Confirmation bias or whatever.
Aunt Halle was confused? Felt bad for me? Was pissed for me? Yeah, I knew exactly how she felt.
The fact that Daniel had taken off without even looking back had been like getting a bucket of cold water thrown in my face.
Mates weren’t supposed to do that. Mates weren’t supposed to leave each other’s sides. In all honesty, he shouldn’t have been able to leave me. It should’ve been so painful for him that he rethought his actions. The knowledge that I would be in pain should’ve had his instincts screaming to go back and fix it.
But he’d still left.
I knew I sounded like some whiny codependent teenager. Iknewthat. But if a Vampire could leave their mate like that, without a single glance backward, then everything that had ever felt true and real and constant in my life seemed suspect. Uncle Dalton and Aunt Halle’s bond was the center of their family. It was the North Star, and by necessity, it had become mine after my mom died.
Knowing that they would never leave, and I would always have thembecauseof that mating bond? Well, it had given the whole thing an almost mythical level of importance in my head, and I hadn’t even realized it.
So when Daniel left, and I felt that tether in my chest pull so tight that I thought it might snap?
I may have lost it a little.
I’d followed him. Barefoot. In the gravel. Sobbing.
It had felt like something was being torn from me. I couldn’t breathe. I’d vomited twice. My muscles had flexed so tight that it felt like they were going to tear away from my bones.
And while I logically knew that he was coming back, I hadn’t been able to stop myself. It didn’t matter that he’d be back ina few hours. In that moment, I’d been inconsolable. Out of my mind with grief and panic.
Thankfully, I’d eventually gotten a handle on it enough that I’d turned around before I reached the main road. When I got back to the house, Pop had been waiting on the porch with a joint to share.
I was high as a kite when Uncle Dalton and Aunt Halle showed up.
I was pretty sure Pop had called them. He would’ve noticed when I took off down the driveway. I don’t think I was quiet about the whole thing.
Pulling on my gloves, I looked at the huge tractor tire that I hadn’t touched since last summer. Dad had brought it home when I was a kid, and I loved to climb. It had been many different things over the years. A mountain I shoved Ian off. A makeshift tent when we convinced our parents we were old enough to sleep outside by ourselves. A small refuge where I could read in peace. The perfect hiding spot. A pirate ship. Thunder’s pen when he was a baby, and we were afraid he’d get lost in the woods. The place I’d gone, tucking myself safely inside, with Ian at my head and Grant at my feet on the night they’d burned my mother’s body in Vampire tradition.
Now that I was grown, I made use of it in a different way. My massive emotional support tire.
Bracing my feet carefully, I crouched and tucked my fingertips under the edge of the tire.
Nearly every muscle burned as I raised it, first an inch, then six, then a foot off the ground. By the time I’d reached my waist, I was trembling. Then, it was standing straight up. I shoved it over with a small grunt.
Then I did it again.
My breath seesawed in and out of my lungs. My fingers ached.
The sweat that beaded on my forehead felt natural for the first time in days. Clean. Straightforward. I was pushing my body to do hard things, and that’s why I was hot. It wasn’t out of my control. I could stop at any time.
I flipped it again. And again.
Eventually, I ran out of room and had to flip it in the opposite direction.
I’d just gotten it back to the place I’d started when I noticed Daniel standing on the back patio, watching me.
Straightening, I put my hands on my hips and squinted at him. I’d been so focused on what I was doing that I hadn’t even realized when he’d come outside. At some point, the sun had come up, and the way it filtered through the trees made him look like he was illuminated.
“Holy fuck, Rosie,” he said, starting toward me. “How long have you been out here?”
“Um.” I looked around me. I wasn’t sure when I’d climbed out of bed, unable to sleep. Had it been late enough that I could potentially act like I was just an early riser? “Not sure.”
“I woke up, and you were gone,” he said softly, reaching out to brush a stray hair away from my cheek when he reached me. “I nearly tore the house apart before I realized I could hear you out here.”
Oh, he’d been worried that I’d left? Well, wasn’t that just too bad. I held every what’s-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander comment tightly behind my teeth.
