It burns behind my eyes.I stare at the blank wall over my couch because I can’t handle the idea of looking at anything that belongs to my present when my past is suddenly standing in the doorway.
For a second I can’t speak.
Because if I speak, I might beg.
I might say his name like a prayer.
I might admit there’s a part of me that has always waited for him to choose me the way he chooses the net in overtime—no hesitation, no fear, all in.
“Okay,” I manage, because fighting him is pointless when he’s already moved his life into place.“If you come ...you come for my dad.For the camp.Not for?—”
“For you,” he says, cutting straight through the sentence like it’s nothing.Like my attempt at boundaries is paper in his hands.“It’s always for you, Ves.”
The words hit, and it’s not romantic in a sweet way.
It’s devastating.
My throat closes.“Monty ...”
“Text me your flight info,” he says, snapping back into logistics like he didn’t just crack my world open with a confession.“Rest.I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I swallow and it tastes like heat.“You too,” I whisper.
He hangs up.
The silence that follows is brutal.My pulse is loud enough to feel, like my body is trying to warn me.
And Cally’s unfinished sentence still lingers in my other ear.
If I move to Portland, we could ...
Now Monty is moving to Portland too.
Of course he is.
Of course they both are.
Because apparently the universe isn’t satisfied with hurting me from a distance.
It wants front-row seats.
It wants to watch me try to survive the collision.
And the worst part—the part that makes my hands shake as I finally lower my phone—is that some treacherous, aching part of me wants that too.
ChapterSeven
Callaway
The call comes in when I’m halfway through a pointless mobility circuit—the kind you do just to feel like you’re not coming apart.
My legs move.My lungs cooperate.But none of it touches the storm ripping through my skull.I don’t need the workout.I need something to keep me from crawling out of my own skin.
I’m in the private training room at my place in Cherry Creek.The space is pristine, untouched.Unlike me.My trainer pretends not to notice that I’ve been checking my phone every two minutes as if my life depends on it.Because maybe it does.
Then it vibrates.
I don’t even have to read the name.I know.
