Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
ISABELLA
Lost in the darkness. Lost in the light. Where does the path end? Or where does it begin?
I inhaled deeply, letting the mountain air soak into my pores, and hopefully remind me exactly why I was here. Of course, I didn’t have a good answer for that.
Eyes closed, I didn’t even know why I was out here. Maybe I just needed a breath, a moment. I didn’t feel like there were enough of them to get over this.
My phone buzzed, and I was surprised that I had service out here. I looked down at the screen, and shook my head, knowing I needed to answer.
“Sophia? What’s wrong?”
“When are you coming home?” she asked, her voice soft.
I wish I knew. “Soon. I think. I don’t know. ”
“Take as much time as you need. Or we can come to you. I miss you.”
“I’m fine, Sophia. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“The thing is, I do. Because no one else will. Or at least you won’t let anyone else.”
“That’s not true.” Was it? I was afraid that she was right. I was getting far too good at pushing people away.
“I love you with all of my heart, and I just want you to be happy, okay?”
“I am happy,” I lied.
“I can come to you.”
“No. Stay with Cale. You guys need to celebrate.”
My lips tilted up into a smile, just thinking about the way that my family was growing. Everybody seemed so content. Like they were all moving on, while I was standing back, screaming into the abyss wondering what I was supposed to do.
I was supposed to be the strong one, the one to be there when people needed someone to lean on, and yet I knew if they tried, I would crumble. And I would hate myself in the end.
“Cale says we can both come up there.”
“He’s a good man, Sophia. I’m happy for you.” And I wasn’t lying. He was a good man to her. Just like my best friend falling for my half-brother seemed like the perfect match in heaven, and my baby sister falling in love as well. Everybody was moving forward, and all I could do was scream.
“You don’t have to do this on your own. ”
“I know. And I’m not alone,” I lied.
“Do you want me to talk to her?”
“No. I can handle it. I always do.”
“You adding that last part doesn’t make me feel very happy.”
“I’m not broken, Sophia. Maybe a little bruised, but not broken. I’ll handle it. And then I’ll come home. I promise.”
“I will take you up on that. And, if I don’t hear from you in the next couple of days, Cale and I are going to come up there. We won’t force you to come back, but we’re going to see you. Because I love you, big sister.”
“I love you too, little sister. And you don’t have to worry about me.”
“And you don’t get to tell me what I get to worry about. It’s that lovely thing about choice and humanity.”
“I feel like I taught you too well.”
“Funny, because it probably should have been Mom and Dad who taught us.”
“I don’t want to talk about them,” I blurted, and Sophia’s sigh over the line matched my own.
“Okay. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I slid my phone back into my pocket when we ended the call, and I kept staring out into the cloudy sky. Large white cotton balls in the air made shapes I couldn’t quite sketch out. I wasn’t fanciful, I didn’t see art in the air. I was the analytical one, the type A bitch according to my former boss. And I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do. I couldn’t see shapes and dreams in the sky; I couldn’t see promise.
I just saw a vast expanse that wouldn’t let me go.
After what he did, after what they did, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.
But I needed to go back. I needed to stop hiding from what had happened, and what would happen next. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore or who I could be. And that broke me more than I thought possible.
With one last look at the cloudy sky that didn’t tell me answers and only gave me worries, I finally turned back toward the walking path.
I took one step, as the earth began to shake, and I held up my hands to steady myself.
“What the hell?” I blurted, panic rising in my throat.
Rocks began to slide underneath my feet, the soil beginning to weaken, and I reached out, grabbing for the nearest rock.
My feet fell from beneath me, as part of the cliff I had been standing on disintegrated alongside me. A scream ripped from my throat, as I grabbed for that rock, and a root, and tried to lift myself up. But the wind knocked out of me, and I couldn’t even scream fully.
My phone fell out of my pocket, the resounding plastic and the glass and metal against rock echoing in my ears even though I knew I couldn’t hear it above the roar of part of the mountain falling down.
And when I realized that there was nothing beneath my feet, and I wasn’t strong enough to pull myself up, my fingers dug into the soil, my body sliding down the side of the rockface. Pure panic slammed into me and tears threatened.
“Reach for my hand, damn it!”
The growl of a voice nearly made me fall and I clung to the side of the cliff harder, finally looking up into the eyes of a bearded man holding out his arm.
“Come on. I don’t have a firm grip and we’re both going to fall off this fucking mountain if you don’t move !”
Scrambling, my fingers bleeding, I reached out trying to grip his hands. My fingers brushed his before I fell down another inch, and a scream ripped from my throat.
“I can’t reach!”
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” He kept repeating the words as I tried to climb, tried to save myself.
Then his hand was on mine and we were both shouting, muscles straining. Somehow I lay beside him on the edge of the hillside, both of us breathing heavily, the cuts over my body beginning to sting.
Before I could say anything or even think for that matter, the man sat up and looked down at me.
“You. It had to be you.”
I swallowed hard and looked up into the eyes of Weston Caldwell and held back the tears that threatened that had nothing to do with my aches and pains.
“You.”
Don’t miss the next Cage Family romance with Isabella and Westin in: An Unexpected Everything .
And if you’d like to read a bonus scene featuring Aston and Blakely, you can find it HERE .