyes spit fire; her voice tore holes in my already threadbare facade.
“What the hell is your problem?”
“Lord Jesus, give me strength. Where should I even begin?” She gave me the once-over, took in my swollen eyes and clenched jaw, the stiff, cross-armed reticence of my stance. “What’s your problem?”
I raised my chin and met her gaze, pain and anger clashing between us. “Why don’t you go ahead and ask your fucking brother?”
I stormed past her, boots determined on the gravel, then the grass, then the road. To hell with it—the city wasn’t that big. The warehouse lay square in one of the shittier parts, of course, but who even gave a fuck.
I was halfway to West Asheville before I realized I still had the X-Acto clenched in my sweaty hand. I shoved it in a side pocket of my bag, shook away another surge of tears, kept on walking over the road’s uneven shoulder. Ignored the pebble that had somehow worked its way into my boot. I was so tired. So very, very tired. But if I could keep myself going, keep my blood pumping and my feet moving, I’d be fine. I’d be stellar.
If I could hold on long enough to make it home, everything would be okay.
27
IT WASN’T OKAY. GREY’S CAR was in the driveway, and he was on the floor next to the couch, face buried in his drawn-up knees. His phone lay a few feet away, like it had been tossed. I dropped my bag and hurried to him, fear clawing through my chest.
“Oh my God, what happened? Are you all right?” He didn’t answer, and a sudden horrible thought blew a hole through my mind. “Is it Skye? Are Skye and Dad all right? Greyson, you have to talk to me.”
The sound of his name seemed to rouse him; he shifted and spoke, his voice a blank reflection of his face.
“I got into Duke.”
It was the last answer I expected—so completely out of nowhere, it didn’t register as a real sentence for several beats. Then it engulfed me, sending a strange burst of joy through the middle of my misery.
“Are you serious? Grey, I’m so proud of you, I—” I paused. He didn’t budge. “Shouldn’t you be happy?”
“I got into Duke. Then I told Sadie.” He lifted his head and stared through me, then at me, then right into my eyes. “And then we broke up.”
His words twined around the memory: Sadie in the warehouse lot, disheveled and angry and covered in tears. My heart swooped low, a bird diving too close to rocks.
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“I told her I got into Duke,” he said again. “My top school. Everything I’ve been working for since I can remember. And do you know what she said? She said: ‘Grey McIntyre, how could you do this to me.’ ”
“Oh. Wow.”
“Yeah, ‘wow.’ She made it all about her, just like every other thing.”
“Well, I’m sure she didn’t mean it, Greyson—you know how she is. Once she gets used to the idea—”
“Not this time. She doesn’t want to leave Asheville. She wants me to get a local job, and marry her, and never want anything more than that for the rest of my life.”
I shrugged, mouth twisting as I looked away.
“I’m sorry. It sucks. But if this is your dream and she won’t support you, maybe it’s for the best.”
“It damn well has to be,” he snarled, “because I’m not giving up Duke. I’m not waiting for ‘we’ll see’ to turn into permission. And you warned me, right? That we were incompatible, and I always took her shit. You warned me, and I blew it off.”
“Yeah, what else is new?” I threw him a mirror image of his own glower. “Look, I love Sadie. She’s the sweetest girl in the world. But she’s got you so trained.”
“She does not.”
“Grey, you were too scared to tell her you applied for college until you had your acceptance letter in hand. This might be the first time you ever actually told her no, and look how it ended.”
His face was a landslide, anger and sorrow engulfing his remaining dignity. He slumped forward, elbows on knees, hands gripped in his own hair.
“I can’t lose her,” he howled. “She’s my whole life. Why am I doing this, Elaine? Why can’t I just be happy with her, like I always was?”
God. He was doing that weird, gulpy, wheezing thing guys do when they’re too upset to function—not calm but not exactly crying, every breath a miserable, wet grudge. I wanted to yell at him and hold him and love him so fiercely, he’d never again know what it was to hurt. I wanted to run away, as far and fast as I could go.
Instead, I focused on peeling my boots and socks off my sore feet, rubbing the raw spot left by the pebble. Giving him space until his wheezes turned to sighs.
“If she made you that happy, you wo
uldn’t have looked for more in the first place,” I finally said. “Greyson, what did you think would happen? You’d take all your years of studying and put it toward … what? Crafting artisan soap, with my dad? Was Skye going to get you a job at the fucking Biltmore? You’re better than that. You’re going to be so much more than Sadie can imagine.”
