39. Anastasia
Anastasia
E ighty-one hours have passed without Rhett, and each time my phone pings it dissipates another piece of my delusional hope that it’ll be him.
I sit tucked up against his headboard with Shadow when sleep won’t find me.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Will I ever see my parents again?
I’m sure Alistair has the means to make me disappear.
I’m hoping to negotiate, but if that’s what I have to do, I’m ready.
Perhaps whatever I become at the hands of Alistair Lanshall will make me strong enough to pull the trigger the next time I hold a barrel to his head, and it’ll come with the pleasure of knowing he trained his own murder weapon.
Shadow alerts me to an approach moments before a gentle knock sounds against the wood. I never answer, but it’s never stopped the intrusion I don’t want to face. This time I’m too in shock to immediately cast them away.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Adam, who’s closing the door and walking in like he’s testing a minefield.
“I heard what happened and I ... Shit. I don’t know. There’s not a lot of bullshit you haven’t already heard, but I’ve been thinking about you.”
He sounds nervous. I get it. Grief makes people awkward when condolences sound like insults.
That’s because they are. There are no words that can even soothe the wounds of loss.
No gifts nor actions nor comforts. I know people mean well—they don’t know what else to do.
No one wants to believe I’d rather they left me alone.
“That still doesn’t answer why you’re here,” I say coldly.
“I thought you could use someone.”
“You’re the last someone on this earth I want to see right now. Come to gloat, have you? You never liked him.”
“Of course not,” Adam says, doing a good job of appearing genuinely disturbed.
“Go away. You’re not wanted here.”
He eyes Shadow carefully before coming closer. Shadow tracks Adam with unnerving attention, but he won’t react unless I command it. Which is too fucking tempting right now.
“I know.”
Except he proceeds to sit on the edge of the bed.
I’m too exhausted to fight him, so I try to pretend he’s not there.
When that doesn’t work I simply glare at him, though he’s not looking at me.
He almost looks ... nervous. Picking at invisible threads of the duvet like he’s trying to arrange his thoughts before they spill wrong.
“What is it?” I snap.
His green eyes flick up to me then, and the bastard is suppressing amusement. “I should have been honest with you from the start,” he says, and his tone takes on an edge of vulnerability.
My brows knit together. “About what?”
“I care about you.”
I huff a laugh, but his expression remains serious. “I never would have guessed. You’ve been nothing but an arrogant asshole.”
His mouth quirks. “Yeah, I have.”
“Why?”
Adam takes a deep breath, staring off as if he’s accepting this moment had to come at some point.
“I didn’t know how to tell you. Lying and pushing you away seemed easier.”
I fold my legs as I sit forward, curious as to where this will lead.
“I told you I slept with another woman. It was lie. I went to a party and I met a guy. I guess I’ve always known I’ve had an attraction to men, but that night .
.. I couldn’t stop my desire to explore it.
I told you right away, but I lied and said it was a woman when I wasn’t ready to come out.
His name was Henry, and we only hooked up a couple of times after you and I ended. ”
I’m slammed. Stunned. It was never something I would have considered, and now my mind is reaching back, trying to figure out how I could have missed it.
“It doesn’t matter that it was a guy. I still knew it was wrong that one time when I was seeing you.
I still hurt you, and this doesn’t change that.
But with my father’s campaign, I didn’t know how he’d take it.
So I told Henry I couldn’t see him anymore.
I was a dick to you because, yeah, I was jealous.
I saw you with Kaiser and you looked so fucking good together.
You looked happy in ways I’d never seen you with me, and I resented myself.
Both for being unable to love you that way and being unable to gain it in return.
I did love you and I think you’re hot as fuck.
But there was always just something ... ”
“Missing,” I whisper.
How could I not have seen his turmoil all this time?
“Yeah.”
“Shit,” I say, running a hand over my face. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell me the truth.”
“It wasn’t that. I knew you wouldn’t judge me. But I just wasn’t ready.”
I look at Adam now in a new light. Yeah, he was a huge ass all year, but he owns that. Perhaps I think I can relate in some small fraction—being afraid of what his parents or the world will think of his true self.
“I’m here for you whenever you are,” I say, and I mean it.
He hooks a brow at me. “You’re letting me off that easy? I came prepared for your wrath.”
“Are you hiding a bulletproof vest?”
He pats his chest. “Around you? Always.”
