Chapter 2
GEMMA
Coming home feels like admitting defeat. But defeat is better than another night in the house I shared with Craig, walking on eggshells over a floor that used to be my own.
After three days in Anchor Bay I still haven't slept through the night.
Cole's spare bedroom is nice. Clean sheets, soft pillows, a window that looks out over the neighbor's garden. There's nothing wrong with it. Nothing threatening. The door has a lock, and Cole made sure to show me that it worked before he said goodnight, his eyes careful and too knowing.
My body doesn't care about locks or clean sheets or gardens. My body remembers other nights, other rooms, and it refuses to let me rest.
The ceiling fan turns slow circles above me. I watch the blades cut through the darkness and try to empty my mind, but emptiness is just another word for space, and space fills up fast with things I don't want to think about.
The last night in that house. Craig's face when he realized I'd been planning to leave. The sound of his voice shifting from confusion to cold fury in the span of a single breath.
I pull the memory up the way you'd pick at a scab—knowing it'll bleed, doing it anyway.
We were in the kitchen. I'd made the mistake of leaving my laptop open, and he'd found the email confirmation for the storage unit I'd rented two towns over. The one where I'd been hiding clothes and documents and cash for three months, piece by piece, while he was at work.
"What the fuck is this?" He held my laptop like evidence. Like proof of a crime.
I didn't answer. Didn't make excuses. Something in me had gone quiet and cold, the way it always did when I knew what was coming.
"You think you can leave me?" He laughed, but there was nothing funny in it. "You think you can just walk out of here and start over like the last four years didn't happen?"
"I'm not doing this anymore, Craig." My voice came out steady. Steadier than I felt.
"You're not doing anything." He set the laptop down with exaggerated care, and that was worse than if he'd thrown it. That control. That deliberate patience. "You're going to sit down, and we're going to talk about this like adults, and you're going to realize how stupid you're being."
I didn't sit down. I didn't move.
"Gemma." His voice dropped to that register I used to find soothing, back before I understood what it meant. "I love you. Everything I've done has been for your own good. You know that. You're just confused right now. Stressed. Let me help you."
"You can't help me." I took a step toward the door. "You're the thing I need help getting away from."
What happened next happened fast. His hand on my arm. The wall against my back. His breath hot on my face as he told me all the things he would do if I tried to leave, all the ways he would find me, all the people he would tell about the things I'd let him do to me in the bedroom.
"Who's going to want you after me?" he whispered. "Who's going to look at you and see anything but a desperate little slut who begged for everything she got?"
I left the next morning while he was at work. Took the car, drove to the storage unit, loaded everything that mattered, and pointed myself toward the only place I could think of.
Home. Cole. Safety.
Three days in Anchor Bay, and I'm still not sure I made it.
The memory releases me, and I'm back in Cole's spare bedroom, staring at the ceiling fan and trying to remember how to breathe.
My parents died three years ago. I wasn't there.
Craig convinced me we couldn't afford the time off, that Cole would understand, that funerals were morbid anyway.
I let myself believe him. That's the thing I can't forgive—not Craig's manipulation, but my own willingness to be manipulated.
Cole buried our parents alone, and I didn't even fight to be there.
My phone lights up on the nightstand. I don't have to look to know who it is.
Craig has called fourteen times since I arrived. Left voicemails that started apologetic and have devolved into something else entirely. I listened to the first few before I learned better. His voice in my ear, even through a speaker, made me feel like he was in the room.
The last message I forced myself to hear was two days ago. His tone had gone flat and strange, all the charm stripped away.
"You think you can just disappear? You think I won't find you? We're not done, Gemma. We're not done until I say we're done."
I deleted it. I blocked the last number he used. Changed my voicemail to a generic automated message.
It doesn't matter. He'll find another way to reach me. He always does.
The sky outside the window shifts from black to gray to pale pink, and I give up on sleep entirely. My body aches with exhaustion, but lying still feels too much like waiting. I need to move. Need to do something with my hands besides twist them in the sheets.
I shower, dress in clothes that hang too loose, and make my way downstairs to find my brother already in the kitchen.
