Because, right now, I need her too.
22
One At A Time
Carly
Guilt is a strange feeling, even when you didn’t commit a crime.
As well as the added feelings of heartbreak, frustration, and exhaustion, a trip to East Pointe is exactly what my doctor ordered, even if she doesn’t know that I do this often.
I have my towel laid out on the sand and the salty breeze hitting my face, but nothing’s happening. My eyes are closed, and I can’t help but think back to everything that led up to where I am now.
With Crew at my apartment, Bailey last night…
Even earlier this morning, when I nearly got a flat tire on my way to Marbella Beach. That’s not right, because I got a perfect score on my driving test when I was sixteen and have always been careful on the road.
Maybe I’m still a little tired. I have never been a morning person, but I couldn’t sleep last night, and Ali spent the night with Vinny, which is why I took the opportunity to drive back to East Pointe before the sun began to rise.
To soak everything in before I go back to face everyone again.
“Is this seat taken?” A deep, soothing voice asks. One that sends shivers down my spine.
The beach towel beneath me shifts slightly, adjusting to another person on top. I lift my head slightly, and sure enough, he’s there.
Crew, in a pale orange sweatshirt and gray sweatpants—dammit, those sweatpants—his hair slightly damp, the breeze attempting to dry him off, only to make him colder. Jet black hair, which has grown a couple of inches since I first met him, without a cap for once, and his eyes.
Those charcoal eyes stare right into my own like they always do.
“How did you know I was here?” I ask, my voice a little hoarse from spending last night crying.
“Your brother and his girlfriend ambushed me at the aquarium,” he says casually, alarming me slightly. “I never felt more intimidated around someone, and I grew up around intimidating people.”
A small chuckle escapes my lips. “Carson? Intimidating?”
He nods.
“Crew, he couldn’t scare the spots off a ladybug if he needed to.” Diana is a little more intimidating than him. Carson is like Doug from Up, not that menacing Doberman. “My yapper of a brother should not frighten you.”
“Well, when it came to your well-being, he seemed terrifying.”
At the slight verbal jab towards his parents, my hand—out of habit—reaches for his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Crew.”
He shrugs nonchalantly, as if the idea doesn’t bother him at all, but I know it weighs heavily on him. “It’s okay. You know you’re really lucky. To have a family, even just your brother, to care about and look out for you. Especially when you don’t answer his texts.”
I wince at the comment, because I didn’t realize until I arrived at the beach that I left my phone back at my apartment. By then, I didn’t want to drive back.
“Even with your complicated relationships with your cousins, they still love you, and you still care about them.”
Like Bailey.
“You’re not alone either, remember?” I remind him softly. “You have Vinny and Ali. Family isn’t always blood, you know.”
“Sometimes I need that reminder.” Crew’s hand finds mine, drawing circles with his thumb on the back, and shivers start to run up my arm. “But that includes you, too.”
It does?
“I know we’ve had some troubles, to put it lightly, but that doesn’t change how I feel about you, Carly. Not one bit.”
