Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
A slow pounding woke me up. It was like a soft beating of a drum that pestered me until I rose from my sleep. It seemed to be coming from upstairs. I was the only one still living with my dad, and that was because I didn’t want to leave him alone.
Ezekiel moved out a bit after I graduated high school. Sabby’s grandad was too old to do the upkeep on his house and sold it to Ezekiel at a low price.
Adam moved out to the apartments that were on the edge of town. He wanted a private place where he could be a manwhore and my dad wouldn’t lecture him.
Since I was the youngest, I was left to take care of my dad. After high school, we remodeled our basement into my room since it had its own entrance. That way I could have privacy.
When I walked upstairs, I heard the thumping and it seemed to be coming from my childhood room. I headed to the window and opened it, annoyed at whoever was here.
“What the fuc?—”
The words died on my lips when I saw who the person responsible for the noise was. The anger I had felt instantly vanished.
I would have never imagined Astrid would have come knocking at my door after all the unease that was accumulating between us, but like hell if I would be sending her away.
She was on the other side of the window glaring at me, and I wanted to smile, but I was afraid that would make her go away.
Her hair was down and a little messy from the wind.
Her eyes were a bit glossy, and her lips a lovely rosy shade.
“Astrid.” I whispered her name, scared that if I said it louder she might disappear on me.
“You’re a liar,” she said, sounding a little too animated for this time of night.
I looked at her face, but then my eyes trailed down to her outfit, and I bit my lip.
On my birthday she had been wearing a skirt.
By now I knew that nothing good ever came whenever she was in one.
Since she came back, I looked at her and I still saw Astrid—my best friend—but then I would blink, and I saw this new version of her.
Astrid had always been sunshine to me. She was bright and warm, something I wanted to bask in, but now she was something more. She burned brighter, to the point she scorched, and for her I wouldn’t mind getting burned.
She had grown confident in her own skin. And a part of me felt sick at the fact that she could not do that when she had been next to me.
Her body had filled out with delicious curves during her time away.
If she had a subtle way of attracting attention before, now she was like a siren reeling you in.
I closed my eyes, and I could still feel her in my arms. If there was one thing I regretted now, it was listening to EZ and getting scared out of my mind of losing her—because in the end I had lost her anyway.
But now she was here. She was in my house, had come to my room, and I was not going to fuck it up.
Judging by her state and her outfit, she had clearly been out.
Had she been at Zeke’s getting the attention of every guy in there?
The only reason I could stand her outfit on my birthday—the only reason I could ignore all the eyes that had been on her—was the fact that she had been in my arms. Those two little piercings had been hidden then and they were hidden now, and for that I was grateful.
It was like a secret only I was privy to, and I wanted to keep it that way.
Since she came back, I knew no one had approached her other than my brothers and me.
There were only two reasons. The first because after our little display at Zeke’s and our shared history, they thought she was mine, and the second because they were embarrassed after all the shit that went down on prom night.
It was a shame she wasn’t in a skirt today. Instead, she was wearing a pair of thigh-highs, high-waisted jeans, and a white long-sleeve shirt that showcased the tops of her breasts.
“Beautiful, are you drunk?”
“Astrid. My name is Astrid.”
Even drunk, she still corrected me, making my lip twitch.
I stepped closer to the window and put my hands on either side of the ledge. Her brows instantly scrunched, and she looked at me, bewildered.
“What are you doing?” she asked cautiously.
“Coming out,” I told her as I jumped out.
She instantly took a step back.
“Do you have someone in your room?” she asked as she rose on her tiptoes, trying to peek past me.
“Why, you jealous?” I teased her, not being able to help myself.
She scrunched her nose. “I don’t care if you have Samantha in there.”
That struck me as odd since Samantha and I hadn’t been a thing for years.
Sam had been my last girlfriend. She hated Astrid and blamed her for the fact that I dumped her.
When in reality it had been her actions that had disgusted me, and at the end of the day, she would have never been the one I wanted.
“Did you drive here?” I asked, trying to look into the driveway to see if I saw her car.
“No, I walked,” she nonchalantly stated. “I couldn’t sleep because you’re a liar.”
“What?” I barked, annoyed at her recklessness.
