Chapter 16 Willa
Willa
My fingers have finally stopped shaking as I take the glass of water Luna offers me. It’s cool on my throat. Soothing. Even as the echo of gunfire rings loudly in my thoughts.
“Thank you.” I set the glass down on the coffee table. “I could have gotten it myself.”
“It’s no trouble.” She yawns, taking a step back.
“If you’re tired, feel free to go lie down. I’ll be fine on the couch until Dean gets back.”
“I’m okay for now.”
When we first got here a couple of hours ago, Reagan and Tempe were sitting in the kitchen, wide awake after what happened at the clubhouse. Stress hung like a cloud in the air as Luna and I explained everything that went down.
But when Tempe started rubbing her belly and wincing, we cut out some of the details. She doesn’t need to be worrying like that right now.
Once they went back to bed, Luna and I sat on Reagan’s couch, not talking. I get the sense she’s also processing what happened, even if she seems to be doing a better job of it than I am.
It’s late now—or early. I glance at the clock and see it’s four in the morning. Reagan said she made up the guest rooms for us, but I can’t imagine closing my eyes with Dean still out there. He could be in church. Or worse, he might have left to chase the men down who did this.
The thought of him putting himself in more danger tonight after he’s already survived a shoot-out has my mind racing. Memories blur with the events of the evening, blending the past and present together.
“Tonight was a lot.” Luna sits on the couch beside me. “The club can be a lot. The guns—”
“Guns don’t bother me.”
Her eyebrows pinch. “Oh, I just saw you were shaken, and I assumed that’s what you were worried about. I know most people aren’t used to all this.”
“And you are?”
“Unfortunately.” She frowns.
“Me too… kind of. Back home, people will do anything to protect their land. I grew up surrounded by guns. That part doesn’t bother me.” I frown. “But that guy on the patio with his leg twisted… it was something about the way he was positioned that reminded me of my mom. I’m just a little shaken.”
The image of him twisted in his chair bleeds into memories of her at the bottom of the staircase. Bile rises in my throat as my mind works between them.
Luna’s eyebrows pinch. “Did something happen to her?”
I swallow hard, wishing I didn’t still see it in my mind like it was yesterday. “She died from falling down the stairs.”
It happened so soon after Dean’s mom passed away that a part of me thought it was a nightmare I’d wake up from. It was too unlikely to be real. Less than a year prior, we’d buried his mother. And with her, we’d known it was coming.
My mom was fine. A little too drunk, a little too often—but fine.
It didn’t make sense.
She was there, and then she was gone. It all happened so fast.
“I didn’t realize.” Luna frowns.
“It was a long time ago.” I try to downplay it because she didn’t mean to touch on a sore subject, and I don’t want her to feel bad about it. “She died right after my high school graduation. Right before Dean left, actually.”
“That’s a lot all at once.”
“Yeah.” For both of us. “I know they say the universe only throws at you what you can handle, but it sure threw a lot that year. At Dean. At me. Even if he had stayed, I don’t know that we could have gotten past the mess we were living in.”
Luna shakes her head. “I know how that goes. But you’re here now. You and Chaos seem to be building bridges.”
“I’m trying, but I don’t know if I can ever erase all the mistakes I made.”
“You said this all happened right after you graduated. You were kids back then. Everyone fucks up at that age.”
“There’s fucking up, and then there’s what I did. When Dean needed me most, I turned my back on him. Worse than that, I chose his brother. That’s not exactly forgivable.”
“Did you love his brother?”
“No.” I scowl. “It wasn’t like that with us. I just… didn’t have a choice.”
“Well, you do now.” Luna smiles, reaching over to squeeze my hand.
I have a choice.
She’s right. For the first time in over a decade, that’s true. I started this by choosing to leave Kincaid. To stop placating my father. I made the choice to find Dean. And even if, at first, he wouldn’t let me leave, I’m the one who is still here by choice now.
The choice is mine, and my mind is clear.
We couldn’t have worked when we were kids. Dean was a disaster, and I was barely surviving. He wanted an escape, and I wanted to hold everything together. Even if my father hadn’t added pressure, we wouldn’t have worked.
