Going Under (The Blackhawk Boys Book 3)

by Lexi Ryan

  I can’t eat. My stomach’s too much of a mess, but I take a few polite sips of the coffee.

  “In our culture,” Maggie says, when we’re all seated around the coffee table, “we too often assume that things lose their value if they’re broken. It’s obvious, right? Why would a glass that can’t hold water be worth as much as one that is unbroken and can help us quench our thirst? Why would a car that can’t run be worth as much as one that can?”

  Sebastian and I exchange a look, and he grins before speaking. “But just because the car doesn’t run now doesn’t mean it can’t with some work.”

  “Right,” Maggie says. “But when we repair something that’s been broken, it’s different. The idea of Kintsukuroi is that in that process, it gains value. Just like us.” She looks at me and her gaze drops to my neck, where my dress has shifted and shows more of my scar than I like. “We break, and we heal. Our scars can make us more beautiful than we were before.”

  Sebastian takes my hand in his and squeezes my fingertips. His skin is warm and his touch reminds me to breathe.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sebastian

  Alex is quiet when we leave the art gallery, and her silence makes my chest ache. The look on her face when Maggie talked about Kintsukuroi was enough to break my heart. Anyone could see—and Maggie clearly did—that the concept hit close to home for Alex. All I could do was sit there and hold her hand. We asked Maggie our questions and walked silently back to the car. I don’t know if I should just let her be or get her to talk about it, but I want to say something—anything—because I hate seeing so much grief in her eyes.

  I choose silence, and reach across the console to put my hand on her leg.

  She squeezes my fingertips. “I’m sorry I kind of lost it in there. I wasn’t prepared for that.”

  “You don’t need to apologize. I’m just glad you see it.”

  Her brow furrows with her frown. “See what?”

  “The connection—Kintsukuroi—and your scars…” I don’t know how to say it without sounding like a corny greeting card. “You’re beautiful, and your scars are too. It’s exactly why I want to do my photography project on you.”

  “You think I was crying for myself?” She looks away, watching the landscape roll by outside her window.

  It seemed so obvious to me, and I think Maggie thought the same. “No one would blame you if you were.”

  “I was thinking about my sister.” She closes her eyes and squeezes my hand hard. “She wasn’t just some crazy party girl. I know that’s what everyone thinks.” She’s quiet a beat before adding, “That’s even what my parents think. Martina was just trying to cope.”

  “Cope with what?”

  She releases my hand and wraps her arms around herself, as if she’s suddenly cold. The silence stretches for so long that I start to think she’s not going to reply when she says, “I didn’t know about it until a few weeks before she died, and if she hadn’t been in such a dark place, I don’t think she would have told me. Even as screwed up as she was at the end, I know she regretted letting the truth out.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “When we were kids, we’d stay over at our aunt and uncle’s house a lot. Mom and Dad were busy with our brothers’ sports, so they’d take us there.” She looks to me and back out the window, and my gut turns sour because I don’t know where this is going, but I know it won’t be good. “Martina said it happened the first time when we were ten. He came into the room after we fell asleep.”

  Bile creeps up my throat. Disgust. Horror.

  “I always wondered why she insisted on sleeping on the side of the bed by the door,” she whispers. “I always wondered why no matter how long I forced myself to keep my eyes open, she never fell asleep first there. It wasn’t until she screamed the truth at me that I finally understood. After it happened that first time, she made sure he never had a reason to reach beyond her.”

  “God, I didn’t know.”

  She shakes her head. “No one did. No one. When we were fourteen, the asshole died of a heart attack, and I remember her face at the funeral. She looked at the casket with a hard jaw, as if she hated him for being in the room even when he was dead. I had no idea. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around something like that. I’d been so sheltered that it wouldn’t have ever crossed my mind to guess what he’d done to her. But I could tell she was glad he was dead. I could feel it. So I was glad too.” She shivers hard, even though the evening sun is beating down on the car and making it hot in here. “That kind of violation screws you up. That’s why she was always looking for trouble. That’s why she was always so desperate for the next high.”

  I know nothing can take this chill from her bones, but I turn off the air conditioner anyway. “Why did she finally tell you?”

  “It was a few weeks before she died. Rehab was a big fail, and she was using again, only my parents were watching, and it was harder for her to get what she was looking for. It was a day shortly before she ran away, and I went off on her. I told her what a disappointment she was. I told her she was spoiled and selfish and needed to straighten up and realize she was throwing away a perfectly good life for no reason.” A tear rolls down her cheek, and she bites her bottom lip. “I pushed her, and she snapped. She told me everything. She screamed at me—said she’d protected me over and over again from that sick old man, and I had no idea what it was like for her to wake up in the middle of the night in a panic thinking he might be coming.” She draws in a deep breath, and it rattles as it passes in through her tears. “That broken pottery made me think of my sister. Of how beautiful she could be if she were still alive. Of how much she could give to the world if anyone had bothered to put her back together.”

  I turn off at the exit and park the car along the side of the road so I can turn to face her. “Alex.” When she lifts her blue eyes to mine, they’re shimmering with tears. “You can’t fix someone who hides their broken pieces.”

