Everything I’ve worked myself bloody for.
So why…why can’t I breathe?
I stumblethrough the front door of the guys’ townhouse. I don’t even remember the drive here. My pulse is beating at a dizzying pace. It’s sharp—a scalpel slicing through my arteries. I haven’t been able to catch my breath since I escaped Dominguez’s office. I’m not sure how well I hid the immediate internal upheaval his news gave me.
“Jed?”
I look around, but I can’t see. I can’t hear. I can’t—I can’t.
Fingers slide over my face. “JJ. Baby. What’s wrong?”
I can’t focus, but I recognize his voice, his citrus scent. My Sunshine. I fall into him.
“You’re scaring me.” His whisper dances over my neck.
I pull back and finally find those blue eyes. Let them ground me. “I got called up,” I croak.
His fingers still. Confusion flickers for a heartbeat, and then his face falls. “Jed…” he whispers hoarsely. “Babe.”
It’s one word, but it says so much more. It’s understanding. That my dream and my nightmare are coming true. I shake my head. I can’t form words. Not when grief is trying to choke me like a knee to the throat. A fault line splinters down my chest, cracking my ribcage open. But there’s no heart there.
It died seven years ago.
I’m a freshman again, standing in my dorm room, phone thudding to the floor as my father’s agent and best friend’swords echo through my head.Your father was in a car accident. I’m so sorry, son, but he didn’t make it.
“Wait, Stone. You’re getting called up?” Easton’s voice registers.
I blink back to the present, his blurred form at the kitchen table slowly coming into focus.
“No way!” Paulie shouts and makes for all of us from the living room but stops in his tracks when his gaze falls on me. “Wait. If you’re getting called up, why do you look like somebody died?”
Fuck.Fuckfuckfuck. My knees buckle.
Shane catches me, clutches me to him, and I do the same. I hold on to him like he’s the only solid thing left in my world.
My eyes sink shut and my world warps. I’m hanging over the edge of a cliff, and his grip is all that’s left to save me.
Save me.
“Paulie,” Shane hisses. “What the literal fuck is wrong with you?”
Their voices swirl around me, distant beneath the roar in my ears. My eyes burn. God, the pressure is so intense it’s like my skull might crack from the inside out.
“Oh fuck. Oh my God, Jed. I’m so sorry, man. I wasn't thinking.”
I try to brush it off. I open my mouth—but that was the last thread of resistance. The dam breaks. Not even Shane can hold me together any longer. A sob tears out of me.
I’m back dangling over the cliff, nothing but endless black threatening to take me. I stare up at Shane, hovering on the edge of the rock. My grip slips.
“I’ve got you,” he shouts, but he’s already fading, echoing from miles away. I shake my head. It’s hopeless.
Our fingers slide apart.
I fall.
The black abyss of grief swallows me.
It was supposed to be us. It was supposed to be me and Dad out there.