He sat up, scrubbing a sleeve over his face. Those eyes, weary and swollen, still beautiful. Still so lost. He took my hand before I knew how to stop him, threaded his fingers through mine and held on tight. The chills were automatic, less a thrill than a shudder. I was so tired.
“Thank you,” he finally said. He peered at me, seeing for the first time past his own tears. “You … Have you slept, Elaine?”
“I sleep,” I said, voice the ghost of a sigh. Not lying by the most technical of technicalities. “I just haven’t been sleeping—sleeping well. Lately.”
“When was the last time?” I could see him counting backward in his mind, and I looked away before he got to the end of that little equation.
“I’m fine, Greyson. Anyway, you’re one to talk.”
“I have a medical condition that literally keeps me awake. If I had the choice—hey. What happened to your foot?”
“I had a rock in my shoe. It was … a long walk home.”
“You walked home? Why?” He blinked at me as if I hadn’t been sitting there the whole time, took in my clumped lashes and tearstained cheeks. “Have you been crying?”
“Oh.” I dropped his hand and rubbed my eyes, fixing them somewhere over his head. “I might have been. Connor—” The name stuck in my throat, blocked by a fresh sob.
“What about Connor?” His eyes bugged. “Did you guys break up? Are you shitting me right now?”
“If you can count it as a breakup. It’s not like we were an official couple, right? Just friends, technically speaking.”
“Oh, technically whatever. The texting, the spinning wheel. That fucking bracelet. He’s been all in for ages.”
“Those aren’t indicators.”
“They are to normal people, Elaine.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I forget how cold you can be, how completely devoid of empathy. You’re like a goddamn Vulcan.”
“I am plenty empathetic, you asshole. I’m sitting here listening to you, aren’t I? Trying to be supportive, even though Connor—”
His name shattered under its own weight, breaking into splinters, then dust. Grey’s sigh was long and loud, heavy with regret.
“Hey. I’m sorry.” He was quiet for a moment, then shifted closer, pulled me into a hug. “Come here.”
I braced myself for the expected chills, the incomparable high sparked by his touch. Nothing. A different kind of tremor seized my body, minuscule and unsettling.
If this was love, I damn sure wasn’t missing much.
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek—hard enough that I almost couldn’t hide my wince, or the shiver of revulsion at the taste of blood. Every nerve ending crackled, startling me awake with a sickening jolt.
28
“IT HAS TO BE PERFECT, Elaine. It has to be just the thing.”
Grey squinted at a bag of gingersnaps, browsed past the mochi and frozen waffles, picked through a row of ice cream cartons. I clutched the handles of the already overflowing shopping basket and leaned over the deep freeze, let the chill seep into my tired eyes. This outing was the official worst of all the bad ideas.
We’d fallen into a weird routine of grief and neutrality, my bleak fatigue a contrast to his burgeoning, skittish elation. Once the initial breakup shock wore off, Grey had embraced his newfound freedom, taking full advantage of all the perks therein. By the time the tears had dried on my face that first night, he’d already busted out the LEGOs; two days later, he’d commandeered the living room entirely, building the Millennium Falcon and getting baked as shit, while Mad Max: Fury Road played on a loop in the background. It was a good one for wakefulness, at least—I’d sat through it at least five times, and would gladly repeat as an alternative to sleep. Or to watching my stoned stepbrother sift through the entirety of Trader Joe’s on a random Wednesday night.
“I am so hiding your stash when we get home,” I told him as he chucked a bag of sesame sticks in my direction. “You’ll never smoke another bowl as long as we live.”
“I make no such promises. Would Paul still hook you up, do you think? I might have overestimated my supply.”
“I’m not even asking.” I winced at the mention of Paul, and all the implied proximities. “Can we please go? Before you blow Skye’s quinoa budget on chips?”
“One second. I need something sweet. But what? That is the question.” His brow furrowed, voice dropping to a mutter. “That is, indeed, the question. And—oh, hell yes. Elaine, check it out.”
“Cookie butter? You’re officially disgusting.” I held out the basket, but he hugged the jar to his chest, pawed at the lid like a clumsy toddler. “Greyson, you are not eating that in here.”
“Oh, I am so eating this in here. Won’t even need a spoon.”
“Gross.” I set the basket at his feet, pressed my palms to my temples, massaged them in slow circles over my weeping eyes. If I did actually wear makeup, my face would be an utter shitshow. “I’m getting a coffee sample.”
“I want one too. Extra sugar. Oooo, can we hit Starbucks?”
