Chapter 25 #3
He said he has wanted me for a while now. A while means after Josh died. After everything broke. What if I’m not real to him at all? Not in the way I thought. What if I’m just familiar? A mirror for an old wound. Someone who hurts in the same places he does. Someone who carries the same loss.
He misses Josh. I miss Josh. And maybe that’s all this is. Maybe I’m just the closest thing he has left. The thought lands hard and cruel, knocking the air from my lungs.
“I—I have to go,” I manage.
I don’t wait for her reply. I turn away, abandon the cart, push through the doors and into the cold. My heart pounds, loud and erratic, while doubt claws its way back to life.
I’m not easy to love. I never have been. I feel too much. I need too much. I unravel too quickly. Why would he be any different?
What if he wakes up one day and sees it clearly? Sees that I’m not enough to fill the space Josh left behind. That I was never meant to. I couldn’t fill that void for my parents, for Margo. How would it be any different for Rhett?
I will only ever a stand-in for something he lost.
I swallow, turn the key and drive home on autopilot.
I drop my bag by the door and head straight for my room, skipping the usual distractions. No music. No podcast. I can’t stand the thought of someone else’s voice in my head right now. I can barely stand my own.
I pull my suitcase from the closet and start packing for the lake. With Rhett’s schedule, I won’t have to see him until tomorrow. The thought steadies me more than it should. It buys me time. Time to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do next.
I fold and toss with mechanical urgency, not really seeing what I’m putting in. Shirts. Jeans. A sweater I don’t remember choosing. I zip the bag shut and sink onto the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping beneath me.
I pull out my phone and stare at the screen. I know this isn’t going to help, but I have to see it with my own eyes. I start typing. Nashville Fire. The results list is way too long, and I can’t find the specific video. So I try again: Rhett Hayes firefighter Nashville recent fire.
The first link brings up a video. I squint at the screen to try to make out the person better.
The gear hides his face; it could be anyone.
But then, when he nearly slips on the ladder, carrying a limp body, and my stomach falls with it, the newscaster’s voice-over cuts in.
“That is Rhett Hayes, out of Nashville Station 9 right there. He was the true hero today. He pulled out three people on his own; the entire team saved seven total.”
Panic floods my body as I try to take deep breaths.
Air fights its way past my ribs, shallow and jagged.
What if I let him in and lose him too? What if the universe snatches someone else I love, leaves me empty again?
I can’t survive that, even when I convince myself that at least he would be with Josh. And they’d both be waiting for me.
Ping. A text lights up the screen, forcing me to refocus.
Rhett:
I'm missing you. The firehouse doesn't nearly smell as good as your skin does.
I'll swing by in the morning to pick you up.
I freeze. My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I can’t handle this right now. I’m not ready to sit beside him and talk about us. He will know something is wrong the moment I’m near him, and I’m not ready to confirm my biggest fear. I’m not ready to give him up. I open another thread and type faster.
Me:
Hey, can I ride up to the lake with you and Anderson?
Sissy Margs:
Of course. You good?
Me:
Yeah. Just want to get there early and catch up.
Sissy Margs:
Alright. We will be at your house at 8.
I switch back to Rhett.
Me:
They sound stinky.
I kinda forgot I told Margo I'd ride with her. She has been begging for some quality time.
But I'll see you up there?
I close the messages and toss my phone face down on the nightstand.
God, what have I done?
I let myself think last night and this morning were the beginning of something I’d been aching toward for years without admitting it out loud.
But I’m the untouchable girl. Josh’s sister. The one line he could never cross, the one thing he could never have. A living stand-in for a wound that never healed.
He lost his mother. One day, she simply stopped showing up, and it hollowed him out. I saw the cracks. I just didn’t know how deep they went.
Then he lost Josh. His best friend. His brother in everything but blood. The only person who knew the shape of his life from the inside. And now all that remains is me.
How did I not see it before?
Of course, he reached for me. Of course, he held on. Of course, he looked at me like I mattered. Maybe it wasn’t fate. Maybe it wasn’t love surviving a decade apart. Maybe it was desperation in the guise of familiarity—grief finding the closest warm body and refusing to let go.
The thought slices through me, clean and merciless.
I wanted to believe he chose me. Me. Not my history. Not my proximity to pain. But I’m not the girl he wants. I’m just the last piece of everything he lost.