43. LINC
FORTY-THREE
LINC
I wake suddenly with a gasp, my eyes bulging as the blurriness clears.
Not in my room. I’m not in my room.
Quickly sitting up, my heart jackhammers through my chest, but as soon as I’m upright, I’m able to register the dim living room.
I’m at the house.
Ugh. My head feels like a fucking sandbag. A sound from the back of my throat rumbles as my toes wiggle in my socks. I never sleep in socks. I never sleep on the couch.
A shiver runs down my spine as my eyes pull over to the windows, seeing that it’s morning. I catch the faint outline of my reflection in the glass and suddenly, everything from last night hits me all at once.
We were watching a movie . I watched her in the reflection of the windows, she caught me, sat on my lap, asked me to tell her what I remembered, and then—
Fuck!
My legs wobble as I push off the couch, heading toward the hallway that leads to her room. Using the heel of my palm, I rub my eye, shifting and rolling my shoulders to work out some of the knots from sleeping like a fucking bat.
But as I reach the hallway, I see the door is . . . open.
And I feel it immediately. The void of her.
After the last few steps, I push the door open the rest of the way, confirming what I already know. The room is empty. Fuck.
I rub the back of my head, massaging the tension at the base of my neck as I try to sort through the madness —the episode . Did I say something?
A zap of tension hits my shoulders with the possibilities of what I could have said, as my hand absently moves to my throat, my scruff scratching the tips of my fingers. I haven’t shaved in a few days . . .
But the thought leaves as fast as it comes, my mind wandering —I think last time I blacked out, my throat hurt more.
But she left. So I must have said something. I was in-and-out when she explained everything to Ellis, but I remember before we all sat down, she had said nothing bad happened.
My mind rewinds as far as it can go. It takes a few seconds, but then a cold, hard feeling solidifies in my chest.
“I have a copy of it. On a flash drive.”
My eyes slam shut, stumbling toward the counter and grabbing on, my hands shaking.
Fuck.
A copy ? Fuck me . The idea of her seeing that . . .
A roll of nausea passes through my stomach, my head shaking —but the fact remains— and the longer it sits in my mind, something darker lands in the pit of my despair.
“It’s okay. I’ll help you.”
God-fucking-dammit. The voice feels like nails pulling through my skull. I’m pretty sure I heard it last night too. Before I snapped.
I push it away, but in its wake, a heaviness settles deep in the walls of my chest. The tension racking my body loosens. I’m so . . . fucking tired.
The urge to disappear is strong. Just disappear. I’ll keep going with the whole life thing—I just want an existence that doesn’t need to be fucking managed —tamed— by other people.
I stand quietly, weighing the two disappearing acts in my mind. The temptation to physically leave bobs in one corner, while the unstable darkness—the hollow path to temporary numbness sits right on the edge of my awareness—taunting me with another brief escape like last night.
My chin tilts in a way where Ellis’s hallway focuses my vision, tightening my awareness the longer I look at it. He’s seen me through everything in this broken part of my life.
Last night included.
Something I’m sure he has opinions about—and they’re probably all valid. But I’m so tired of him cleaning up my mess, making excuses —managing me.
I know it’s all out of love. He’s my brother in every sense of the word. But it’s all because he refuses to believe the truth. If he did, he would have never continued to let me live here.
The delusion is ending, I think to myself.
Ellis and I were able to shove away the memory of the last time I went too far. With time, the event disappeared and it became easier to . . . pretend.
A fallacy I’ve clung to. Because it’s the only way I’ve been able to peel myself out of bed for the last five years.
Since I . . . saw Ellis again.
Searching for that memory right now seems too risky, so I don’t . . . and instead, I take a breath.
Something needs to change.
This didn’t happen by accident. This isn’t a coincidence.
This is a reckoning. Something always tips the scales, and the great equalizer comes to collect.
Without Paige around, Ellis will keep pretending, and I’ll keep letting him because —fuck, it feels good to act like it never happened.
But it never lasts. The truth always finds me. If the memories don’t, the bad ideas do. Trespassing, kissing Paige—stealing her underwear.
A heavy sigh pushes past my lips. There’s no escaping this. How’s that old saying go—“Wherever you go, there you are.”
Destination fucked.
Now that I’ve seen her again, it’s clear that every bit of love and obsession I’ve always had for her is still roaring with life—and it feels so fucking good.
Just to feel that kind of adrenaline—that deep unstoppable desire.
Alive.
But all of it runs alongside the other shit. The other mountain of bullshit that has intensified since I saw her again. The guilt and despair —pure fucking anguish.
“ Trying to reconcile too many things at once is a recipe for disaster. Prioritize. ” The therapy talk finds me, and helps at the moment. It keeps my mind from drifting.
Prioritize.
Paige said she was going back to Darlene’s.