Two broken people can’t put each other back together, and that’s what we were—a puzzle with more missing pieces than we could count.
But now, we’ve had time. Space.
Could that mean things have changed? Is there even the slightest chance we could start over?
“Talk to him,” Luna says, like she’s reading me too easily. “Chaos is a lot more understanding than people realize.”
I’d like to think that’s true, that we could erase the past and just start over. That he could forgive me for taking the easy road when I chose his brother. But he still doesn’t know all my sins. To move forward, I need to reveal everything.
A knock comes at the front door, and I know it’s Dean without having to walk over and open it.
I feel him, like I have all these years.
That undeniable energy that is him, existing in this world, whether he’s near me or not.
The other half that I was too scared to claim back then, so I pushed him away.
Maybe that was for the best. We wouldn’t have been good for each other in that state. It’s possible we would have simply ruined each other more. But now…
Is there any denying this pull?
After our night together at Sapphire Rise, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to bury my feelings for him again.
“I’ll get that. You should go to bed.” I stand as Luna yawns bigger this time.
“Call me tomorrow, okay?” she says, already heading down the hallway.
“I will.” I walk to the door, and when I swing it open, Dean stands with his arms caging the doorframe. His head hangs low, his dark hair messy. He’s exhausted.
Defeated.
When his eyes meet mine, they’re endless.
“You came to get me.”
“Promised you I would, didn’t I?” He grins, and even if the weight of tonight is heavy in his gaze, there’s light in his smile.
Just for me.
I step outside, and Dean takes my hand. He kisses the back of it, pausing with his lips on my skin. Breathing me in like he’s checking that I’m still here.
For the first time in years, I am.
A bitter-cold chill runs my spine. Nothing should be cold in Texas this time of year, but the emptiness of the hallway has me shivering. I rub my hands on my arms, but there’s no warmth to be found.
I’m staring at a closed door.
The moment I breach that threshold, the doctor’s words become true. Out here, there’s still a chance she’s going to pull through, but the moment I step inside that room…
I shake my head, unable to think about it.
My eyes close, and memories haunt me in flashes.
I see Mom braiding my hair so tightly that my eyes watered. She would help us get ready and pick out what Eden and I would wear so Dad wouldn’t complain that we didn’t care about appearances.
I see Mom tucking me in at night. She would sing her favorite rock songs to lull me to sleep. They still bring me comfort when I hear them.
I see Mom downing a bottle of whiskey after she caught Dad cheating for the umpteenth time.
She threw the bottle at his head, and it shattered against the corner of the stone hearth.
A piece of glass got stuck between two old wooden floorboards, and that green shard is still there to this day.
And so was she, because no matter what he did, she didn’t leave him.
Until now, I guess. Although it’s not the same.
Nothing will ever be the same.
Mom’s face is perfectly framed by the window that looks into her hospital room. The machines are off, and the tubes have been pulled out, but I lie to myself, imagining there’s still color in her cheeks. Picturing the rise and fall of her chest.
She wasn’t the most nurturing mother, and these past couple of years, she was drunk more often than not. But she was better than him.
Now it’s just me, Eden, and our father.
“Willa.” Dean’s voice makes me jump as I turn around.
A tear rolls down my cheek, and he reaches to brush it away, but I step back, out of his reach. This is what I deserve. I did this, and there’s no fixing this mess I’ve made.
Not too long ago, I was sitting beside Dean, holding his hand while they carried away his mother’s casket. How did this all shift so quickly?
“Sorry.” Dean dips his hands into his pockets.
I glance up and down the hallway. “Where’s Kincaid?”
“In the parking lot, talking to your dad and Tate.”
I breathe out an unamused laugh because, of course, that’s where Kincaid is. He’s almost better at playing this game than I am. Appeasing our fathers is what he’s good at. And now, with Mom gone and graduation over, I can only imagine what they’re planning.
Another bit of hope succumbs to the darkness inside me. There’s no escaping it now, as I stand outside Mom’s hospital room while Dad worries more about business than saying goodbye to her.
I knew he never really loved her, but to see it with such clarity is…
Heartbreaking.