“I’ve been told I can hit you and I won’t get a felony.”
At this point, she was babbling random shit. I was still annoyed she had been walking at this hour. The town was safe, and nothing terrible had happened, but I didn’t want her to be the statistic that would challenge those numbers.
“You want to hit me, beautiful?”
It was a rhetorical question because I knew she did.
She couldn’t stand being in my presence for long periods of time.
I missed going to her parents’ house on Sunday, but I was playing it safe.
There was only so much pushing I could do with her.
She had already proven once that she could up and leave me, but what would stop her from doing it a second time?
“Yes…no,” she said, starting to lose a bit of the ire she had earlier.
“Come on, beautiful, let’s go inside.”
When I took hold of her hand this time, she let me. I tried to go to the back door when I remembered it was locked and I didn’t bring the key with me.
I could jump inside and open it, but I was scared she would come to her senses and leave. Holding on to her hips, I lifted her so she could go over the window with ease.
“ Ty.” She shrieked my name for the first time in four years, and my heart skipped a beat.
Fuck.
I didn’t realize how much I was yearning for her to say my name.
It slipped out, and I don’t think she realized she said it, but I was glad she did.
Like this, her defenses were down, and maybe I should feel bad for taking advantage, but sober, her defenses were always up, and I needed any advantage I could get.
It took me a second to jump in after her. Once inside, I locked the window. Astrid was looking around my old room.
“Where’s all your stuff?” She walked over to the long wall that used to have pictures of us. Her fingers trailed the now white paint as if the memories had been painted over.
Not that I put them there. Astrid’s room was full of knickknacks and accomplishments we had made through the years. She hated that my space was barren, so she divided our pictures between our rooms.
“So now you’re the only one allowed to forget about us?” I spat out before I thought better of it.
She shook her head and then turned to look at me. It killed me the way her gaze seemed sad, and at that moment it fucking hit me. There had been a difference in her that went beyond how she had matured. Her radiance, the warmth, the sunshine I loved was gone.
“You broke every promise we ever made.”
Her words were soft, but fuck did they pack a punch.
“Beautiful,” I pleaded.
“Please don’t call me that anymore,” she whispered.
This time, I flinched.
My mind drifted back to our first year of high school. Both of us were scared freshmen, worrying about what the future would hold for us. We had been right to be scared because although Astrid was finally close enough for me to touch, she felt farther than ever.
“If you could ask your mom anything, what would it be?” Astrid asked from where she was laying on her bed. I was on the floor, building the new vanity her parents bought her.
“I don’t know…” I said, because I never gave it much thought. Thinking about what-ifs wasn’t my style, especially when it came to my mother. That shit was too painful to think about. “I guess I’d like to know why EZ and Adam got biblical names and I didn’t.”
The bed creaked, and she sat up.
“What does your name mean?”
“Nothing biblical,” I muttered.
I could feel her staring at me because she knew I was hiding something. When I heard her typing on her phone, I pretended to pay closer attention to the vanity instructions.
She giggled, and I knew it was coming.
“Tile maker,” she choked out. “Maybe it’s your life’s calling?”
I raised my hand and flipped her off.
“What does yours mean?” I nodded toward her phone so she could look it up.
I craned my neck when she started typing to look at her and the screen.
“Divinely beautiful,” she murmured. “Okay, I take it back. This is all bull.”
Hmm, I didn’t agree with her. I thought it was fitting.
“Come on, beautiful, help me with the instructions.”
All the little things I took for granted were slowly killing me.
“Come on…” I had to clear my throat because the words stayed lodged in my voice box. “Let’s get you to bed.”
She didn’t resist when I led her downstairs to my room. I guess it was a good thing that she was too drunk. She didn’t hear the pain in my voice. Maybe this was my punishment?
I was finally getting my wish—I was getting more time with her.
I just never expected it to hurt.
Once I got her in bed, she instantly closed her eyes.
“Why can’t I call you beautiful?” I asked, not expecting her to answer. I refused to leave it alone—leave her alone.
A few seconds passed, and her words were faint, but they had the same effect as if she had shouted them.
“Because it hurts when you say it… You will never see me as something more.”