Cole stands at the stove with a spatula in one hand, scrambling eggs with the focused attention of someone who learned to cook out of necessity.
He's wearing a faded t-shirt and sweatpants, and his hair is still damp from his shower.
When he hears me on the stairs, he looks up with a smile that doesn't quite hide what's underneath.
"Morning." He gestures toward the coffee maker. "Fresh pot."
"Thanks." I pour myself a cup and lean against the counter, wrapping my hands around the mug. "You don't have to keep feeding me, you know."
"I like cooking." He slides eggs onto a plate and adds toast and bacon. "And you need to eat more. Don't argue with me about it."
There's an edge to his voice. Not anger. Fear wearing a mask of frustration. I've heard that tone before, in the voices of people who love someone they can't fix.
"Cole." I set down my coffee. "I'm okay."
"No, you're not." He puts the plate in front of me with more force than necessary.
"You haven't been okay since you walked into the Ironside three days ago.
You barely eat. You don't sleep. You won't tell me what happened.
" He stops, takes a breath. When he speaks again, his voice is gentler.
"I'm not trying to push. I just need you to know that I'm here.
Whatever it is, whatever he did, I'm here. "
The eggs are scrambled perfectly. Golden, fluffy, seasoned with something that smells like herbs. I pick up my fork and take a bite because it's easier than answering.
"The marriage ended badly," I say after a long moment. "That's all. It ended badly, and I needed to get away, and you're my brother. Where else was I going to go?"
"Gemma." Cole sits down across from me, his own breakfast forgotten. "I saw your face when I hugged you. I felt you flinch. That's not a bad marriage. That's something else."
The eggs turn to chalk in my mouth. I force myself to swallow.
"I'm not ready to talk about this." The words come out smaller than I want them to. "Please. Not yet."
He wants to push. I can see it in every line of his body, the same stubborn set to his jaw that our father used to have. But he nods, letting it go. For now.
"Okay. Not yet. But soon, Gem. You're going to have to let someone in eventually."
"I know." I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever be ready to say out loud the things that happened in that house. But agreeing beats arguing.
We eat in silence for a few minutes. The eggs really are good. I manage half the plate before my stomach starts to rebel, and I set down my fork.
"Listen." Cole clears his throat. "I know you said you're not sure what you want to do next. Job-wise, I mean. But if you want something to keep you busy, we could use help at the Ironside. Nothing major. Inventory, ordering, maybe some bookkeeping. Flexible hours. Decent pay."
"You don't have to give me a pity job."
"It's not pity." He meets my eyes. "We're shorthanded. Darla quit last month to go back to school, and none of us have time to deal with the paperwork. You'd be doing us a favor."
I want to say no. I want to crawl back upstairs and hide under the covers until the world makes sense again. But my small savings account won’t last long, and the thought of sitting alone in this house with my thoughts makes my skin crawl.
"Okay." The word surprises me as much as it surprises him. "I'll try it. See if it works."
Cole's smile is the first real one I've seen since I got here. "Good. Come by around four. I'll introduce you to the systems."
Four o'clock. Six hours to figure out how to act like a normal person.
The Ironside looks different in daylight. Less atmospheric, more practical. The exposed brick and reclaimed wood that seemed so inviting three nights ago now just look like a bar that's seen its share of years and could use a deep clean.
Cole gives me a tour of the back office, which is really just a closet with a desk and a computer that's at least five years out of date.
The filing system appears to be a combination of overstuffed manila folders and good intentions.
It's a mess, and for the first time in months, a mess feels like something I can actually handle.
"I'll let you get oriented." Cole checks his phone and frowns at a text. "I've got to run to the shop for a few hours. Will's out front if you need anything."
Will. My stomach twists at the name.
"I'm sure I'll be fine." I keep my voice light. "Go. I'll figure it out."
Cole hesitates like he wants to say something else, then reaches over slowly and squeezes my shoulder. I don't flinch this time. Small victories.
He leaves without another word, and I listen to his footsteps retreat through the bar, the front door opening and closing. Then I'm alone with a decade's worth of disorganized paperwork and the knowledge that Will Lawson is somewhere on the other side of that wall.