Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
HUX
“I probably wouldn’t answer the phone after the way you treated her friends either.” Elle pours a beer from the tap while giving me the stink eye.
“I was busy! I don’t know what everyone expects.
This isn’t a fucking vacation for me like the rest of them.
” A couple of fries jump from the plate I place on the bar too aggressively.
The patron looks up warily but ultimately returns to the conversation with his buddy, popping the fallen fries into his mouth anyway.
“What is up with you? You’re being a dick! You better start explaining yourself, and fast before you end up wearing this beer.” Elle’s posture proves she isn’t messing around.
She’s always put up with my attitude, but if I go too far, she’s the first to put me in my place.
“Sorry.” I huff, putting my hands up in a peace offering.
“I don’t know what my deal is. My brain is just all sorts of fucked up.
” I take my hat off, pushing the sweaty mop back from my forehead before putting the cap back on.
“You think you’d be all right to cover for a bit so I can try to clear my head? ”
“Yes, please, go.” Elle shoos me out from behind the bar. “And Hux?” I look back at her as I grab my keys from under the counter. “Don’t mess this up. You deserve this, and Everly too.” Her genuine smile and tone, completely void of sarcasm, makes something crack deep inside my chest.
I push out the back door in search of pain relief.
The truck abruptly stops, and my stomach turns as my gaze focuses on that broken screen door. I have been in a daze for hours, and now I’m here. The faded number seven stares back at me.
After driving around aimlessly on dirt roads, blowing off steam, I decided to get over myself, go into town, and find Everly and her friends. I owed them all an apology and didn’t want this to turn into a fight, especially knowing my time with her is running out.
But my search had come up empty after checking every store on Main Street, including the tackle shop, which I couldn’t imagine they would have any reason or interest in fishing gear and buckets of worms, but regardless, I checked.
I felt that shift in mood as I pulled myself back up into my truck. My remorse retreating, the self-loathing and doubt constantly on a low simmer, threatening to boil over, receding. Before throwing the shaft into drive, I tried her phone a few more times, the calls going straight to voicemail.
Muscle memory must have brought me here. My whole life, Storm was the person who I went to with any problem, especially when it came to girls. But Storm’s not here. He’s not fucking here .
Betrayal infiltrates my veins as I walk up on the neglected porch. How could he do this to us? How could he just leave his home, a business he loved, and most of all me, his fucking only brother, to shoulder it all? He knew how badly I didn’t want this life, yet here I am.
Witnessing Everly with her college friends firsthand made this whole reality that much clearer.
The worst part? I’m fucking jealous. We aren’t even living two different lives by choice.
I’m not some guy singing about my hometown.
Sure, I will always love Silsby, but I never planned to stay here.
This wasn’t supposed to be my forever. Watching her interact with the life I want to live, right in the middle of Anderson’s bar? Torture. Absolute torture.
I want to get to know her friends and be that guy she’s excited to introduce to the people who are important to her.
People I am sure I also would share a lot in common with.
I can’t force myself to endure that level of pain.
It’s easier to put up that wall I’ve built and avoid seeing the life I once had.
The life I would like more than anything to return to.
My family needs me, and I may not feel the loyalty to this place that I thought Storm once had, but I sure as hell would never walk out on my parents. Which, therefore, means I am royally screwed.
Self-pity, once again, coursing through me at the shitty cards I’ve been dealt. I walk up to the front door and kick it open with the heel of my boot. The wood cracks and splinters as the doorframe lets go. I burst in, kicking debris that’s strewn about.
It’s all here. History with my brother. He moved into this cabin when I was a junior in high school.
Now, it’s a destroyed mess. The flat-screen TV smashed, jagged shards of glass hanging from its frame.
We played endless video games on that TV.
The couch I crashed on more nights than I can count, buried beneath overturned drawers, is here.
The liquor cabinet that supplied the pre-game shots we did before whatever party we were headed to, now littered with empty whiskey bottles, is here.
But Storm isn’t.
Storm isn’t here because his heart drowned.
If Julia hadn’t died that summer, she would have left just like Everly will, and where does that leave me? Just as bad off as him?
I knew this wasn’t going to work. I knew this was a bad idea, and I still went along with it. I let my heart beat for someone else, and now, I have no idea what to do.
Holding on to the back of the worn couch, I put my forehead on the musky fabric and try to calm the spiral that has taken over.
My phone pings with the sound of an incoming text message. Pulling it from my back pocket, I am hopeful it’s Everly. If there is anyone who can help me find my footing, it’s her. Instead, it’s Tommy, the barback from the restaurant.
Hey, man, not trying to start anything or whatever, but that chick you’ve been spending time with just showed up here at Tyler’s end-of-summer party with none other than that richie Nick. WTF dude.
WTF is right. I’m down the steps, in my truck, and peeling out of the drive before I can even take a full breath.