I’ll try Venice first.
I need to make sure she’s okay. If she left because of something I said when I was spiraling in a blackout, I can’t allow another seven years to pass letting her believe anything other than the fact that I love her.
I hurt her and I love her.
I catch my reflection in the mirror by the entry hall. My nearly black hair is a disheveled mess, my gray T-shirt sufficiently pulled and wrinkled. My scruff is almost to beard territory, and the dark circles under my eyes are making my irises equal parts dark green, brown . . . lost.
So fucking lost.
Who is this person?
It’s not the first time I’ve asked myself that question, but Paige’s return has shifted the tone to a demand.
My mouth flattens and I start toward the door, shoving my feet into my boots, and grabbing my keys off the small table. I think I have a shirt in the car I can change into. I can’t give myself time to back out—the drive alone will be hard enough.
But I can’t let it end this way. Not this time.
I see the old blue Cabrio as I pull up to the driveway at the end of the cul-de-sac. Only about a week since my last trespassing tango.
Driving here was less awful than I thought. Just like a few nights ago when Ellis had texted me, telling me Paige was at the house, there was this heaviness that sat in my gut, but my lungs felt wide open.
I can’t explain it, only that the idea of seeing her in any sort of way feels like the air is easier to breathe. The thought of her soft blue hair between my fingers steadies my heart to a nearly sedated pace. Her smell.
But I definitely can’t touch her.
Not this time.
This isn’t about that, I remind myself. Putting the car in park, I nervously fiddle with the change in my pocket. I match my jingling to some song playing—but I’m not listening.
A few seconds pass before I finally turn off the car. I take another breath, then push off the seat and open the door, closing it with a little more force than necessary.
My limbs start to shake instinctively as nostalgia seeps the air. Closer to the ocean, the citrus—even the breeze feels specific. Warm.
September in LA is like most seasons here —temperate— but I met her in September, and everything about this time of year reminds me of that one early-fall day where a pretty blond girl challenged me to an arm-wrestling match.
A smirk pulls up and tilts my lips at the memory, steadying my adrenaline.
My steps are slow, but driving toward my route. I open and close the fence, pausing, only because I think for a moment, I might puke, but then the citrus smell from the lemon tree sweeps through my nose.
Be a man and face her, you fucking pussy.
I wince. The words find me with a mix of voices—all low and deep—one even seems to have the resonance of my asshole father, and it tightens my muscles.
And then it hits me.
I’m no fucking better than him. I’m worse.
No, I didn’t have a family to support, but I abandoned Paige.
I hurt her.
I didn’t want to, but I did it.
The blow is hard. Fuzzy memories aside, I always remember trying to do everything I could to be the opposite of him.
But hurting and leaving? Both his moves.
In an instant, anger snatches my despair with an iron grip.
I’m going to fix that.
My eyes narrow up the steps to the door. If there’s one thing I can do . . . I can try my fucking hardest to look her in the eye, tell her everything I remember —give her any answers I can— and then let her decide what she wants to do with it.
My trek through the house was slow, keeping my eyes on my feet. When Paige wasn’t downstairs—when I called out her name and she didn’t answer me, I got worried. I rushed up to her room, but timidly pushed through her door—unsure of what state I would find her in.
It could have been anything—rage, despair, vengeance.
But she’s just . . . sleeping.
She looks so small . . . curled up on the bed.
A sharp inhale inflates my chest as I notice the sweater she’s wearing. It was Darlene’s.
Cheeto is in a smaller container on her nightstand, next to her bed, alert and blinking at me.
She knows about the panties, I remind myself.
I mouth a silent “Sorry” then pinch my eyebrows.
Fucking Christ. Apologizing to a gecko.
My eyes drift back to Paige—her back is to me, but I can see her shoulders rising gently, thankfully, seeing as she hasn’t moved at all since I came in here.
A tension builds in my neck. The door was unlocked, for fuck’s sake. Anyone could come in here!
But then I see her toes wiggling at the foot of the bed, and for some reason the movement seems too calculated to be subconscious—too anxiously deliberate.
She’s awake.
But she still hasn’t moved. She hasn’t turned over or gotten up. But she knows I’m here.
She knows I’m watching her. I stand for a few long seconds, unsure of what to do, when I start to hear a faint melody in my mind.
I’ll be, I’ll be
Waiting for you
That’s what you don’t see
I hear it—but only in my head. She is in front of me . . .
My love, I’m waiting for you
I’ll be, I’ll be
Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m unlacing my boots, clearing my throat.
She finally turns over, and the icy blue waves of her hair tumble in front of her face. As she brushes them away, her eyes meet mine with a soft invitation. It lingers in her expression for a second longer before her eyebrow lifts with a challenge. Upping it to a dare.
I take a deep breath. I visualize myself lying next to her. And then I do.