Toaster races past me, leaps onto the couch.
Watches.
I reach for my phone, swiping open the message.
Annie:See you at midnight.??
Chapter 13Chase
Therapy.
That’s what she feels like.
Early June melts away into late June, painting the world in hues of Siberian irises and butterfly-blue scabiosa, as peonies blossom like coral sunsets in garden beds. But while nature is fast asleep, I have never felt more awake.
These midnight meetings we indulge in three times a week have become the driving force behind my dreams. My goals.
Ultimately, my healing.
I’ll never tell her that.
Annie is the type of person who internalizes everything, always wanting to help, reach, dig deeper, until she’s stretched too thin and buried among a graveyard of everyone else’s skeletons. I refuse to be another bag of bones she feels responsible for bringing back to life.
Instead, I take each moment as it comes. Maintain a reasonable distance. Keep my guard up. We write, play, sing, and muse, directing that fire into music, while she remains oblivious to the light she’s reigniting inside me.
I pull up to the familiar cape-style house with a wraparound porch, the siding an off-putting color of peach. Annie paces in tight circles beneath the awning, wearing leggings and an oversize sweater, a cigarette trembling between her fingers.
She doesn’t smoke.
Smudged kohl rims her eyes, lining her cheeks in inky smears. Porch light sets her ablaze, illuminating all the burdens she carries but refuses to resent.
She’s a wick burning at both ends.
She’s also a Scorpio—pain is passion, and passion is purpose. I’m not sure who or what has caused the sudden bout of chain-smoking, the trembling limbs, or the slow-drying tears, but it doesn’t take much to break her open.
That I do know.
I park along the street and hop out, tossing my leather coat inside the car as a balmy midnight breeze clings to my skin and the lingering scent of afternoon rain drifts under my nose. Rolling up my sleeves, I step forward, careful not to spook her. “Annalise.”
She stops pacing. Snaps her head up.
I watch her exhale a plume of smoke she doesn’t even want, as if trying to purge something deeper from her lungs.
“Oh, hey. Chase.” A smile appears, just like that. A well-trained disguise. She flicks the half-smoked cigarette to the stoop, crushing it beneath the toe of her Mary Janes. “I didn’t even notice you drive up.”
“Everything okay?”
“Of course. Definitely.” She waves away the cloud of smoke and feigns a small laugh. “Sorry. Jeez. I’m not even a smoker, but Tag had an old pack lying around, and I just—”
“You were crying.” I saunter up the walkway, hands shoved into the pockets of my jeans. “Did your brother say something offensive?”
I know it wasn’t her brother. Despite our ongoing tension, the guy adores her.
Another laugh breaks free. She sniffs, frantically swiping at her cheeks. “A fair deduction, but no. I was just getting in the zone. Preparing for that heartbreaking hit we’re inevitably going to write tonight.” Her nose scrunches in a way that’s gravely adorable. “I’m harnessing my inner method writer.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m good now.”
