39. Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Carson
My brother sits beside me as club member after club member stops by our table and sits a spell. I love nights like these. Surrounded by the men I’ve grown up with.
“We might not have made a lot of good choices back in the day, but coming back here was one of the best ones,” my brother says.
He’s been by my side all night. Dad went home to be with Luna.
I’d go see her again, but I don’t want the stench of that bastard’s death following me there.
But I’m ready to get back to the cabin. I need to think. “I’m going to head home,” I tell my brother. I stand up and pat him on the chest. “Thanks for standing with me tonight.”
“Wait, I’m going with you,” he says, using my arm to pull himself up.
“You don’t have to.”
“Fuck. I know that. I’m choosing to.”
A knot forms in my throat, and I hug him. No words are needed. No apologies.
Maybe everything that’s been happening was a lesson we both needed. We’d gotten so used to the other being there that we began to take it for granted.
Life is going to change. It’s bound to happen.
We can’t take anything for granted.
My brother and I take the long way home, and it feels good.
To ride just the two of us.
That doesn’t have to change.
For now. And now is all we got.
When we pull into the driveway, I look up and see Luna at the window. She’s lost in the moon.
She notices our lights and waves. Even though I can’t see it, I know she smiles. She’s happy my brother is with me.
“That was a good sign,” my brother says, getting off his bike at the cabin.
Someone cleaned everything up. It smells sanitized.
The knife is even back in the block on the counter. The only thing that is different than when I left for NorCal is the box of origami sitting beside it.
Cole walks over and sifts through them. “Do you think these are the ones Rage told us he made for her?”
I stand beside him, picking up a bird. “I’m sure of it.”
Cole pours us each a Jack and Coke, and together we go through the origami.
“What if she never wants to come back here?” I ask.
“Then you find a place where she does feel comfortable,” he says, laughing at a paper frog.
“What if that’s Mom and Dad’s?”
“Then … oh, god, I see your point.”
“I love them, but I don’t want to live with them.”
Cole laughs but then quiets. “She’ll come home. I’m sure of it.”
“You’re okay with her being here?”
“Yeah, I mean it will probably take some getting used to. And I’m not sure how or if it will even work, but I’m willing to try if you are. If it doesn’t feel right, I’ll move out. You love this place more than I do, and so does she.”
We stay up all night, sitting on the porch and watching the sun rise together. Something we haven’t done in a long, long time.
“I’m going to get a little shut-eye and then I’m going to get up and go over there.”
“Wake me and I’ll go with.”
“I will.”
I’m not going to lie. I’m grateful he’s here, because I don’t know if I could do this without him. I pause, because that’s not true. I can do it without him. I just don’t fucking want to.
As soon as I’m in my room, I wish I wasn’t. Her things are here. Her clothes are hanging in the closet. Her blanket with the moon and stars is tossed haphazardly across the bed.
It hurts.
It fucking hurts that she’s not here.
And I don’t know if she’ll ever be.