Chase stands off to the side in the grass, barefoot, jeans clinging to his hips. He looks lost, a far cry from the lead singer with a mic in hand and the world as his stage.
“Hey.” I offer a small smile, turning to drape my arms over the pool’s ledge, my hair fanning across the surface like ink in water. “FOMO?” I tease.
His throat rolls, gaze flicking to the blue-green pool, tension tightening his features.
I frown. “Everything okay?”
A clipped headshake.
Propping my chin on my hands, I watch him carefully. His eyes stay locked on the pool like it might come alive. Like it remembers something.
“I haven’t been in one of these since…” He swallows hard, dragging a hand through his hair.
My body stills in the water, the words hitting soft but heavy. I don’t need the rest of the sentence. “Chase…”
He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. Just digs his thumbs into his palms, as if trying to ground himself in a pain he can control.
“You don’t have to get in. Not for me. Not for them.” I glance toward the far end of the pool where the guys are cracking jokes, oblivious. “It’s okay. I promise.”
I can tell he’s not really here. He’s somewhere else, some sunlit day gone wrong. The sound of a splash, a scream, and too much silence after.
My mind races with ways to help. To lessen his burdens, to scare away his ghosts. “You know…I used to think that if I revisited the worst moment of my life, it would swallow me whole,” I say, my voice quieting. “But it’s not a monster, Chase. It’s just a memory. It can’t drag you under unless you let it.”
The air feels denser, more polluted.
God—I should take my own advice.
I squeeze my eyes shut, memories careening to the surface like a fire-licked buoy. The squeal of tires, the crunch of metal. The airbag spattered in a mist of blood.
Alex’s blood. Red on white.
I still can’t bring myself to drive a car.
So I get it; I do.
And maybe that’s all he needs.
Expelling the flashbacks, I push off the ledge and inch backward, until I’m facing him, chest-deep in the water. “Chase,” I murmur. “Look at me.”
He hesitates, his face ashen, as if he took a wrong turn and ended up in a memory he’s spent years trying to outrun.
A hard swallow. Then a slow dip of his eyes.
Our gazes lock.
“I’m not going to pretend this water doesn’t feel like grief.” I send him a sad smile, studying him beneath the moon as I watch that grief paint bitter lines across his face. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. There’s nothing to prove here.”
“Sorry.” He blinks through the daze with a flustered sigh. “Fuck…I didn’t think it would hit me this hard.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not nothing.” Water swishes against my hair as I shake my head. “You don’t have to act like it is.”
He cups a hand over his jaw, the pain in his eyes baring its teeth.
A long silence stretches. The others are farther down, yelling and laughing, all light and movement. This part of the pool feels like a different world.
Stark. Quiet. Waiting.
Chase takes a small step forward. “I used to think that if I talked about it, she’d feel farther away. Like saying it out loud made it more real. Made her more…gone.”
