Chapter 44
CHAPTER 44
JACE
It isn’t the light streaming through the curtains I didn’t close last night that wakes me.
Or even the quiet murmurs just outside my door that started thirty minutes ago.
I know for a fact they’ve been here much longer, some arriving before the sun even crested the hills. I heard the distinct creak of the front door open and close three times in the past hour.
Sydney was already here, not wanting to leave me completely alone after everything that happened last night. The others wanted to stay, too, but she convinced them that I just needed some space to digest everything.
Whoever said little sisters are the worst obviously don’t have mine.
So that means the rest of my friends are currently downstairs—or right outside my bedroom door—and my time is up.
I didn’t sleep at all last night, the echoing of her cries and the thoughts running wild in my head about how this could be the end kept me from falling into the nightmares my dreams surely had in store.
At least when I’m awake, I can control the direction my mind wants to go. Barely .
There was absolutely no way I was going to give myself over to my uncontrollable unconsciousness when everything around me felt like it was on fire.
So I laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling all night long as the soundtrack of everything that’s happened in the past eight years played on a loop.
I smiled into the darkness when the image of Kinsley—both from before and now—looked at me with the small tilt to her plush lips.
The quiet room filled with a pain filled chuckle when I swear I could hear her laugh.
My heart grew at the ghost of her touch when I shifted to look at her side of the bed.
And tears filled my eyes when I remembered how my whole world walked away, curled in on herself as everything she knew was brought into question.
I never wanted that.
I never wanted her to question this. Us. Even herself.
She was asking me all the questions I wouldn’t be able to answer and it gutted me to see the trust I spent every day building, slowly slip away.
If it were up to me, she could take whatever she wanted from me and I would willingly give it over to her on a silver platter.
But not at the cost of her memories.
I still hold out hope that she will remember one day. That we’ll wake up, right here, and she will look up at me from where she rests her head on my chest and I’ll be able to see it all reflected in her eyes.
It’s that hope that gives me the strength to roll out of bed this morning.
She’ll come back.
Even if I have to wait another eight years, I’ll be right here whenever she’s ready.
I walk over to my bedroom door on quiet feet and pull it open. The not-as-quiet-as-they-think they’re-being whispers stop abruptly and the three of them look up at me cautiously.
Sydney glances down my body and jerks back, pinching her eyes closed. “My eyes,” she hisses, slapping a hand over her face and the other in front of me as a shield.
I roll my eyes and lift a brow at two of my oldest friends.
“We’ll just let you get dressed,” Ryder says, shuffling towards the stairs.
Lawson grabs a stumbling Sydney by her shoulders and guides her away, their whispering picking back up the moment they hit the first step.
I go back into my room and pull on a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt. After brushing my teeth, I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and stare myself down. She’ll come back.
I repeat the thought over and over until I really believe it. Blowing out a breath I push off the countertop and run my hands through my disheveled hair.
“Time to face the music,” I whisper to the quiet room.
The stairs creak under my weight and when I hit the bottom, I look up to a living room full of my inner circle.
Nik sits in the single armchair off to the side, his forearms resting on his knees. Ryder and Blake are cuddled into a corner of the couch. Lawson is perched on the edge of the ottoman, staring off into the kitchen where I have no doubt my sister is.
I’m proven right when a second later, she comes flying into the room carrying a tray of?—
“Are those Mum’s buttery biscuits?”
Sydney hums, holding up the tray. “Your favorite. I’ve been watching her make them my entire life, so I thought I’d give it a try.”
I walk over and lift one to my mouth, letting the buttery vanilla flavors coat my mouth as the biscuit dissolves on my tongue.
“These are really good, Syd.”
“They’re not Mum’s though,” she shrugs.
I throw my arm over her shoulder and pull her into my side. “I feel better already.”
She smiles softly up at me and we walk over to the sofa. She sets the tray on the coffee table before settling in next to me on the cushions.
“How are you feeling, mate?” Ryder asks.
“I’ve been better,” I murmur.
“What exactly happened? We were all around the fire, then she went into the house, and you followed after her. You were gone for a while before a tear-streaked Kinsley came outside to apologize but said she needed to go. By the time we all got inside, you were locked in your room. Did you have a fight?” Blake asks, her face shadowed with concern.
My chest restricts as I think about last night. About walking into my office to see Kinsley on her knees in the middle of our past laid out around her.
I tell them how I tried to explain it all to her but that the limitations set by her amnesia made it hard. I choked on the words when I recounted her asking for some time to think about everything.
“Did she say how much time?” Sydney asks.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll give her however much time she needs.”
My sister slides closer, placing her hand on my back and rubbing up across my shoulder blades in comfort. I sigh, dropping my head into my hands.
There’s a soft knock on the door, but no one moves to answer it.
“It could be Mum and Dad with the kids,” I say quietly.
“I’ll get it,” Sydney whispers, her hand squeezing my shoulder as she stands from the sofa.
“I’ll go with her to keep them distracted,” Blake says, before I hear her follow after my sister.
There’s a heavy pause after I hear the front door open and before I even hear Sydney say the words, I know who’s at the door.
I’ve always known when she’s near.
Can feel it down to my bones.
My very soul.
“Jace,” Sydney calls.
I stand up and make my way to the front door, my heart rate increasing with every step. My sister and Blake watch me with hopeful expressions as I step around them and open the door wider.
“Kinsley,” I whisper.
She looks up at me with tired eyes, her arms banded tight around the old shoebox. Her hair is piled on top of her head, her clothes disheveled like she just rolled out of bed—she yawns—or never went to sleep, like me.
“Hi. I’m sorry to show up here so early. I know I said I needed time, but?—”
“No. No. It’s okay. Would you… would you like to come in?”