“Only if you hurry,” I called over my shoulder as I reached the end of the aisle. “Put the jar down and pay, so we can—oh, excuse me. I’m—oh.”
It was too ridiculous, after the way we’d ended: literally running into him. Blinking Connor Hall into focus against a backdrop of pasta and cereal, surrounded by tins of holiday cookies, bags of tea and coffee and nuts.
Two days had drifted by without him, bleak as a storm-heavy sky. I’d convinced myself it was for the best; our arrangement, begun with what I’d thought was a clear understanding of certain circumstances, overtook itself long ago, echoing a routine I knew all too well: I was a disaster, and he loved me anyway, and now he was gone. The latest in a string of boys and their attachments, and their needs, and their stupid fucking feelings. It hurt, yes, but those things always hurt. At least it was done.
And suddenly there he was in front of me—poison and thorns, face flickering from shock to anger beneath the cheerful overhead lights. A bad idea, fraying at the seams. I couldn’t look away.
“Hi.” My hand found his arm without a thought, faltered in the air as he stepped out of reach, scowl bleeding to a smear through eyes that burned with more than fatigue. He wouldn’t even let me try. “Wait. I—”
“Elaine. Elayyyyyyyne. This lid is, like, cemented on.” Grey rounded the corner and smashed into my back, bulldozing me into a display. “Aw, shit. You okay? Oh. Hey, man.”
Connor’s eyelids didn’t close so much as sag. His fingers clenched around the handle of his shopping basket, tensed and whitened, braced for the blare of the voice behind him.
I hadn’t seen Sadie in more than passing since the night at the warehouse. She’d stonewalled me at school, and I’d been a tad too preoccupied to chase her down, what with keeping my eyes open, focusing as well as I could on class and work and the still, dark screen of my phone, which was decidedly not being inundated with texts from Connor. Not that I was reeling from shock over that little factoid—next to metal, bitter silence was his medium of choice.
His sister, not so much.
“I saw you put that soup back, Connor Hall. I told you, I’m paying for those, and whatever else extra you want. You need to eat better, and I don’t have nearly the—”
Sadie, decked out in silver sequined boots and a fur-trimmed Santa sweater, nails done in candy cane stripes. Brilliant and brittle as freshly blown glass. Her lips slackened when she saw Grey, then pursed, then flattened to a crimson blade as they landed on me. Connor stalked away without a word.
“Well,” she finally sneered, dragging her eyes over my fraying braid and bitten nails, the droop of my overl
arge flannel shirt. “Don’t you look a treat.”
“Sadie.” I winced away from her snakebite glare. “Is he—”
“You don’t get to ask me about my brother. You don’t get to ask me anything.” Her phone blared “Jingle Bells” from her purse. She dug it out and answered without breaking eye contact. “Where are you? Stay out there, I’ll buy the stuff. Don’t argue. It’s—hey. Hey! Don’t you dare follow him, Lane Jamison. Come back here!”
It took me no time at all to pick him out of the crowded parking lot. Sadie’s car was parked right near the entrance, haloed in streetlight glare. Connor paced its length back and forth like a caged thing as he spoke into his phone.
“Just come get the money, Sadie. No, I’m not all right. I need the keys, and—”
“Connor.”
The phone drifted to his side, Sadie’s squawks spilling forgotten from the earpiece. He turned to face me; his eyes snagged mine, dragged the air from my lungs and the heat from my cheeks. Sunk like meat hooks into a side of flesh.
“Please talk to me, okay? I’m sorry.”
“Lane, I can’t. Seeing you here, out of nowhere—with him—it’s too fucked up.”
His words spun out low, drifted to the ground between us. He dropped his gaze, as if hoping to watch them land. I stepped closer, and he flinched; he did do that. But he also sighed. His eyes closed as I tucked a strand of ever-errant hair behind his ear. It slid back down as if I’d never touched him.
“Then let’s fix it. Let’s at least try.” Fear welled in my belly at the unflinching set of his face. I beat it back, my fingers grazing his cheek as I let my hand fall away. “Connor, I miss you so much. I’m so—”
“Leave him alone. Haven’t you done enough?”
She sailed toward us, proud and furious as a ship’s prow, shrill voice swooping ahead before she was even through the doors. It pummeled my shoulder blades, raised my hackles as I turned to meet her glare.
“This isn’t your business, Sadie.”
“You shut up. I told you—I told you he’d fall for you, and you used him anyway. Now he’s a mess, and here you still are, making it worse. Why can’t you just stay away?”
Together We Caught Fire Page 18