  “I know. But I wish I would have tried.” Her bottom lip trembles. “It could have been me, Sebastian. I ask myself, if I’d been the one closer to the door that first night, what would I have done? Would I have always made sure that he came for me and left her alone? Or would I have pretended I was asleep? Maybe I’d have told myself I didn’t know what was happening when he took her? So, yeah, I ran into a fire to try to save my sister because she spent four years facing the fire for me.”

  I pull her into my arms, and her shoulders shake as she cries against my chest. “You did everything you could for her. You can’t blame yourself for his crime.”

  “Some days I miss her so much it hurts.” Alex and Martina may have been oil-and-vinegar opposites—soft and hard, tame and rebellious, innocent and experienced—but that never kept them from having a connection most people could never understand. I know I never understood it.

  “She’d be proud of you,” I whisper, and it’s true. If Martina were alive and sober, she’d be proud of her twin.

  Alex snorts. “For being twenty-one and having no idea what I want to do with my life? For trying to seduce a boy and failing miserably? For learning how to drink?” She shivers, her whole body shaking with it.

  I look down to study her face, the running mascara making dark circles beneath her eyes, the scar on her mouth. “For going to school. For searching for your passion. For showing your scars.”

  Her hand goes to her face, and for a moment, I regret bringing them up and reminding her of them. I don’t think many moments pass where Alex isn’t conscious of her burns. Her fingertips trail down her neck and over her collarbone. “I’d do it again.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. Talking about Martina is always dangerous, but I’ve never wanted to be one of the countless people who skirt around that terrible night. If she wants to talk about it, I’m going to listen. No matter how much it hurts.

  “I know everyone thinks I’m stupid for literally running into a burning building, but they don’t get it. I was wa
lking home from a friend’s house when I saw her, and I followed her without letting her know I was there. We didn’t know where she was living, and Mom was afraid to go to the cops because there were rumors she was dealing drugs and she didn’t want her to get arrested.” She rubs her arms. “I followed her and watched as she went into that dilapidated old house. I was waiting across the street, trying to decide what to do next, when I heard the explosion.”

  I hold her tighter and squeeze my eyes shut. I can picture the house on Oak Street like I was there yesterday. The house was condemned and vacant, and it was only one of the places where Dad and I cooked meth. I still don’t know why Martina was there, and right after it happened, I spent some dark weeks blaming her. She shouldn’t have been there. She shouldn’t have touched the lab. She must have done something to cause the explosion and subsequent fire. But as I processed my grief and my guilt, I had to accept what I already knew to be true. She shouldn’t have died in that explosion. It wasn’t her lab. If someone was going to die that night, it should have been me.

  “I’d do it again,” Alex says, and I loosen my grip on her, afraid I might be holding her tight enough to hurt. “If I thought there was any chance I could save her—even a fraction of a percentage of a chance—I’d do it again. I’d suffer through those horrible skin grafts again, the weeks and weeks of excruciating physical therapy.” She pulls back to look at me. “The years of people staring when they see my scars. I’d do it all again just to try to get my sister back.”

  “That’s not what she would want. You know that, right?”

  “Oh, I know.” Her smile is simultaneously sad and proud. It’s a special smile she reserves for talk of her sister. “But it doesn’t change anything. Because I fucking miss her and I’m angry with her. I want her to live so I can yell at her for being so stupid. I want her to live so I can be jealous of her being everything I’m not. But mostly, I want her to live because I want my best friend back. And I don’t get that, because even though she kept me safe from a sick man for four years, I didn’t save her when she needed it.”

  I feel like she’s plucking out chunks of my heart and tossing them into boiling lava. “It wasn’t your job to save her.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t mean from the fire. I mean from her addiction. I didn’t even try. Not really. Once we hit high school, our differences were so obvious and painful to me…I got caught up in the petty things. She was prettier, more popular, more comfortable in her own skin. Boys loved her, and I was jealous.” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. “When she first started using, I was upset. I told her she needed to get help. But part of me…” She lifts her eyes to meet mine. “Part of me felt vindicated because there was one thing where I was better. She was prettier, smarter, cooler, everything, but at least I didn’t use drugs.” She closes her eyes, and a tear slips through her lashes and down her cheek, bringing an inky streak of mascara with it.

  I wipe it away with my thumb and leave behind a smudge on her cheek. I can’t tear my eyes from that smudge, that evidence that I can’t comfort her without consequence. My most well-intentioned interference with Alex’s life will leave its mark.

  “All that time that I was jealous of her for being so much prettier than me, being pretty was her curse. All that time, she was walking around broken and we were all criticizing her for coping. It’s like criticizing someone who’s paralyzed because they never walk. I just wish she would have told me.”

  I stroke her hair from her face and draw in a ragged breath. “Sometimes we hide the truth to protect people we love. Sometimes it’s the only choice we have.”

  * * *

  Alexandra

  I don’t know how long we sit there on the side of the road, Sebastian holding me in his arms while I sniffle against his shirt. I don’t pull away until I finally feel like I might not fall apart, and the sun is low on the horizon, painting the sky in reds and oranges to match the autumn leaves.

