Chapter 41
Forty-One
Carson
Saturated clouds thrum with static.
Grove hasn’t seen rain in weeks. Clear skies have given way to pulsing sunshine like clockwork. But today—today it pours. Fat drops drum against the wooden overhang turning the world into a hazy hum.
Everything feels quieter.
Except me.
My thoughts scream over the silence, spilling heat down my nape and tightening the cords in my neck. I maintain the firm clasp behind my head just to keep from yanking at my hair until my scalp aches again. Where the fuck is she?
She’s ignoring my calls. Ignoring my texts.
The only give’s been a cryptic response I received and read well over an hour ago.
Since then, nada. Complete radio silence.
Fuck, I can’t deny how much it cuts to be ignored by her.
Especially when she’s all up in my head twenty-four seven and burrowed so deep beneath my skin it feels like every part of me is hers.
Where the hell has she gone that it’s taking this long to come back? Merrin? It’s plausible. Especially since her parents let slip they’re a set of keys short.
Was it something she’d gone to see? Someone? My mouth compresses into a hard line but beyond the spike of misplaced possessiveness, regret thrives. I shouldn’t have left her.
I knew she was hurting. Knew she was crying. And still I walked. Ignored the gut-deep pull to double back. It was the utter shock of her nod, coupled with the bleak desolation in her eyes.
The meaning of it spun me so far off balance until mind over matter wasn’t even a concept.
Someone was hurt. My phone burns in my pocket. One search and I’ll know. But I can’t. I don’t want the story from a headline. I need the truth from her lips.
A hard swallow sticks in my throat. Behind my eyes, it’s her face again.
The crack in it. For all her five-four frame, I’ve only ever seen her as fierce, traces of strength glimmering even when she’s broke in my arms. But then, in that interlude, all she’d been was…
fragile. Like the jagged ends of my tone had the ability to wound, and wound deep.
The torrent picks up, hammering down on me with a merciless hand. It slaps my skin, soaks through my shirt, but still doesn’t touch the heat burning a path straight to my chest.
A harsh exhale tears from me. My hands drag down my face, smearing water, frustration, and something dangerously close to panic.
The drip—drip—drip of the rain fills the silence like a metronome.
Seconds. Minutes. A whole goddamn hour of them.
I’m so close to storming these stairs and demanding answers from her parents.
They have to know something by now. Anything.
But I don’t. Instead I tip my head back, hoping for the sky to slap some sense into me. Only I never get the chance. A blur cuts through the rain. Then, her.
I’m on my feet before thought can catch up, crashing forward with steps that are heavy, soaked, desperate. The roar of the rainfall drowns everything. All I see are her eyes.
Shattered glass.
Red-rimmed and wide with something that hits like a head-on collision.
The wild edge I buried claws its way back, crashing behind my ribs as I take her in. Mud smearing her jeans. Rain-slick hair clinging to her face. And that look, something unplaceable and distant, locked in her gaze like it’s taken root. Then—shock.
I reach for her hand, a languidness dictating the movement because I’m fucking terrified she’ll deny me.
She doesn’t.
Her palm unfurls weakly, her fingers curling like even this touch costs her. A raindrop lands, sliding over her wrist. Blurring the ink. Blurring, but not hiding. Because, unlike bracelets, rain doesn’t conceal.
It reveals.
I sweep the drops aside, my thumb lingering over her wrist, and there it is. A butterfly. No fill, no detail, just the wings poised mid-flight, caught in a forever moment.
Two things strike me. It’s only half. And, within the forewing, curved like a secret too tender to show, is one word etched in cursive.
Bryce.
The air between us thickens. I can’t speak for a moment. I can’t look away from the name inked onto her skin, permanent in a way I don’t feel. I hover my thumb over it, and then, without thinking, cover it completely.
I want to ask, but my mind spirals. Who is Bryce? Is that who she went to see? Does he have the other wing, the other half? Does he have her?
