I slid from the bed a few hours later.
Mason was sleeping, and he rolled over as I moved. The arm that had been holding me now lay empty on the bed, his hand and fingers pointing toward me as if asking me to come back. I couldn’t.
I had a nightmare, and hearing those three gunshots all over again had woken me. I’d been trembling in bed, and I still was as I dressed for a run and laced up my sneakers. I grabbed my phone and earbuds and stepped into the hallway, but my hands weren’t strong enough to press them into my ears. They kept falling out.
I cursed under my breath, and I felt a hand on my elbow. I almost screamed, but it was Taylor. She looked haggard and pale, and as she caught my earbud and pressed it into my ear for me, I caught a whiff of throw-up on her breath.
After both earbuds were in place, she stepped back. We looked at each other. I didn’t ask if she was sick, and she didn’t ask why I was going running. We understood each other perfectly.
I slipped out the door, and I glanced back to see her going to the kitchen. I had no doubt she’d be sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee untouched in front of her when I came back.
But I couldn’t think about that. This need to cry, to rage, to laugh—it bubbled inside of me, and I only wanted to suppress it.
I started off down the driveway and turned onto the sidewalk.
I didn’t want to warm up this time. I started out hard, and I knew I would keep the same pace until I collapsed somewhere.
I didn’t want to feel this morning.
LOGAN
I woke alone, and after going to the bathroom, I knew where Taylor would be. I could smell the coffee, and sure enough, there she was—perched in a seat at the kitchen table, her coffee getting cold in front of her. One of her arms rested on her knee, her hand touching her face like she was trying not to cry as she looked out the window.
I waited a full thirty seconds, but she never moved.
“Can’t sleep?” It was meant to sound casual, but it came out like a bad joke. I winced, sitting down across from her.
She looked over, the agony in her eyes centered right on me. I felt like there was a damned hot poker stuck in my chest, burning me from the inside out.
“Are you fucking serious?” she asked, anger and exhaustion lacing her words.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it came out. I just—”
“Just what?”
I suddenly placed the weird smell from the bathroom. “You threw up.” I fell back against my chair.
“I sure did.”
And then even more dots connected for me. I silently cursed my stupidity. “Your mom.”
“The entire time I kept trying not to think about it.” She looked back out the window, her words softening. “I wasn’t in the house tonight, but I heard that gun. Three shots. Three times someone pulled that trigger.”
I knew where this was going, but I couldn’t stop it, even though I wanted to. I couldn’t take away her past, no matter how much it haunted her. I was helpless except to sit and listen, so I did.
“I ran into Sam earlier,” she said, still looking outside. “She was going for a run. I know she runs. I know you said that’s what she does to cope, but I didn’t get it. I mean, I get it. I’ve been at the house when she left to go for a run and when she came back. I know how long she goes for sometimes, but it wasn’t till this morning that I really understood it.” She looked back to me now. “She looked as haunted as I feel. She’s going to run until she doesn’t feel, just like I threw up, but it never matters. The feelings always come back. Maybe I should try it her way. I bet she doesn’t feel for a couple hours after she’s exhausted.”
“What Sam does—” I leaned forward, making sure I was speaking gently. “—isn’t healthy. She’s just trying to run from the feelings.”
“Literally.” Taylor laughed, shaking her head. “But that’s not what she’s doing. She’s not trying to hide from her stuff. She’s trying to control it, suppress it so she can get a handle on it. That’s all she’s doing.”
“Look.” I spread my hands on the table. I itched to go to her, pick her up, kiss her until she could only feel me, but I did none of that. “I don’t know what’s bothering Sam right now, but—”
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist!” Taylor’s eyes jerked over my shoulder, and I knew my brother was there.
“She left your bed for the same reason I’m sitting here,” she said to him. “She’s scared to death of losing you guys. She lost everything before, and you two picked up her pieces. She can’t go back. I’m not sitting here worried I’ll lose someone to a gunman. I’m sitting here because I already did. My mom died, and I was right back there in that hospital tonight when I closed my eyes.”
She stood, her eyes blazing at both of us. “I’ll get over my stuff. It’s called PTSD, but that doesn’t change the fact that you both could’ve been killed tonight.”
“Taylor,” I started, standing up. Mason was right next to me, but he didn’t say a word. His hands were in his sweatpants pockets, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“I am angry, Logan, and I have every right to be angry. You’re not children anymore. You’re not pissed off because your dad’s a cheating whore and getting a divorce. You’re going to be a junior in college. Mason, you’re a senior. You’re both too fucking old to be doing this shit.”
“Taylo—”
“You were somewhere a gun was at!” Her hands were in fists, pressing down on the table so much I worried she’d break a knuckle. “You have serious enemies, and not even the typical douchebag jock who’s pissed because you stole his girlfriend. You have someone going after you because you helped put his best friend in prison! That’s insane! What are you two doing?!” She looked at us a moment before she kept yelling. “Be normal! Be boring even! At least you’ll be alive then!”
