Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
PAIGE
I knock on the door.
The sun is hidden behind thick, gray clouds, and the irony is not lost on me.
I knock again.
Finally, when I turn to leave, the door opens.
“Paige?”
I was holding it together pretty well—I’d stopped crying on my way over. But as soon as I see Hollis, I break down in tears.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, wrapping one arm around me and pulling me inside. “Paige?”
“I need a second.”
“Yeah. Sure. Take your time.” He guides me into the living room—the one that I felt so happy in before. “Do you want me to get Riss? Like, is this a girl thing, or can I handle it?”
I sit on the sofa. Using the backs of my hands, I dry my eyes.
“I don’t know, Hollis. I’m just so …” Scared.
He sits in the chair that I’ve pegged as his favorite and studies me. “Are you okay? Physically?”
“Yes.” I blow out a breath. “I’m sorry.”
The realization of what I’ve done—driven to my brother’s house mid-heartbreak slash panic attack and tossed him into the middle of it—isn’t fair.
I start to stand. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Sit.”
Okay. I lower myself back on the sofa.
“Something is wrong enough that you came here. Now talk to me. What’s going on?”
I open my mouth to speak, to tell him all the things, but it turns out that talking while you’re mid-spiral isn’t easy.
He sits with his hands folded together, watching me carefully.
What do I say? That I just scared myself shitless? That I have the best damn boyfriend in the world with the cutest kid that I’ve ever seen, and he apparently wants me to be his wife, and I’m terrified?
Yeah. That doesn’t sound ridiculous or anything.
“Have you ever just run?” I ask him. “I don’t mean a mile or whatever. I mean, like just ran to get away from everything that terrifies you?”
“More times than I can count.”
“Really?”
He sits back and blows out a breath. “The only thing that ever terrified me was people. And I ran like hell from them. I didn’t want anyone getting too close to me. Even my two closest friends—I kept my distance from them too in a lot of ways.”
“What terrified you about it?”
“The connection,” he says, shrugging. “If I had a connection with someone, they could break it. If I just kind of floated around, then whatever. It didn’t hurt so bad if something happened, you know?”
Yeah. I know.
“I lived a long time just trying to get to the next day,” he says.
“The next sunrise. The next meal. The next football game. It was all I had—the hope for the next thing because I couldn’t hope for anything beyond that.
” Because to believe in anything beyond that meant believing … hoping in forever.
My tears dry. I sniffle. “I’m sorry you felt like that.”
“It sucked. After I graduated, I didn’t know where to start with my life. I’d played football, and my life had centered around that. And then all of a sudden, I was on my own with no one to help me, and I … I almost messed up the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He looks at me knowingly, as if he already knows what has happened.
“Paige, I’ve run from people my whole life. I even left Larissa at a New Year’s Eve party because I heard a song that … just brought up bad memories.”
“How did you get her back?”
He chuckles. “She came and got me. Brought the whole family with her.” His grin is true. “They showed up for me when I had no one and claimed me as their own. I owe this family my life for saving me from myself.”
Thank you for taking care of him.
“Now, what’s going on with you? Who are you running from?” he asks.
My spirits fall again. “I’m not running. Not exactly. I just need a moment to breathe.”
The voices—Marcie, Nate, Ryder—clutter my head again.
My phone buzzes, and I look down.
Nate: Hey, where are you?
Tension pulls on every fiber of my body as I read his text.
“I think Nate was going to propose to me,” I say.
“Whoa. Okay.”
“And I … panicked.” I look up at Hollis. “I am panicking. This is mid-panic, even if I don’t look like it.”
He grins. “What are you panicking about? What bullshit did our parents embed into you without your consent?”
My lip trembles.
“Look, Paige—if anyone gets the fucked-up part of your brain, it’s me. I’ve been there. Lived there. Almost died there a couple of times. So talk to me.”
I look at my brother and smile. I’m so glad we found each other.
“I’m just really scared,” I admit, saying the words out loud.
“Of what?”
I shrug. “Of everything. I’m afraid of losing him. I’m afraid of staying and fucking it all up. I’m afraid of getting engaged, and then something happening …”
“A honeymoon phase in a relationship … It’s fun at first …”
“And then owing people money,” I say.
Hollis makes a face. “Huh?”
“Never mind.” I sigh. “If thinking about losing him now hurts this bad, then what will it feel like if it ends six months, a year, six years down the line?”
“You can’t do that, Paige. You can’t live your life expecting the worst. Trust me. I tried it.”
“But things don’t last. Nothing does. The honeymoon phase is over, and then reality kicks in, and it’s just a bigger mess.”
I think of Ryder again and how I can’t risk ruining his life like mine was.
I force a swallow down my throat. “I don’t remember the day we were removed from our home very well. I have random flashbacks about chocolate chip cookies and milk. But that’s about it.”
“That’s the snack they gave us at CPS.”
Oh. “But you know what I do remember? I remember the first night lying in bed and feeling so scared and so alone.” Tears fill my eyes again.
“And Nate’s little boy—he loves me. We have the kind of relationship that will have us growing close.
Bonding. And what if something happens someday and I need to leave?
Or Nate leaves me? What does that do to Ryder?
” I stand. “It keeps the cycle of pain going, Hollis. It transfers the shit that happened to us onto Ryder.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does.” My heart beats so hard that I grip the sofa for support in case I pass out.
“It takes my abandonment issues, my fears, my stupid shit, and puts them on a little boy who has his own mess with his mother. That will come creeping back to him at some point and I’ll be damned if I’m going to add any load onto that poor boy. ”
Tears stream down my face in hot rivers.
“We can’t just live our lives without thinking about what could happen to other people. And I’m too much of a risk.”
Hollis gets to his feet and pulls me into a hug again.
“What do you need me to do?” he asks.
I pull away as my phone buzzes again.
Nate: Are you okay? I’m getting worried.
I look at my brother. “Can I stay here tonight? Maybe a couple of days?”
“Of course.”
He glances at my phone as it goes off again.
Nate: Hey, call me.
“What are you going to do about him?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
Hollis takes a step back. “I think you owe him a conversation. If he was going to propose to you, he loves you. He wants to be with you forever. And I know you love him.”
“You do?”
He chuckles. “Yes. So go talk to him. I’ll come if you want me to. But at least let him know you’re okay and that you’re safe. It’ll mean a lot to him, and he hasn’t done anything wrong. Just loved you too hard, maybe.”
That’s true. Nate’s only offense was loving me too hard, too fast. And I can’t punish him for that.
“I’ll go talk to him,” I say.
“Want me to come?”
I shake my head. “I’ll be fine. He’s not going to hurt me.” He’d never hurt me.
“Call me if you need me,” he says.
“Thanks, Hollis.”
I carry my phone to the door and step outside. Then I look at the sky.
How am I going to do this?
Me: I’ll be home in a minute.
As I read that back—home—I cry again.