“Please?”
I heave out a breath and move to the side. I don’t look away from her as she steps over the threshold and takes off her shoes, lining them up next to mine on the shoe rack.
Standing back up, she gives me a closed mouth smile and I nod towards the living room. I lead the way down the hallway, cursing when I remember that we aren’t alone.
“Oh.” She stops abruptly next to me. “Hi.”
Everyone waves at her and Sydney stands up offering the tray of biscuits. “Would you like something to eat? Or maybe a drink? I can make you something, whatever you want. Or?—”
Lawson cuts her off with a hand on her arm and she plops down next to him on the sofa.
“I’m sorry, we can go somewhere else if you’d like to talk just the two of us,” I say quietly to Kinsley.
She glances around the room before meeting my eyes. “It’s okay. I… I have a lot of questions and maybe they can also help answer some of them? I mean, they’re also a big part of everything that’s in here, too, aren’t they?”
She shifts the shoebox and I nod. “Yeah, I guess they were.”
We shuffle over to the sofa and she sets the shoebox on the coffee table. I breathe out a silent sigh of relief when she sits down next to me before looking around at everyone.
“I’m sorry about disappearing last night,” she says.
“No. It’s okay. You don’t need to explain anything to us.” Blake reaches over and places her hand on her knee. “We’re here for whatever you need.”
“Thank you.” She takes a deep breath before blowing it out and staring at the box.
I move on instinct and cover her hands with mine. “We take this at whatever speed you want, okay? Whatever you want to know, we’ll tell you, but promise me one thing.”
She nods and I squeeze her hands gently. “Please don’t push yourself too hard. If at any point this all becomes too much or if you feel like your head is starting to scramble, we stop. We stop and come back when we are sure nothing bad is happening.”
She watches me for a moment before she nods, her fingers pulsing under my palm. “I promise,” she whispers.
Leaning forward, I take the box off the table and set it in her lap. “Now where would you like to start?”
For what feels like hours, we walk her through those three weeks we were all together. Three weeks, eight years ago, that changed the trajectory of my forever.
We make sure to stick with the facts, leaving feelings—past and present—out of our stories. That was one of the biggest requirements the doctors told me when I first contacted them all these months ago.
“You cannot under any circumstances tell her how she felt. You are not and were not her so you do not have enough of an understanding of how she felt in that moment to tell her present self how she handled things in the past. If you do, this can completely distort whatever she may or may not know of her past self,” one of the physicians said.
I told her that before we started diving into our past, but as we get closer and closer to talking about us , I’m finding it harder and harder to tell her everything.
“Did I love you?”
My heart stops at the whispered question. I look over at her, but she’s already gazing down at a photo of us, her fingers tracing our faces.
She took this photo the morning before she disappeared from my life. We are laying in bed, she’s on her side with me behind her, and my arms are wrapped tight around her waist with my head buried in her neck. I smiled down at the pure joy on her face and reach out when she offers the picture to me.
“I’d like to think so, but…” my words trail off when my eyes shift to hers.
“But I never said it,” she confirms.
I shake my head. “We may have never said the words out loud, but I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t feel them every day I was with you. Especially towards the end.”
Tears pool in her eyes and I set the picture down, taking her hands in mine. “I don’t know for sure what it is you felt for me, but I can tell you that there isn’t any part of me that didn’t fall hard for you, Kinsley Jones.”
She lets out a watery laugh and dips her head.
“We all did,” Sydney says quietly and we look over at her. “You quickly became a best friend to me even though I was just the annoying little sister.”
“You were good for him. For all of us,” Ryder chimes in and Lawson hums his agreement.
“We were and still are a family,” Nik muses and Kinsley smiles softly at him. “We will always be here for one another. So know that if you need anything, you can always call one of us and we will come running. Because that’s what family does.”
I could see the shift in her with every story told, every question answered. She wasn’t going anywhere and after hearing them say that they are here for whatever she needs, she confirms my thoughts by shifting closer to me.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “After everything we’ve talked about. I know there are some questions we couldn’t answer, but of what we told you?—”
“I’m okay,” she whispers. “I feel a lot better. Thank you. All of you. I know there’s still a lot of questions out there but now I feel like I can fully understand why you didn’t tell me before.”
She looks up at me and squeezes my hand. “I wasn’t ready before. All of this would probably have scared me and hurt me in the end.”
“Which I never want to do. I never want to be the cause of your hurt, angel.”
“I know,” she says quietly with a smile. “Which is why I think I was never mad or truly upset with you. I was just scared that maybe I wasn’t living up to the Kinsley you knew before?—”
“Don’t. Don’t ever think that. I loved you before and I love you even more now. We may not be the kids we are in those photos any more, but I’ve fallen for you all over again anyway. Harder even.”
Her tears flow freely and I cup her face when she lays her hands on my chest. “I love you, too, Jace. And I know you can’t tell me how I felt back then but there isn’t a part of me that thinks there’s any possible way I couldn’t have fallen for you.”
A breath rushes out of me and I lean in, kissing her softly before leaning our foreheads together.
“Thank you,” she says, pulling back to look at everyone. “Thank you for finding me.” She shifts, looking directly at my sister. “Thank you for bringing me home.”
Sydney breaks out in sobs and stands. Kinsley does the same, meeting her in the middle for a fierce hug. There’s a sniffle at my right and I look over to see Ryder pull his teary-eyed wife into his arms.
The girls separate and Sydney goes back to her spot on the sofa, leaning her head on Lawson’s shoulder.
Kinsley joins me back on the couch and I lean back as she lays her head on my chest.
“What do we do now?” she asks quietly, her fingers twisting in my shirt.
“We take it one day at a time.”