Instead of voicing that like the thud of my pulse demands, I ask the question I need an answer to more. “Are you okay?”
Her tongue darts out, tasting drops glistening across bee-stung lips. “I will be,” she whispers.
You’ll be okay.
I promised her that once. Back on the boardwalk, when her hair was butchered and her eyes were the saddest I’d ever seen. She didn’t believe me then.
But now she does.
And it isn’t because of me.
Because of Bryce?
It rips out harsher than I intend, shaped like an accusation. “You promised you wouldn’t avoid me.”
“And you promised you wouldn’t judge me.” There’s no bite behind it, just a wound that makes me want to heed the call of the breeze, and swim off the feeling it evokes.
In the beginning, I hated how beautiful she was.
But right now, rain-kissed and wide-eyed, I think I might despise it.
The tremble in her lower lip, the tight pull of her cheekbones, the wet lashes casting shadows over her eyes—every detail only underscores how much hurt she carries.
She’s never shown me the full scope of it, only flashes in accidental moments. But now, nothing is being held back.
Because her secret’s out?
“A couple of hours,” I grind. “I needed a couple of hours to come to terms with what I’d just learned.”
Droplets scatter from her lashes as she shakes her head.
“You didn’t even hear me out, Carson.” Her voice is so fragile the downpour almost steals it. Almost. “You just heard one thing and ran with it.”
My grip on her wrist falters. Fingers flex, the demand brewing on my tongue. Tell me.
But before it can leave me, a voice cracks like thunder. “Brielle.” Narrowed eyes, a shade darker than his daughter’s, glare down from the front deck. “Inside. Now.”
She doesn’t resist. Just pulls away, her footing mechanical like she’s running on fumes. I follow, not giving a damn if I’m welcome or not. I’m not ready to let her out of my sight again. Especially not with so much unsaid between us.
Inside, her mom rises from a rattan chair.
“Honey…” That’s all she manages. Her eyes flick to me, more glazed than when I first stood on their doorstep.
Brielle doesn’t say anything. She heads straight for the couch, dragging a blanket over it at the last second, then another after a glance in my direction.
I remain by the door. I’m not here for formalities, or to get comfortable. I’m here for her.
Part of me wants to cross the room, and take her to mine, where she belongs, but her parents’ worry holds me still. They need their daughter. And Brielle, breaking at the seams in front of me, needs them just as much.
But then her father speaks, and it leaves me wondering what he sees. “You’re seeing a therapist. No question.”
I go stiff.
Brielle doesn’t answer, only nods at the floor.
“We’ve been lenient with you for too long. No more, Brielle.” Another nod, no protest. But her dad seems hungry for a reaction. “Do you think we have time to deal with stunts like this?”
My fingers flex. The desire to grab her nearly wins then, especially when all her mother manages is a soft, “Jack,” more habit than warning. Only the respect I was raised into keeps me rooted.
“I apologise.” It’s so faint the drip of water from my clothes is louder. “It won’t happen again.”
Flat. Mechanical. I hate it. Hate when she folds herself into nothing, when I know just how much she feels.
“Damn right it won’t.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Do you know what you put us through? If you wanted to see Bryce, you could’ve told us. We would’ve taken you.”
If looks could burn, Brielle wouldn’t be trembling right now. She had gone to see him.
“What is this, Brielle? A cry for help? Hm?” He doesn’t let up. “And where did you disappear the other day? Walking out on the Byrnes without a word. We had to cover for you, again.”
She musters a listless shrug, and my patience wears thin. She doesn’t want this fight.
“That’s all you have to say?” His footsteps echo as he paces, each turn more abrupt than the last. “You can’t even look your mother in the eye after putting her through this again!”
The rise in his pitch does it.
“She apologised,” I grouse, forcing my pace slow simply to modulate what comes out. “You should do this when she’s not soaked, shivering and clearly exhausted. Sir.”
He whirls on me, finger stabbing the air. “You don’t tell me what to do. I’m her father.”
