Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
“It must be very hard for you.” The pity-filled musing comes from gloss-coated lips. “I lost my aunt a few years ago, so I understand.”
“I’m sorry.” The apology is automatic, lost to the clink of glasses and garden chatter.
Katy Byrnes twirls a honey-streaked strand around her finger. “Thanks. It never gets easier.”
My gut clenches, but I don’t answer. I’ve already shifted focus, across the lawn, past trimmed hedges and swaying flutes, to the veranda where my parents sit shoulder to shoulder. Their smiles catch light and I remind myself that’s why I came. To appease them. To see them happy.
Then my mother’s eyes find mine, and her smile falters. I shrivel up inside. I shouldn’t have.
Katy follows my gaze and sighs dreamily. “At least you have your parents. They’re amazing.” She ducks her head. “Did your mom tell you about my date?”
“Date?”
“The one I had the other day.”
Why would she tell me about her date? “Sorry, I’m not following.”
“But I wore your dress…” She trails off, face dropping. “She didn’t tell you? Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry. I thought you knew.”
My head spins, and the balmy breeze suffocates instead of cools. I clutch the flute, hoping the bite of glass grounds me. “She probably did.” The lie tastes sour. “I’ve just… been a little all over the place. Don’t worry about it.”
Katy smiles, relieved. I mirror it, hollow.
“What dress was it?” I ask, barely hearing myself.
“The pastel green one. That silky slip?” She giggles. “I didn’t know what to wear, so I texted your mom. She’s so sweet—she said, ‘I have the perfect thing.’ And she was right. Second date tomorrow.”
Pastel dress. “That’s nice.” The acid scraping my throat says otherwise.
They text? My mother and her?
“I hope it goes—”
But something catches, jagged.
Pastel. Green. Slip.
Not mine. I never owned that.
But Bryce… Bryce did.
The picture flashes. Her at Alex’s birthday, lit by string lights, silk green wrapping her like a second skin. So bright. So alive.
And now some girl wore it on a first date?
The betrayal lands like a brutal slap.
I drain my glass in one swallow. The fizz scorches, but it can’t touch the blaze in my chest. For that I need something blunter.
What the hell is this?
My mother didn’t just lend out a dress. She lent Bryce’s dress.
To someone who texts her for advice. To someone who adores her.
Katy doesn’t feel like just a family friend anymore. She feels like… my replacement. Walking around in memories I haven’t even processed yet.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
My nod is mechanical. Her eyes flick to my empty glass, and I’m guessing it’s the white-knuckled grip that prompts the question.
“Drinking doesn’t make you… antsy?”
I fix on her. My tongue feels thick, but even if it didn’t, I’d stay silent. Because after that implication, nothing kind would come out.
Katy shifts on her feet, but I don’t move. Not until my phone buzzes and snaps me out of it.
I glance down. Freeze.
Carson.
Suddenly the party fades into background noise. He never calls.
I’m already separating from the thrum as I hit answer. “Hello?” Silence. My shoes whisper faster over grass. “Hey. Carson. Is everything okay?”
There’s nothing but dead air. Then, finally, a raspy, “Yeah.” Relief hits. “Where are you?”
I leave my flute near the grazing table. “At a… thing.”
“A date?” It comes too sharp, too quick.
“No.” I blink. “No, nothing like that.”
Another pause. Then, subdued this time, “I’m sorry.”
I stop in place, hidden behind a hedge. “Sorry for what?”
“For hurting your feelings. For making you feel like shit.”
“Carson…” My eyes screw shut. “You didn’t.”
“You’ve been avoiding me, Bri,” he says, and the note of something unidentifiable locks my jaw.
He’s right. I have been. Four days of absence that wasn’t accidental. No beach house. No Carson. Just Aspen’s chatter and Pine Oak’s distractions.
Not because he hurt me. He didn’t. It’s me. Me and these feelings I don’t want. I’d lock them away if I could, weld them into steel, sink them deep.
Because Carson and I… we only make sense as friends. That’s the only label I can allow. To love again would be to lose again, and I can’t. Not him. He deserves better than the broken thing I’d hand him.
Still, wings unfurl in my stomach. It’s that flower. A forget-me-not, crisp, dry, pressed to last forever. The same one I’ve stared at night after night wondering one thing.
Why.
Why did he give it to me?
I catch my lip between my teeth. And even though I shouldn’t, it slips out.
“You want to pick me up? I’m down to get out of here.”
His reply is instant. “Text me the address.”
I should tell my parents that I’m leaving, but goodwill feels out of reach. Instead, I linger behind the hedge and wait for his text:
Here.
I’ve barely closed the passenger door when a greeting drifts from the back.
“Hi, Brielle.”
I turn. Hannah’s strapped in tight, pigtails over her shoulders, and a pink dress pressed smooth beneath her belt.
“Hey, sweet girl. You look so pretty.”
Her cheeks flare to match. She ducks her head. “You too.”
