Some of us were closer, like me and Zowen and Daire and Aston. Bowe and Remy were also super tight, even though the younger girl had lived in Austin the entire time we’d known her. It was fun to have a big network of diverse and interesting friends, but there were a few of us who sometimes rubbed each other the wrong way and had to work at playing nice with one another.
Well… really, that only applied to Bowe Keller and me.
She and I were the nearest in age out of everyone, but that was the only similarity between the two of us. We never particularly got along. Starting from the time we were figuring out how to walk and talk. I always thought it was a good thing she lived in Austin with her folks and I only had to see her on holidays and during the summer.
But today, I wanted her to be closer.
I wasn’t certain why she was the one I wanted to share my heartache with. I just knew that I wanted to see her right now when my whole world felt like it was upside down.
I blew out a breath and tried to reassure my sister, “I believe you. I know you wouldn’t stand by and let me be blindsided like that.” But I also knew she would fight to the death for Aston, so she had to be in a tough spot right now. “Just give me some space right now. I’ll call Mom and Dad when I get where I’m going. Tell them not to worry too much. Let me catch my breath and calm down for a minute.”
My little sister sighed again, and I heard her knock something over—her sadness and frustration palpable through the phone. “You don’t have to run away from home in order to hide your emotions from everyone, Ry. As hard as you try to convince everyone otherwise, we know you’re human. Stop trying to force yourself to be so perfect all the damn time. You’re allowed to be sad and angry right now. You’re supposed to be upset when your heart gets broken. I know you don’t really know what losing feels like, but this is it, and you shouldn’t go through it alone.”
I did tend to strive for perfection, but obviously I missed the mark or I wouldn’t have gotten dumped so mercilessly.
I cleared my throat and tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, squinting as a semi-truck passed me on the opposite side of the road. “I’m only going to be alone for a little bit.”
She was correct when she said I was running away to hide my feelings.
That was something I always did.
But there was one person with whom I never put on the pretense of perfection, mostly because she saw right through it and never failed to call me out on my bullshit.
“Ohh… okay.” Almost instantly, my sister’s tone changed, and she seemed relieved. Like I said, we were super close, and she knew me better than I knew myself some days. It wouldn’t take her too long to figure out where I was going, even if the destination would be considered highly unlikely to anyone else. “Well, drive safe, and don’t forget to check in with Mom and Dad when you have time. I’ll try to hold them off for a little bit. For what it’s worth, I already gave Aston a piece of my mind. I even called Royce to ask him if he knew what was going on, but he was as clueless as I was. About the college thing, and about you. I don’t know why she was making all those decisions in secret, but I honestly think she’s hurting as much as you are right now.”
Impossible.
She walked away, and I could hardly move. She took me down to my knees, left me breathless, and hadn’t bothered to spare me a backward glance. There wasn’t an ounce of the kind, caring girl who had me wrapped around her finger for so long as she ripped my heart out. I definitely didn’t recognize her. Worse than that, though, was that I didn’t recognize myself either. I wasn’t familiar with failure, so losing the most important thing in my world forced me to react in a way that was totally unlike me. I was behaving like the kind of people I tended to loathe.
Unreasonable.
Irrational.
Unpredictable.
The reason I disliked people who acted in such a way was because I never allowed myself the freedom to be so chaotic and carefree. I was jealous, and the envy ate away at me.
Fortunately, I had a thirteen-hour drive to pull the frayed edges of my ego together and to slip back into my role of the golden boy who was unnaturally blessed.
I drove through the night and into the very early morning. I only stopped for gas and the occasional bathroom break. I silently cursed at how big Texas was as the miles added up. I made a quick stop to shove a greasy fast-food breakfast in my face when my stomach started growling. Because I was an athlete, I normally avoided anything that came in an oil-stained paper bag. But right now, the usual rules didn’t apply. I was alone, so I didn’t need to pretend to be perfect for anyone.
I took a moment to shoot a couple texts off to my sister and my cousin. Zowen was pissed it took so long for me to respond to him and warned that my dad had already shown up at his house looking for me. We were all home from school for summer break, so it made sense that my folks figured I would hit up my uncle’s house first when I disappeared. My uncle Rome was even scarier than my dad when it came to discipline and order. He was the last person, next to my father, I wanted to come looking for me, especially while I was all caught up in my feelings. My uncle was a former military man who was now a successful entrepreneur. He didn’t take shit from anyone who wasn’t his pint-sized wife or his wild, mouthy firstborn. My cousin Remy was even more of a handful than my little sister, and twice as rebellious. She was always in one kind of trouble or another, but she was probably the most loyal and passionate person I’d ever encountered in my life. Both Daire and I idolized her when we were growing up. Now, she was often the one we turned to when we needed help managing our relationships with our parents and general life advice. She was one of our group who left Denver relatively young when she ventured into the real world. I think we all expected as much from her.
Remy was a wanderer. A free spirit. She was also irrevocably in love with Hyde Bishop-Fuller, the oldest guy in our inner circle. Unfortunately, Hyde had never returned her adoration, and when he enlisted in the military a couple of years ago, Remy really saw no reason to stay in any one place for too long. She left her shattered heart in Denver and never looked back. I missed her like crazy, and I knew Zowen worried about her endlessly, but she always seemed happy and as carefree as ever when she finally materialized. I always envied her easygoing attitude. Nothing seemed to ruffle her feathers. Well, nothing other than Hyde.
I’d never been that relaxed and unaffected. I took myself far too seriously.
It was still early enough in the morning that I didn’t have to fight traffic when I pulled into Austin. It was hardly a surprise that the girl I came all this way to see was just now getting home when I parked my truck at the end of her driveway. She didn’t even blink when she saw me climb out of my truck and make my way toward her.
Her black and purple hair was piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail, and her dark eye makeup was smeared around her honey-colored eyes in a way that I couldn’t tell if it was deliberate or not. She had on a pair of skintight red leggings that looked like they were made of leather and a pair of shiny black boots that were laced up to her knees. Her t-shirt had the logo of an obscure band scrawled across the front, and the bottom was chopped off so that it skimmed her pierced belly button. I always thought she looked like she had just climbed out of the pages of a comic book, and today was no exception.