I suck my teeth, blank-faced. Nod once. “I’m not trying to undermine that.” Why the fuck would I? “But there’s a time and a place.”
He squares up. “Who are you, huh? I’ve never seen you, never even heard your name, yet you talk like you know my daughter.” A vein jumps in his temple. “You shouldn’t even be here!”
Brielle’s on her feet before I can even try my hand at diffusing this. She staggers, but the barbed wire in her voice halts me mid-step.
“Don’t talk to him like that.” It’s a tone I’ve never heard from her. I should have known it was the start of the unravel.
“I’ll talk to him however I damn well please. He’s no one.”
The insult slides off me, but it strikes Brielle like a slap. Her face crumples, brows lifting in disbelief.
“No one?” Her breath hitches. “No one? He’s been there for me more than either of you ever were.
How many times have we even had dinner since I got here?
Once? Twice?” She doesn’t wait for an answer.
“We’ve barely spoken this whole time. I’ve been at his place, with his friends.
People who actually see me and make room for me when I can’t stand being alone with my own thoughts. ”
“That’s not fair, sweetie,” her mom croaks, but it barely registers. Brielle is center stage in my mind, every nerve wired to her.
“Fair?” she spits back, spinning to face her. “You want to talk about fair, Mom? Like that first night, when you and Dad said you couldn’t even look at me anymore. Was that fair?”
That’s why she’d gotten high? I ground my molars, a sick feeling keeping me still. What the fuck went down that her parents can’t even look at her?
“And what about the empty bottles of Xanax buried in your bedside drawer?” She swipes angrily at a stray tear. “I’m not the only one that needs to see a therapist!”
“That’s enough, Brielle.” Her dad interrupts, trying for demanding but failing to mask the distraught.
Brielle capitalises on it. “No. It’s not, and you know I’m right.
” She tugs at the soaked strands of her hair.
“You questioned this, didn’t you?” Dark and cropped, nothing at all like the sunlit waves that first drew me in from the ocean, glittering under starlight.
“I hacked it off minutes after Mom called me her name. She didn’t even notice she’d said it.
” Her breaths turn ragged, filling the space. “It’s fucked up. Fucked up.”
A charged pause settles, as if she’s holding out for acknowledgment. The averted emerald gaze says it won’t come.
All the while, the gears in my head spin, grinding through her words.
Her name.
Couldn’t even look at me anymore.
“You have more of a relationship with Katy, Mom. You text her, talk to her, give her advice on dates. You even gave her Bryce’s dress!” Her eyes flash to mine, full of everything she isn’t saying, before darting away. “You had no right. No right.”
She keeps talking, but all I hear is that.
Bryce’s dress.
A memory slams into me. Aspen pulling everyone into a group selfie. Brielle hesitating, then caving. Later, I stared at that photo, stared at her. That faraway look. Eyes that never touched the lens.
Another memory collides with it. Her tattoo. A half. Bryce inked into her skin.
It crashes through me like a freight train. My chest caves, blood flash-freezing.
Bryce is her sister.
My eyes fly to hers, the truth detonates between us, and I know. I fucking know.
Twins.
It wasn’t her in the car.
I nearly stumble under the force of the revelation, the ground tilting like it’s been torn out from beneath me. Rage and grief and disbelief, all collide until this is single-handedly the worst moment of the summer.
But none of it matters. Not when Brielle looks like she might fold in on herself, every trace of strength draining from her.
Her sway strips the fight from me. When her desperate eyes find mine, I’m already there, grabbing her hand. The one with the fucking tattoo.
“She needs rest,” I clip out. And so help me, if they try to stop me, I’ll forget every shred of goodwill I’ve managed to muster.
But they don’t. They’re speechless too. With their faults laid out in front of them, rolling around their necks and mine too.
I almost twitch toward the front door as we pass it, but fuck that. That would appease me, and this isn’t about me. I don’t deserve that luxury.
So I make for the stairs, her hand in mine, carrying the weight of everything I can’t unhear.