“Thank you.” I picked this dress for a reason. Embroidered, with flutter sleeves and just enough cinch to flatter. My curls have lost their shine but they still tumble soft around my shoulders. I tried today. Not to impress, but because I thought if I look good, people would believe I am good.
Will Carson?
I meet his eyes. Darker than usual, even with sunlight spilling through his hair and across his face.
His gaze drifts slow, over my curls, the dress that clings and releases, then finally the shimmer of gold oil coating my legs.
When it climbs back up, his jaw is knife-sharp, and I know. He sees past the polish.
My smile is tremulous. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he murmurs back. His hand lifts, fingers grazing my cheek in a fleeting brush. “Missed you.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. He’s already pulling away from the curb.
He looks good, cargo shorts and a black tee defining his frame, but it’s his stance that tells the truth. Stiff shoulders. Downturned mouth.
“Car? Can I tell her about today?”
“Yeah, Han. Go ahead.”
She can’t quite hide her excitement. “I went to the zoo.”
“Oh, wow.” I catch her reflection in the rearview mirror and smile. “You went with your brother?”
“Yeah!” Blue eyes sparkle. “We saw a giraffe, like the one you gave me.”
“That’s amazing. It must’ve been really tall, right?”
“Uh-huh.” She nods, then pauses, frowning. “But it wasn’t pink. And it didn’t have a princess crown.”
The laugh slips out of me before I process it. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the faintest curve of Carson’s mouth too.
“Don’t you want to say something to Brielle, Hannah?”
She frowns.
“When someone does something kind…”
“Oh!” The shyness rushes back in. “Thank you, Bri. I love Fi-Fi.”
“Fi-Fi’s the giraffe,” Carson adds.
“You’re very welcome, Hannah Banana.”
Her giggle bubbles out, then tumbles into a stream of listing animal names. She trips over a few sometimes, but Carson’s there to fill in every gap. I listen to every detail, grateful for this pocket of calm against the chaos pressing in on me.
But the joy slips eventually, and her bottom lip puckers. “I don’t want to go home, Car.”
Carson’s hands clamp so tight on the wheel that veins rise like cords. His Adam’s apple jerks, and my chest squeezes with him.
“What if we go for ice cream?” he offers. “Would that make you happy?”
My bracelet gleams on her wrist as she pinches her thumb and forefinger together. “Only a teensy-tiny bit. I just wanna be with you!”
“Hannah…” His eyes shut for the briefest moment, and I see him mouth a singular word. Fuck.
I can’t sit still.
“Hannah,” I say. “Did you know I can’t swim?”
Carson flicks me a glance, but I lock on Hannah’s scrunched little nose.
“Yes, you can. Big people swim. Carson does. Mommy. Riley. Everyone.”
“Not me.” I lean closer. “I’m scared.”
Her gasp is dramatic. “I’m scared too. Of monsters.”
My lips twitch. “Them too. But guess what?”
“What?”
“Your brother’s teaching me to be brave.”
“Really?”
“Mhm. So you’ve got to share him with me sometimes. Deal?”
She twists a braid around her finger, chin dimpling. “So… is he, like, your hero then?”
The question drops like a stone in a well, striking places I never want to revisit. Where would I be if I hadn’t met Carson?
Toeing the edge of a white line? Shackled to a rhythm of routine built on staying numb? Or maybe knee-deep in something darker, deeper.
I’m depressed, yes. But I’m not delusional. I know exactly where the fault lines began.
My first time touching coke was three days after Bryce’s funeral. A distant friend of hers with blown out pupils pressed it into my palm at the reception like some twisted gesture of sympathy.
I meant to flush it.
But then came the silence. The absence that crept into every corner.
So I kept it. Stared at it.
One moment I swore to myself I was stronger than this. The next, it crept in. Just once. Just to take the edge off.
Sixty hours later I was hunched over the broken shell of my MacBook, snorting lines off it. The same one I’d smashed after a trip down memory lane.
It worked, though. The high kept its promise, leaving me numb. And numbness felt like mercy. Except, when the grief came flooding back in, my fear was proven valid; I wanted mercy again.
The thing about pain is that it’s patient.
It waits until you’re weak. And the second I hit rock bottom again, I reached out to Dale.
Five times I indulged. Five cracks in the dam. The last was the first night in Grove. But it could have been twenty. Fifty. If I hadn’t met Carson…
There’s a reason I’m falling for him. I came to Grove with burning lungs and a sinking body, and he pulled me out of ice-cold water. Day by day, he shows me I can be warm again.
So when I whisper, “Yes,” it’s the rawest, most honest truth I’ve spoken in weeks.
That’s all Hannah needs. “Okay. I’ll share him with you.”
From that moment, Carson’s gaze keeps flicking—me, the road, back again—as if he’s searching my silence for an answer.
I don’t look at him. I can’t. Because if I do, he’ll see the other truth.
That my heart is already halfway his.