Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
CALEB
There are no lights on in the house.
That’s the first thing that registers when I pull into the driveway. No porch light. No glow from the kitchen window where Mom always leaves the light burning when someone’s out late.
Just darkness.
My hands are shaking on the steering wheel. Have been shaking since the hospital. Since the doctor stopped doing compressions and looked at me with those practiced, sympathetic eyes that said I’m sorry before his mouth even formed the words.
Time of death: 4:47 PM.
Like Mom was just a statistic. A case file. Another name to add to whatever cancer survival database they keep. She didn’t make it to year six of remission after all.
He didn’t care that she was the woman who packed my lunches with little notes that said I’m proud of you. The person who believed I could do anything. Be anything.
Even when, really, I was just the bastard son of a man who didn’t want me.
I check my phone for the forty-seventh time since leaving the hospital. Still no response from Harper. I’ve called twice. Texted three times.
CALEB: Mom’s gone. I need you.
CALEB: Please pick up.
CALEB: Harper?
Nothing.
Does that mean Silas wasn’t able to get her out of jail after all?
He seemed so sure when he took off after the school called about what happened.
Pounds of weed in her locker? I had no idea how fucking diabolical McKenzie was.
High school pranks are one thing, but didn’t she realize that could get Harper in real trouble?
Trouble that could affect the rest of her life?
Silas wouldn’t let me or Z go with him, but he assured us he’d get it taken care of and Harper would be home in a matter of hours.
I was so busy freaking out about it, I didn’t even realize Mom had gone out to get the mail.
Or how long she’d been gone.
Until I heard the ambulance siren.
I’d been so focused on her sixty-two percent survival rate from the cancer. Those were good odds. Great odds, even. The doctors said the experimental treatment was working. Her last scans showed improvement. Marginal, but improvement nonetheless.
But then her heart just... stopped. She dropped where she stood, halfway out to the mailbox.
An embolism.
Complications from the cancer. Medical jargon that boils down to: sometimes bodies quit, and there’s nothing you can do about it, and all your careful planning and perfect grades and rigid self-control mean precisely nothing in the face of cellular betrayal.
And now Silas won’t return my calls or texts either. Or Harper.
Read receipts turned off. Like she’s deliberately hiding from me.
What the fuck is going on?
I slam out of the Mustang, my chest constricting. I need to fall apart, and I need my family so I can.
But why aren’t there any lights on?
Air moves wrong in and out of my lungs. Too fast. Not fast enough. I can’t—
Deep breath.
Count to four.
Hold.
Count to four.
Exhale.
Count to four.
My legs feel disconnected from my body, like I’m operating a machine I don’t quite remember how to control.
The front door is unlocked.
My pulse spikes. Unlocked.
Mom never left the door unlocked.
Rule #12: Lock doors behind you, always. Safety first.
“Harper?” My voice cracks on her name. “Silas?”
The only answer is silence. The house feels hollow. Empty in a way that has nothing to do with whether people are physically present and everything to do with the absence of the person who made it a home.
“Z?” I call, even though he’s probably in the basement with those damn headphones on.
I flip on the hallway light. Everything looks the same. Mom’s shoes lined up by the door, neat just the way she liked them. Her reading glasses on the entry table. The framed photo of the two of us from my eighth-grade graduation, her arm around my shoulders, both of us grinning.
I was so proud that day. Honor roll. Student council. Debate team.
See, Mom? I’m doing everything right. You can’t leave me if I’m perfect enough.
Except she did leave me. Not by choice. Not because I failed. Just... physics. Biology. The fundamental unfairness of a universe that doesn’t give a shit about how hard you try.
“Harper?” I try again, louder this time. My voice echoes off the walls.
Nothing.
I pull out my phone. Try calling again. It goes straight to that automated message: The person you are trying to reach is unavailable.
Something small and furry brushes against my ankle, and I nearly jump out of my skin. Sox. Harper’s stray cat, looking up at me with those massive green eyes.
“Where is she?” I ask the cat, which is stupid, but it feels like the cat is the only living thing in this house, and I need—I need—
I need Harper. I need her arms around me. I need her telling me in that blunt, no-bullshit way of hers that it’s okay to fall apart.
Sox meows and trots toward the kitchen. I follow because what else am I supposed to do?
The kitchen light is off, but the moon through the window provides enough illumination to see the counter. And there, propped against the fruit bowl, is a piece of paper.
Not just paper. A sketch.
My hands are shaking so hard I nearly drop it.
It’s us. Harper and me. Her distinctive style, all bold lines and shadow work that shouldn’t be possible with just a pencil but somehow is. We’re reaching for each other. Fingertips barely touching. And she’s walking away.
Pulling away.
Leaving.
My throat closes.
No.
No no no no—
There’s text at the bottom. Big blocky capitals, the letters slanted and pressed hard into the page like she was angry when she wrote them. Or crying. Or both.
Caleb,
I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. For all of it. For ruining your life. For dragging you into my shit. For making you believe I could belong in a world like yours.
Dad took the fall for me and confessed to the drugs. I can’t stay and pretend to live with that. I can’t live in a world where I destroy the only people who’ve ever tried to love me. I’ll just destroy you, too.
You were always meant for more than this. Harvard. A clean start. You deserve so much better than trailer trash who brings you down. You have a chance to start over now with a clean slate. Don’t waste it on someone like me.
Forget me.
Forget us.
Go become the man you were meant to be. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I hope someday you’ll understand that leaving is the only way I know how to love you.
—Harper
The paper crumples in my fist before I realize I’m squeezing it.
I try to count. One. Two. Three. Four.
But the numbers dissolve. They mean nothing.
Mom is still dead at any number.
And Harper is gone.
And Silas—
Silas is in prison.
He made the choice without even telling me. Now he’s locked away and Harper thinks it’s her fault and Mom is dead and I’m standing alone in this kitchen with a cat that isn’t even mine and—
The floor tilts.
Or maybe I tilt.
My knees hit the tile hard enough that pain shoots up my thighs but I can’t—I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t do anything except stare at this sketch of Harper walking away from me because that’s what everyone does eventually, isn’t it?
Silas: prison.
Mom: dead.
Harper: gone.
Every single person who ever mattered is gone.
I did everything right. I followed all the rules. I maintained my GPA. Got into Harvard. Never caused problems. Kept my shit together. Stayed perfect.
And it didn’t matter.
None of it mattered.
The laugh that comes out of me doesn’t sound human. It’s brittle and sharp and tastes like blood.
Everything I feared, everything I tried to prevent through six years of perfect control, has happened anyway.
Sox appears at the edge of the kitchen, her green eyes reflecting the moonlight. She meows once—small, questioning.
Looking for Harper. Waiting for someone who’s never coming back.
She pads closer, pressing her small body against my leg. Purring.
I’m supposed to be going to Harvard. Supposed to have a future. Supposed to be perfect.
Instead, I’m alone in my dead mother’s kitchen, holding a sketch of the girl I love walking away, with a cat that isn’t mine and waiting for someone who will never walk through that door again.
I throw my head back and scream.
The sound tears out of me—raw, desperate, absolutely alone.
Sox stops purring.
The silence that follows is worse than the scream.
This is far from over. Watch out for the conclusion to Rules & Ruins duet where all questions will be answered in THE RUINS, out soon. Some love stories don’t end. They just ruin you first.