When I got to my apartment I pulled the key to Ward’s cabin out by accident. It tumbled out of my hands and onto the floor, and I was still trying to pick it up when one of my neighbors—who I’d never really met—walked past me without saying a word.
After everyone smiling and nodding at me in Otter Bay, like a long lost son or a new friend, that was weird. It was weird to be here.
It was weird to hold Ward’s key—mykey—in my hand and know that it wouldn’t open the door.
I let myself inside anyway and found a half-dozen glazed donuts waiting for me on the kitchen counter with a note from Astrid, welcoming me back. Two bites into one, I set the rest of it down when my stomach warned me that putting anything in it was still a bad idea.
Nerves. It was just nerves.
I kicked off my shoes as I headed toward the shower, pausing to fold the shirt I’d accidentally stolen neatly on Ward’s—
On…
On the side of the bed I didn’t sleep on.
The warm spray of the shower soothed flight-sore muscles, but when I leaned against the cool tiles and let it flow over my back, all I could think of was Ward pressed up against me, hands splayed over my skin, lips on the back of my neck. The soft, happy sounds he made, the way he smelled, the way hefelt.
I tasted salt on my lips before I realized I was crying.
We hadn’t broken up, exactly. It didn’tfeellike a breakup.
We hadn’t fought or yelled or sworn never to speak to each other again. We were still friends.
We were still…
Hundreds of miles away from each other. Hundreds of miles, and more than that. We were worlds apart. Like people from different planets.
Ward couldn’t breathe the air on mine, and there was no room for me on his.
That was just how it was. How we were doomed to be.
No point crying over it.
24
Ward
“Dammit.”
I stuck my suddenly-bleeding finger in my mouth like I didn’t know any better, cursing myself the whole way inside and waving off Dad’s concernedare you okayas I headed for his bathroom cabinet.
It was just because I wasn’t used to his setup. Normally I worked in my own shop, or we worked together on-site, but I hadn’t worked at Dad’s place in a while.
I’d just… needed to, today.
That was an easier explanation than thinking aboutwhyI’d needed to be here today. Than thinking about how empty my cabin felt, how much bigger it was than it needed to be.
How there was a ghost in every corner, everywhere I looked.
How Ryder had only been back for the smallest sliver of time, but it’d felt like I finally understood what I’d built the placefor.
“How bad?” Dad asked, appearing behind me in the bathroom mirror as I poured disinfectant on the cut. “When did you get your last tetanus shot?”
“It’s only a scrape. And you made me get one last year,” I added, biting my lip when I realized how grumpy I sounded. Dad deserved better than that.
“Sorry,” I said, grabbing the pack of neon band aids from the bathroom cabinet.
A memory of dragging Ryder in here to tend to a tiny cut on his finger hit me as I pulled out a pink one. That was the color he’d picked back then, all of twelve years old and being braver about it than I was while I cleaned, disinfected, and bandaged, like Dad had taught me.
