Chapter Twenty-Four – Kyle

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Iz, I’m fine. Just go, will you?”

She sighs. “Okay. I’m going to the café.”

I’m not replying to that. I know why she’s going, and I already have too much Roxy on my mind to be able to think about anything else. And knowing how she’s hurting is the last thing I need.

Seeing the look on her face as I walked away near damn killed me. Her eyes held a sadness and shock I’ve never seen before. The pain in her voice when she called after me made me feel like the biggest dick in the world, but I had no choice.

I still have no choice.

This is my last option. Walking away from her, breaking both our hearts, it’s all I have left to convince her to stop. One stupid little misunderstanding – one that we’re both to blame for – and she jumped straight back into her old ways.

Yet I still can’t believe I actually walked away from her.

If I’d been another guy, I would have punched me in the face by now. Shit, who am I kidding? I wanna punch me in the face anyway.

I get up and take the stairs to my room. Fuck everything today. Fuck everything that doesn’t involve following my sister to the café to grab Roxy and apologize I’m blue in the face.

Nothing I do can save us from this fall out. I’m not stupid. The only thing that could is her coming to me, not the other way around. If I go to her the way I want to I’m forgiving her for everything she’s done. I’m forgiving her for giving up on her, on us, and right now that’s out of the question.

I never stopped believing in her. I never stopped believing in us. Not even for a minute.

Maybe I could have tried harder to make her believe me. Maybe I could have been honest with her. “I care about you” is such an understatement. It’s the understatement of the goddamn fucking millennium!

If I could go back I would. If I could tell her how I really feel, if I could stay in her room instead of walk away, I would. I’d do everything differently and we wouldn’t be here right now. She wouldn’t have a broken heart, she wouldn’t have had those tears in her eyes on Friday night, and she wouldn’t have had to watch me go.

The irony of this situation is everything I’ve done this summer is to mend her broken heart… And now I’ve broken it all over again.

I never honestly thought I’d have to walk away from her. I thought – although I never planned it – us just being together would be enough. I thought I would be enough to make her stop the way she’s been acting. I thought everything between us would be enough to make her give up the bad girl act.

Because she’s not. No matter how many times she tells me she’s not the person she was, that she’s a different person now, I know otherwise. I’ve seen the person she was before Cam died. I’ve seen that smile and heard that laugh and seen that sparkle in her eyes. I’ve heard that teasing sarcasm and wit and seen that playful eye roll.

I’ve also seen the hurt and confusion. If she really didn’t have any of the old Roxy left, she wouldn’t have been hurt when I walked away. She wouldn’t have cared. She can try to convince us both otherwise, but she’s still my Roxy.

But that wasn’t the Roxy I fell in love with.

I fell in love with the person she is right this second.

The Roxy that’s lost and hurt, confused and alone, and most of all, heartbroken. Yet she’s the Roxy that’s not afraid to grab you by the balls and twist them. The one that’s playful, sexy, and challenging one minute, then she’s soft and gentle and quiet the next. She’s a mixture of so many things, so many contradicting things, and I fell in love with all of those things.

I didn’t walk away from the bad girl Roxy.

I walked away from the mixture of good and bad, the mixture of her past and present self.

I walked away from the girl I fell in love with.

And that makes it worse. That makes this whole clusterfuck of emotions running through me stronger. It makes it so much fucking worse because now I’m not thinking I need to do this for her own good. I’m thinking I need to get off my ass and go and get my girl back.

I have to remind myself walking away from her was my third and final option. I didn’t expect it to hurt this way. I didn’t expect us to fall in love and tear our own hearts out.

I guess the third time isn’t always so lucky.

“Kyle!” Iz screams through heavy steps on the stairs. She flies through my bedroom door. “Kyle!”

I jump up and look at her. “What? What’s wrong?”

“You have to do something.” She swallows and blinks harshly, but I can still see the tears brimming in her eyes.

“What?”

“No one’s seen or heard from her for three days. She’s gone.”

And just like that, everything stops. My heart pauses and my breathing ceases. Every muscle in my body tightens and I stare at my sister, hoping to fuck I’m thinking something different to what she means. Hoping the twisting and turning feeling in my stomach isn’t telling me what I’m suddenly so scared of.

“Who?”

Iz puts her hand over her mouth.

“Iz. Tell me who!” I yell. Fuck. Please don’t say it. Please don’t say her name.

A tear spills from my sister’s eye.

Please.

“Roxy. She’s missing.”

“Missing?” I repeat. My hands come up to my head and my fingers sink into my head. “What do you mean, she’s missing?”

“She disappeared on Saturday afternoon. Myra called everyone in case Roxy was hiding there. She thought she’d be with Selena, but she isn’t. She hasn’t heard from her either.”

“Layla?” I choke on her name.

Iz shakes her head. “Hasn’t seen her since before… You know.”

I nod. I know. “Why didn’t she tell us? I’ve been sitting here feeling sorry for myself and she’s been fuck knows where!”

“She didn’t want to worry us. She thought she might have just taken off for a day or two to calm down. Apparently Roxy did that just after Cam died, but now she’s worried. She’s never disappeared for four days before.”

I sink back to the bed and bury my face in my hands. “Has she called the cops yet?”

“No. She wanted to talk to us first… See if we might know where she is.”

“Let’s go then.”

“Wait,” Iz calls, running after me. “Kyle! That’s not all.”

“What? How can it get any fucking worse than the girl I’m in love with being god knows where?” I yell. “How?”

My sister grabs me and holds me in a way she hasn’t since we were little. I clench my whole body, biting back the tears burning in the backs of my eyes.

I’m real fucking mad she’s gone and no one knows where she’s been. But I’m worried. And I’m scared. I’ve never been so scared about anything in my whole life. I thought I was scared of losing her before, but that fear was nothing compared to the one running rife through me right now.

The fear I could lose her for good.

She could be anywhere. With anyone. Doing anything.

I need to know Roxy is okay.

Nothing else matters except for that. Nothing else ever matters.

“Myra’s broken down,” Iz tells me when she releases me. “Really broken down. She’s locked herself in the bedroom and is refusing to leave. She’s just… God, Ky. She’s just crying. She can’t fight anymore and I’m worried about her. She won’t let Ray in. She won’t talk. All she’s doing is crying.”

I don’t answer her. I pull the door open with all my strength and run toward her house. My feet pound against the asphalt as I run faster than I ever have.

Without Cam here, the only person that can be the strength in that family is me. I’m the only person left that can hold it together – and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

I burst through their front door and up the stairs, only just registering Iz panting behind me. Ray’s leaning against Roxy’s door, his shoulders hunched and his fists clenched at his side.

I spent half of my childhood looking up to this man as my second dad. I’ve seen him in every mood, from raging mad to laughing his ass off, but I’ve never seen him look so vulnerable. I’ve never seen him so broken.

I tear my eyes from him and bang on Myra’s door. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Open the door, Myra!”

Nothing.

“C’mon, it’s me.” Bang. “Please.”

Nothing.

Bang bang bang. “I swear, I’m not going anywhere until you open it! If I have to sit here until you open it then I will!”

Nothing. Nothing except the sounds of desperate sobs creeping through the gaps around the door. Nothing except the sounds of complete and utter despair.

Of surrender.

Of heartbreak in the purest, rawest sense of the word.

“Fine,” I call through. “I’ll just sit here until you come out.”

I turn my back to the door and slide down it. Ray turns and hits me with destroyed, pale blue eyes full of questions. I meet his gaze and hold it steadily despite the shaking of my body.

“You lost your son, but you still have me.”