He grimaced at me, then covered her one exposed ear. “Fuck you.”
I burst into laughter and sat back. “Seriously though, thank you.”
“You’re really doing this, huh? This random island in the middle of nowhere? What if it gets hit by a hurricane?”
“It’s December,” I said, waving him off. “And I’m not worried about it. I need this. I…I need to fix my life.”
“Yeah. This has nothing to do with the hot phantom EMT who goes there every New Year’s, right?”
“Not even a little bit.” I bit back a grin. “And if I do happen to find him…we’ll see where the universe takes us.”
“To a judge so he can get a restraining order.”
I flipped him off, and he laughed again. “When I get back, I’m also…” I turned my voice off and mouthed, ‘Moving out.’
“The fact that you can’t even say that aloud is a problem.”
“Yeah. But it’s notmyproblem. I’m…shit. I know I’m not the same. My body is never going to be the same, but I’m okay, and Tollin refuses to accept that I’ll be fine on my own. The last time I said I was looking at apartments, he had a panic attack so bad he had to take a breathing treatment.” I passed a hand down my face. “I can’t keep living this way to make him happy. I know he was traumatized. I mean, everyone was…”
His gaze softened. “Yeah. I can admit now that I was terrified when you told me how bad the injury was.”
He wasn’t the only one shit-scared about my future. After two months of not being able to move my legs beyond twitching my toes, I’d given up on hope that I would ever get back to anything that resembled my normal. I was making plans for the rest of my life to be entirely changed when my ankles regained movement.
And then feeling came back—bit by bit. Into my spine first, then into my legs. Then sensation spread to my dick. The first time I got hard from stimulation, I sobbed into my pillow—the feeling in my chest somewhere between relief and fear that I would lose it all again.
The day I walked unassisted, I broke down so hard I actually burst a blood vessel in my eye from crying so hard. It didn’t matter that things were different for me now. It mattered that I was here. That I survived it. That I’d kept my promise to the nameless man in the ambulance who’d held my hand and made me vow to him that I wouldn’t give up.
And I hadn’t.
Now I wanted a chance to tell him that. Tollin wasn’t wrong that the trip was a last-ditch attempt to run into him without doing something nuts like hiring a PI to track down the EMT on shift the night I was brought in. That felt a bit like I was sneaking into stalker territory.
This might count too, but for the moment, I didn’t care. I just wanted to preserve this last flickering flame of hope that the accident—that night, the songs, the man who found me—all meant something.
“So. The next favor,” I told him, and he rolled his eyes. “Do you think you can get me out of here tonight around nine?”
He groaned but nodded like he was expecting the question. “Yes, but you owe me. Especially if Tollin comes for me. I’m not in the mood for his unhinged anxiety rage.”
“He’ll get over it,” I promised. I reached behind me, gathering my hair up, and twisted it into a bun at the nape of my neck. It had been shaggy a year ago. Now, it had grown past my shoulders, and I was kind of digging the look.
It was nothing like the trimmed, perfectly shaven, baby-faced lead singer of Tender Fracture I’d been forced to be by a label and a contract. I needed to be rough around the edges. I needed to be sharper and keener, and maybe—on occasion—less kind to people who didn’t deserve kindness.
“You’re lucky I love you,” Tarik said as he adjusted Samira and stood up. “Promise me you’ll be ready so I’m not waiting on your ass.”
“I swear. It’ll be easy. Tollin’s been crashing at eight every night.”
“What about Tollin?” my brother said, walking into the kitchen. “I heard my name.”
“Just that you’re baby prepping and going to bed at dusk,” I said, waving him off.
He rolled his eyes and flipped me off as he dug in the fridge for a coconut water. God, he really was such a fucking hipster. “I refuse to be judged for that. You have no idea what it’s like to have these little gremlins stealing sleep and sanity.” He took a drink and paused, giving Tarik an apologetic smile. “Well, obviously, you get it.”
“AndInever will because kids are gross,” I said with a smile.
He flipped me off again as he walked out of the room, and I let out a breath. I had no idea if he knew my plans and was faking nonchalance so he could bust me trying to leave like he was my fucking mom and I was sixteen, or if he actually hadn’t heard us.
But it didn’t matter.
I was going, whether he liked it or not.