Then just as quickly as she’d blown up, she quieted. Her head hung down, and her shoulders rose and fell twice as she took two deep breaths.
She reached for her coffee cup. “I will be fine. I will get over this, and I will move on. I know we’re going back to Cain in a month, and when you’re there, life is steady. I’ve been around long enough to know that my stuff was your last dramatic hiccup there, but being back here?” She shook her head, her hand curling tightly around her cup. “It is scary being here with you guys. If you both are smart, you’ll leave and never come back to Fallen Crest again. Visits. Holidays. Those short-term intervals are fine, but living here?” She drew in a shallow breath, closing her eyes. “You guys are going to get yourselves killed. If you don’t do it for me, do it for Sam. You’re her lifeline. Don’t ever cut that string.”
Taylor dumped out her cold coffee and left the kitchen.
On a typical day I’d have a sarcastic drop-the-mic comment ready to go. Today I swallowed it, pushed past Mason, and followed my girlfriend back to bed. I climbed in and hugged her to me.
I held on to her as hard as I could.
SAMANTHA
I was still running, and it was going on an hour and a half now. My legs were getting weaker, but the storm raged on inside of me. It was churning, twisting, and lashing out. I had to keep going until some of it faded. I couldn’t deal if it wouldn’t, but as I cleared a valley, I suddenly slowed.
Mason’s black Escalade was parked next to the running path. I was high up in the hills, with Fallen Crest long behind me, so seeing another person at all was surprising. Having it be Mason was even more so.
Dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt and black sweatpants, he leaned against the seat, his door open. His hair was wet, his eyes shadowed as he watched me come toward him. He took my breath away.
“Hey,” I managed, my breathing erratic. I rested my hands on my hips. “What are you doing up here?” I looked around. The road he’d driven on was narrow. Barely any cars made their way up here. “How’d you know I came this way?”
“Because you went running to suppress something. I knew it was bad, and you always take this route if it’s really bad.”
“Oh.” A warm feeling flooded me, covering some of the tension inside.
He stood. “Taylor chewed Logan and me out after you left.”
“She did?”
He nodded. “She said we need to grow up.” He shrugged. “I’m pretty sure the undertone was that I’m a tool for not being sensitive to your worries.”
“My worries?”
I felt like I was still running. My chest tightened. My breath pressed against it, trying to get free.
He moved closer, almost within touching distance. “Your life fell apart. Logan and I picked up your pieces, and she said you’re worried the same thing will happen all over again.” His eyes looked into me. “Is that true? Do you think something’s going to happen to me or Logan?”
I shrugged. “I was worried about that, still am, but that’s not all that’s going on with me.”
“Then what is?”
“I…” I could only stare at him. Memories of when we first met, that whole year, flashed in my mind. It was too much, but I felt a pressure in me. It was pushing harder and harder. I didn’t know what that was, but it was uncomfortable, and I couldn’t get rid of it. Finally I just gave in, bending over. “I have no idea.”
“Your mom?”
“Probably.” I rested my hands on my knees and looked up at him. “Does that make me crazy? She hasn’t even done anything. I saw a car she was in, and I saw her walking one morning, but she’s in here.” I straightened and pointed to my head. “She’s like a fucking worm. She got in here, and I feel her wiggling around. I want her out, Mason, but she won’t go.”
“Maybe you should go see her.”
“What?” I stopped. He couldn’t have suggested that, not him.
He leaned back against his seat, resting an arm on his open door. “She’s here. You know it. She knows it. The wedding is only a month away.”
I sucked in my breath. I’d forgotten about the wedding. “Am I supposed to go to that?” Or worse— “Am I supposed to help with that?”
He looked ready to say something, then thought better of it.
“What?”
He held his hands up in the air. “It’s not that I was keeping this from you; I just heard it once, and I forgot to say something because I figured you knew.”
“Mason,” I warned, keeping my eyes locked on him. “Tell me. Now.”
He groaned. “I thought Malinda said something to you. Honest to God, that’s why I didn’t say anything the one time I thought about it. But she’s been helping your mom with the wedding.”
“What?”
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Sam. I really am. I honestly thought you knew.”
Had Malinda said something? Maybe. “She talks to my mom, and she’s been on this whole kick to spy on other weddings. It makes sense.”
He softened his voice. “Is that what all this is about?”
“What do you mean?”
His eyes softened, and he moved toward me. His hand touched the underside of my chin, and he lifted my head so I was looking up at him. His thumb rubbed over my cheek in a loving caress.
“You went to Channing’s fight without me. You’re working at a carnival. Now you’re running like you used to. Is this all about your mom, and now the gun incident last night, or is there something else going on?”
Was there something else? I felt that storm in me, pressing to get out, rising up, exploding. I shook my head. I couldn’t even talk about it. “If I knew, I would tell you.”
“Okay.” He pulled me to his chest, cradling my head there. His lips brushed my forehead. He smoothed a hand down my hair, rubbing over my back in comfort. “You don’t have to push it. When you know, I’m here.”
I closed my eyes and rested.