Chapter 13
RIGGS
Coming back to Barrett was never the plan.
When my parents announced they were moving to Galveston so my dad could take a supervisor job on one of the off-shore rigs that litter the gulf, I was relieved.
Cameron was already gone. She ripped a page out of Beck’s playbook and went off to chase her dream of being a star.
While Beck followed in Landon McLeod’s footsteps, Cam ran off in the opposite direction, to New York.
She models—I’ve never asked what that meant and she’s never elaborated—and works as a swing on Broadway, learning choreography and filling in for dancers who are sick or get injured on the job.
Her big claim to fame is that she was an understudy for the principal in some musical that won a bunch of Tonys.
When the show finally closed, she started modeling to supplement her income.
She’s been living in Manhattan for a while now and I’m sure she felt the same way I did when our parents announced their move—relieved. Coming back here was never the plan for either of us.
How I let myself get talked into it is still something I can’t quite figure out. Part guilt. Part hope. Maybe a little wishful thinking that I’ll get a glimpse of the very thing I’ve spent the last eleven years hiding from.
You dumb, Marine—or just fuckin’ stupid?
You really think Gemma Pierce waited for you?
After what you did? We’ve already been through this.
Gemma is married to some fancy Clearwater fuck and has a bunch of kids by now.
She lunches at the club and shops while her husband golfs his way into a higher tax bracket.
She hasn’t thought about you in years, so you can hang up whatever wish you’re holding on to because it’s never going to happen.
And it shouldn’t happen.
That’s what I need to remember.
What I can’t forget.
Gemma Pierce is off limits. She’s been off limits since the night I walked her home and she put crazy ideas in my head.
Coming home doesn’t change that. She’s still Beck’s little sister.
She’s still the same girl I made mudpies and played tetherball with.
Still the same Gemma I used to give piggyback rides to and swim with in the Barrett.
What I did doesn’t change that.
Coming back here doesn’t change it either.
It doesn’t change a goddamned thing.
I haven’t asked Reese about her—not once since I left.
I tell myself I’m doing it for her. That after what happened with Beck, talking about either one of them would’ve been too hard on her.
It would’ve hurt and I didn’t want to be the one twisting the knife—that’s what I tell myself.
The real reason I don’t ask Reese about Gemma is because I’m afraid she’ll know, the second I say her name out loud.
I’m afraid she’ll hear me say it and she’ll hear the same thing I do.
I’ve been back in Barrett for all of twelve hours and the closer I got, the more she crept in. Memories and daydreams. Fantasies and what ifs. Little by little, until Gemma Pierce was all I could think about. Not my surgery or the fact that this is it—my last chance at ever walking again.
Her.
Just her.
“Dr. Ragnar prescribed a mild sedative,” the nurse who’s come in to start my IV informs me with a polite smile.
She seems vaguely familiar. I think we might’ve gone to high school together but I don’t really care enough to ask.
“You might feel a slight sensation of euphoria, followed by some drowsiness.” Producing a syringe from the pocket of her scrubs, the nurse scans the barcode on the plastic bracelet on my wrist before administering the injection straight into my brand new IV.
“Try to get some rest—” Another polite, professional smile.
I definitely know her. “the prep team will be here at 5AM to pick you up for surgery.”
Dropping my gaze to the badge clipped to the front of her scrubs, I barely have time to read the name Janelle before the letters start to swim and fuzz in front of my eye.
“0500.” I repeat back to her, the words a little too thick on my tongue.
“0500.” She confirms with another smile.
Before I can ask her if we had Spanish together with Mr. Olivarez, my eyes droop closed and everything goes black.
When I hear my hospital room door open and close I assume it’s the prep team my nurse mentioned, right after she shot me up with whatever the doctor order that launched me into orbit.
You might feel a slight sensation of euphoria my ass.
I’m so high right now, I can literally see stars.
When I don’t hear the murmur of voices working out the applied physics it’s going to take to move my giant ass onto a gurney or feel someone check my ID tag, I begin the work of forcing my eyes open.
It’s a struggle, but I finally manage to pry my lids apart to find a small, quiet shape standing by the door, watching me.
I can’t see their face and they don’t make a sound but I know.
I know who it is.
“Are you real?” I push the words out of my mouth in an uneven bunch, some of them rushing. Others stalling, leaving behind a jumbled mess that barely makes sense.
She answers me anyway.
“As real as you are, I guess.”
Still staring at the ghost of her, I feel the back of my throat tighten at the sound of her voice.
It doesn’t sound like I remember. “That’s the what you said the last time…
” I mumble, fuzzy gaze fixed on the silhouette of her, watching me from the dark.
“I never wanted…” That’s not true. I wanted.
I always wanted. “I was never going to come back here.” Even though I’m not completely sure that’s the truth either, I let it ride.
“I decided a long time ago that I was never going to see you again.”
“You decided…” The words are followed by a muted scoff. “I hate you, Riggs.”
I can hear it in her tone—the truth of it. She hates me. Probably almost as much as I hate myself.
“I know.” Even though I want to look away from her, I can’t. I can’t look away because if I do, she’ll disappear.
She didn’t disappear.
You did.
You’re the one who disappeared.
You’re the one who left.
“You broke my heart.”
“I know that too…” Shame rips through me, burning a hole in my gut, the sting of it finally turning my gaze away from the shape of her. “Are you happy?” Staring at the stars dancing on my ceiling, I sigh. “Sometimes I want you to be.”
“Only sometimes?”
“Yeah…” Still watching the light show above my head, I answer my hallucination honestly. “Sometimes I imagine you married. Kids. White picket fence and it makes me happy because if you’re happy, that means it was worth it… but most of the time I hope you’re as miserable as I am.”
“Wow. That might be the shittiest thing anyone’s ever said to me, Riggs Wheeler.”
“Well…” Something about the way she says it knocks a short bark of laughter loose. “I’m a pretty shitty person, so it makes sense.” As soon as I let it out, the sound of it turns bitter before it withers and dies. “Do ever think about me?”
I think about you.
I think about you all the time. Even when I should be thinking about something else. Anything else. When I was trapped in that hole, buried under thirty thousand pounds of concrete and dirt, I was sure I was going to die—and all I could think about was you.
“No.”
Something sharper than shame digs its claws into my chest and I turn my head to look at where she’s standing so I can call her a liar, but it’s a wasted effort.
She’s already gone—or more likely, she was never really here in the first place.