I chuckle and he joins in. For a second it splits through my misery. But grief is like cutting through water; it crashes back together all at once.
“He was a great man. I’m so fucking sorry, Ana.”
I think I smile, but I’m not sure it makes it to my face. “Me too.”
My chest feels like it’s on the edge of imploding. I sniff, trying to hold back the tears flooding too fast in my eyes by biting my nails into my palm.
Adam wordlessly, carefully moves, and I can’t stop him.
His arms touch me and I crumple in a complete mess of sobs and heartbreak.
It’s unfathomable that there will never be a cure—that this agony will have residency in my life forever and the only thing that can fix me is a reversal of the cause. To have Rhett back.
“What can I do?” Adam asks softly.
It’s still jarring to be sitting here with Adam Sullevan, the thorn in my side all term. But at the same time it’s a relief I didn’t know I needed. To have the animosity broken between us.
“Nothing,” I say, not leaning off him. “Just being here is enough.”
Collecting myself, my mind is temporarily distracted thinking about Adam’s confession. “The guy with you in Cali ...” I trail off. I won’t mind if he doesn’t want to talk about it, but his mischievous smile is a relief to see.
“Nathan. He was hot, right? Yeah, we hooked up.”
I smile at that, dumbfounded at how oblivious I was.
“Just a hookup?”
Adam lies back with a sigh and I join him. “I can’t commit to anything more.”
“Why not?”
“I think I’m still hung up on Henry.”
I roll onto my side to watch him as he stares at the ceiling. “Does he live nearby?”
“Only an hour away. He’s entirely out, though, and I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be ready for that.
He knows what he wants and is only interested in guys.
I like women too, and I guess maybe there’s a cowardly side of me that thinks I’ll meet the right one and never need to have the conversation about my bisexuality with my parents. ”
Something about that hurts inside.
“You don’t have to hide that part of yourself. No matter who you end up with. If part of you remains in a cage, you’ll never fully be free.”
The silence that stretches between us isn’t awkward. It’s thoughtful.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
I don’t respond. It isn’t needed. Something else weighs on my mind. I didn’t expect Adam to come, and now I think he might be the only person I can say this to who won’t freak out like Riley would.
“If something happens to me–”
Adam’s head falls to the side to look at me with a firm brow. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”
He doesn’t know what I mean. Perhaps he’s worried I’ll do something to myself in my grief and, shit , I should have kept my mouth shut.
“I just mean ... Never mind.”
“Ana,” he says, rolling onto his side too. His hand reaches for mine, and I don’t retract. “We’re all here for you. Whatever you need.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
It’s all I can say. How will I be able to explain Alistair and what I might choose to do tomorrow?
I’m so tired I allow my eyes to slip shut. I never expected this turn of events, that I would be taking comfort in an unexpected friend. But I don’t want to hold onto grudges when I know how precious time is.
My phone rings, lurching me from a deep sleep.
It’s dark as I scramble, squinting for the bright light of it across the bed. I’m alone, and I remember I fell asleep next to Adam, who must have slipped out.
Lit up on the screen is Nina’s name. I question with a note of dread why she’d be calling long past midnight.
“Hi,” I croak.
“Ana?” Nina’s voice is hushed with fear.
Suddenly I’m wide-awake, pushing myself up. Shadow leaps off the bed in alert.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think someone’s in the house.”
“Your safe house has security watching the whole building—are you sure it isn’t one of them?”
“I-I don’t think so. They haven’t rung the buzzer or called out like they usually do, and I’m hiding in a closet.”
“Have you called them? Or 911?”
I’m already pulling on my boots and tucking Rhett’s gun into the waistband of my leggings.
“I could only reach you.”
That sounds an alarm in my mind. Alistair warned me to stay home tonight.
“I’ll call them for you?—”
A loud slam through the phone, followed by Nina’s scream, sends my legs running before my mind can think logically.
“I’m coming,” I tell her.
She doesn’t answer, and all I hear are her cries. They pump adrenaline through my blood.
“Better hurry, little bird,” a voice taunts.
The phone cuts off as I slip into the car, and I have to pause. Only Rhett ever called me that.
I don’t have a choice with my friend in danger as I speed out of the garage toward Nina’s safe house only ten minutes away. I try to dial 911, but I keep getting cut off, and I swear, slamming my hands to the wheel.