Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Theo
An immediate sense of dread settles over me before my eyes even open. I first notice the empty space between Cole and me on the bed.
Somehow, I know she isn’t just downstairs making coffee or in the bathroom.
I slide from under the blankets. I look through the rooms upstairs, knowing I’m not going to find her. My suspicions come into stark reality when I find her room empty.
Everything that made the room hers over the last month is gone.
The bed is meticulously made, unlike how she usually haphazardly tosses the comforter toward the pillows in an attempt to keep it neat. The corner is void of the pile of dirty clothes she usually has accumulating.
A torrent of emotions spins through me, and I don’t even know what the hell is going on. I march back into Cole’s room, shaking both of my brothers.
“She’s gone,” is all I say before moving down the stairs.
They grumble a lot of questions as they groggily follow behind me. My eyes dart around the empty first floor. My eyes land on the note perched on the corner of the island, and my heart sinks.
I might not know what words she wrote on the paper, but I know she’s gone. That’s enough to have my heart shatter into a thousand pieces.
The three of us crowd around the note. We’re all silent while we digest her words.
A part of me is breaking, knowing she feels this way. Another part is mad because she’s gone, and there isn’t anything I can do about it.
“What the fuck?” Finn says, running his fingers through his sleep-tousled hair. “How is she just gone?”
Cole leans over the counter, smothering his face in his hands. I can’t imagine how he feels right now. She’d left him for the second time.
This is entirely different than last time. She isn’t leaving because she’s mad. She knows she needs to heal something within herself before she can really be with us.
But I don’t think he can see that right now. While I’m trying really hard to see through the darkness, it’s hard to look past the heartbreak.
I told her I loved her last night. I know she was asleep and didn’t hear me, but I still said the words out loud.
I’ve never said those words to anyone outside of my family. That meant something to me.
“I hate this,” I finally say, sagging into one of the barstools.
Cole lets out a grunt of agreement. His phone vibrates on the counter beside him. Abby’s name flashes on the screen.
I don’t know what the text says, but he immediately calls her.
“No, I’m not okay,” he says. “What happened? How do you know?”
There’s a long pause. I can hear the faint thrum of Abby’s voice through the line, but I can’t make out what she is saying.
“She… she stopped to say goodbye to him?” It comes out more as a question than a statement, with confusion and heartbreak laced between the words.
He nods along while she’s speaking. “Is he okay?” He runs his hand over his stubble. “Did she say anything else?”
He bites down so hard on his lip, I think he is going to draw blood.
“Fuck. Thanks, Abs. I’ll be over in a little bit, but give Mav a hug for me in the meantime. Okay? Love you, too,” he says before hanging up.
We all wait in silence for a minute. Finn and I might not have been able to hear the entire conversation, but from Cole’s words, we can piece it together.
“She stopped to say goodbye to Mav before she left?” Finn asks.
Cole nods into his hands, where his face is buried once again. When he looks up, his eyes are shining with unshed tears.
“She didn’t want him to feel like he did something wrong, like she always did when the adults in her life abandoned her as a kid.”
Something inside of me softens. It makes me ache for the little girl who had her heart broken by the two people who were supposed to love her unconditionally but couldn’t be bothered to be there for her.
“So, what are we going to do?” Finn asks.
Cole doesn’t say anything. He stands there like a statue that is equal parts devastated and furious.
“We give her the time and space she needs,” I say. It isn’t what any of us wants to hear, but it’s the truth.
“We could go after her,” Finn says. “Show her that we aren’t going anywhere.”
I shake my head. “We can show her that we’re still here without infringing on the space she said she needed.”
“She fucking left,” Cole growls, gripping his hair with both hands. “She left.”
This time, the words come out in a gasp as a single tear falls down his face.
“I know,” I say, feeling my own heart aching with no reprieve in sight. “But she deserves to find herself and heal from the trauma her parents caused by choosing not to be in her life.”
I can tell neither of them likes it, but they nod.
“We give her time and be here for her when she’s ready,” I say.
Cole turns to look at me with the most heart-wrenching expression I’ve ever seen on his face. “But what if that day never comes?”
To that, I don’t really have an answer.
“We love her enough from afar to give her the strength to get through this,” Finn says.