  I slide back over to the passenger seat and find a tissue in my purse. Pulling down the visor, I use the mirror and tissue to do the best I can to clean up my face. “I’m sorry about your shirt,” I say with a soft smile. “And the total emotional breakdown. I don’t think I knew how much I needed to talk about it until the words started spilling from my lips.”

  “You can cry on me any time you want.” He attempts a smile; while I’m feeling reborn after my cry, he looks so damn sad.

  “Are you okay?”

  He wraps his hands around the steering wheel and squeezes before meeting my eyes. “When I asked you if you were a virgin and you said yes and no…” He swallows. “If your uncle…” He grimaces and his knuckles go white as he squeezes the wheel harder.

  I shake my head. “No, Sebastian. That’s not what I meant. Not at all. Martina protected me.” It hurts to think about, and yet after sharing it with him, it hurts a little less. “I’ve had sex before. I had a boyfriend in tenth grade—before the fire—and we…” I shrug. “We were together for months, and it just seemed like the thing to do.”

  He releases the wheel and exhales. “Then why did you say yes and no?”

  I shrug. “I haven’t had sex since the fire. No one but my doctors have seen me without the worst of my scars covered. I guess it kind of feels like its own kind of virginity. Maybe in a lot of ways it feels more important than having sex the first time. It’s scarier.” I have to laugh at myself. It’s so damn dramatic. “I’m sorry. You asked a straightforward question. I shouldn’t have answered it like that.”

  “No. No, I’m glad you did. You gave me your honest answer instead of the obvious, easy one. I know it’s none of my business, but I just…” His voice cracks. “Don’t let Logan push you to move faster than you want. I know you want to give him a chance, but it’s more important that you take things at your own pace.”

  “I promise I’ll let him know if he’s going too fast, but this is our second date. I don’t think I’m there yet.” As soon as I say it, I realize I’ve never been on a date with Sebastian, and yet he’s done things to me that no one else ever has.

  We’re quiet the rest of the drive home, and when he pulls up to Mr. Patterson’s house, he surprises me by reaching for my hand. “Thank you for going with me today.”

  “It was a successful trip,” I say. He grins at me, and my stomach flips.

  “How’s next Sunday for our photoshoot? I can get the studio in the evening if you’re free.”

  I take a breath. “Yeah, I guess that works.” I trace the scar on my neck. “If I chicken out, will you be screwed over?”

  He shakes his head. “Nah, if you change your mind, I’ll figure out something else. Wanna go grab a drink with me?”

  I open my mouth to tell him I love that idea, then I remember Logan. “I have plans, remember?”

  “Right. The Amazing Logan is waiting.” His lips twist, and for a second I think he might tell me to cancel, to spend the night with him instead. “I hope you have a great time.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Alexandra

  Logan picked me up at six thirty. He took me to dinner at a little place downtown, where we sat on their back patio and drank wine and held hands on top of the table. He talked about his new business and asked about my time in Colorado. It’s been the perfect evening, except I’ve spent most of it thinking about Sebastian.

  “Did you like your gift?” Logan asks as we leave the restaurant.

  “I loved it. It’s beautiful.”

  “Then it suits you,” he says.

  “Why are you so interested in me? I mean, why me?”

  He arches a brow. “I assume you’re looking for more than the fact that you’re the kindest, sweetest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever met?”

  I bite my lip and look into his eyes. Does he really mean those things? I draw in a breath for courage. “I want you to know the reason I didn’t call.”

  He shifts and takes a deep breath. “Is this the part where you tell me you’re se
eing someone else?”

  Guilt twists my stomach, but oddly, it’s not as much over what I did with Sebastian in the pool as it is over letting him hold me today in the car. “It’s complicated, but I feel like it would be dishonest for me to go into this with you if you were under the impression that you’re my only romantic interest.” I flinch at the phrase. Romantic interest feels like it implies reciprocation, when in truth Sebastian made the limits of our relationship clear. “I completely understand if you want to stop while we’re ahead.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean maybe you want to end this before it begins.”

  Logan drags a hand over his mouth and tilts his face up to the sky before looking at me again. “Let me be honest, Alexandra. I’ve never dated a girl while she was involved with someone else—physically or emotionally. I’ve never been interested in that kind of arrangement, because I’m a selfish asshole and I don’t share well.” His jaw tightens, but when he exhales, some of the tension leaves his face. “And the fact that you’re so fucking special doesn’t make me any more inclined to want to share you.”

  This speech coming from this gorgeous man should have me swooning. Instead, I’m thinking of Sebastian’s knuckles brushing mine as we walked down the streets of New Hope. I’m thinking of the way he held me as I cried.

  I can’t even tell if I’m relieved or disappointed to walk away from this—from something that could have turned into a real relationship, as opposed to Sebastian’s incessant long glances and flirtations that go absolutely nowhere. “I understand,” I say.

  “Do you?” He releases a puff of air that was maybe supposed to be a laugh. “Because I fucking don’t. I don’t understand how you have such a hold on me already that I’m willing to keep things casual while you figure out what you want.”