“You shouldn’t be here.” I look up at Dean, who is staring at my mom through the window. “You don’t need to be here after…” Your mom died too.
I don’t say that part. I can’t.
“I’m sorry, Willa.” He drags his hand through his hair.
I shrug. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not.”
“Well, I’m telling myself it is,” I snap.
He nods, rocking on his heels. “I was thinking about that trip you wanted to take to California. Maybe now that graduation is over, we should do it. School’s out and—”
“My mother’s dead.” My tone is cold.
Emotionless.
It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, so it should hurt more than it does, but I can’t feel anything.
“Let’s sit down.” Dean steps closer, and I take a step back.
We’re usually magnets, constantly being drawn toward each other. But right now, there’s this push, this resistance. He makes me feel things I can’t right now. Not if I’m going to keep it together for my family.
For Eden.
“Come on, it will be good to get out of Lanceleaf for a little while. Clear our heads. Get away—”
“You mean run away.”
He shrugs. “Whatever you want to call it.”
“I’ll call it what it is because that’s what you’re doing. It’s what you’re good at. Avoiding the truth. Running from your problems.” I roll my shoulders back. “What are you running from, Dean? You can run all you want, but you can’t run from yourself.”
“And staying here will fix everything?”
“Not everything, no. But my family—”
“When are you going to stop trying to make everyone else happy, Willa? You’re so damn busy keeping them together that you refuse to face when you’re falling apart.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” I shake my head, refusing to look at Dean now because his eyes still hold so much hope.
Hope I used to share, and now I’m just cold. I wrap my arms around myself, but I’m a ghost of who I was a year ago. A fragment of who I was a week ago. And so is Dean.
We’ve both lost too much, and there’s nothing good for him here anymore, not even me.
If I ask him to stay, he will—for me. It bleeds from his eyes. But Tate will make him regret it, and my dad will never accept me being with him, so I give him the push he needs.
“You should go on that trip to California.” My voice is so empty I don’t recognize it. “There’s nothing holding you here anymore.”
“Willa, you know that’s not true.”
“I thought about what you asked me after graduation—if we could be anything more.” It already feels like a lifetime ago when we were sitting on those bleachers. “We can’t. I don’t feel that way about you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? You said—”
“I lied.” I turn to face him, schooling my expression. “Or I was confused. But I can’t force what isn’t there. You’re a good friend, but we don’t work, Dean. Me and Kincaid, we make sense.”
“Don’t fucking say that.”
“He’s the one I need.” I’ve never told a bigger lie.
These are the nails in the coffin, and if I don’t seal it now, Dean will never escape this purgatory we’re living in.
“Why are you doing this?” Hurt bleeds in his tone.
It pours from his eyes.
Hope dies.
“I don’t love you. I can’t. Your brother has it together, and you’re just…”
“Chaos.” He barely whispers it, and I nod my head.
“We had fun.” I frown. “Getting into trouble is always fun for a little while. But it’s time for me to grow up. My family needs me. Eden needs me. I don’t have the luxury of being selfish.”
“Which is what I am, right?”
I shrug, glancing away. “I wouldn’t really know, and I doubt you do either when you refuse to face anything.”
I look through the window again, and I swear Mom’s head has moved slightly. Like she’s turned it toward me, casting me with her judgment from the other side.
“Please don’t do this, Willa.”
“Go, Dean.” I step back when he reaches for me, not looking at him. “I don’t want this. I never did, and I never will.”
My palm finds the door handle, and I breach the threshold, accepting the truth. I become the death in the room. Emptying. Numbing. I become a vessel with no soul because mine is in the hallway in the hands of a man who turns and walks away just like I intended.
Part of me hopes he’ll turn around and argue with me. That he’ll walk in here and shake me until he makes sense of this mess in my head.
Part of me hopes he’ll fight for me.
But he doesn’t.
So I walk to the bed and fall into the chair beside it, reaching for my mother’s cold, stiff hand.
Only then do the tears fall.
I cry until my entire body hurts. Until my sobs run dry. Until I’m as much of a ghost as she is.
Somewhere outside the hospital, I swear I hear Dean start his bike. I close my eyes and say goodbye.