Page 119 of The Long Way Home
Panic floods my body as I try to take deep breaths. Air fights its way past my ribs, shallow and jagged. What if I let him in and lose him too? What if the universe snatches someone else I love, leaves me empty again? I can’t survive that, even when I convince myself that at least he would be with Josh. And they’d both be waiting for me.
Ping. A text lights up the screen, forcing me to refocus.
Rhett:
I'm missing you. The firehouse doesn't nearly smell as good as your skin does.
I'll swing by in the morning to pick you up.
I freeze. My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I can’t handle this right now. I’m not ready to sit beside him and talk about us. He will know something is wrong the moment I’m near him, and I’m not ready to confirm my biggest fear. I’m not ready to give him up. I open another thread and type faster.
Me:
Hey, can I ride up to the lake with you and Anderson?
Sissy Margs:
Of course. You good?
Me:
Yeah. Just want to get there early and catch up.
Sissy Margs:
Alright. We will be at your house at 8.
I switch back to Rhett.
Me:
They sound stinky.
I kinda forgot I told Margo I'd ride with her. She has been begging for some quality time.
But I'll see you up there?
I close the messages and toss my phone face down on the nightstand.
God, what have I done?
I let myself think last night and this morning were the beginning of something I’d been aching toward for years without admitting it out loud.
But I’m the untouchable girl. Josh’s sister. The one line he could never cross, the one thing he could never have. A living stand-in for a wound that never healed.
He lost his mother. One day, she simply stopped showing up, and it hollowed him out. I saw the cracks. I just didn’t know how deep they went.
Then he lost Josh. His best friend. His brother in everything but blood. The only person who knew the shape of his life from the inside. And now all that remains is me.
How did I not see it before?
Of course, he reached for me. Of course, he held on. Of course, he looked at me like I mattered. Maybe it wasn’t fate. Maybe it wasn’t love surviving a decade apart. Maybe it was desperation in the guise of familiarity—grief finding the closest warm body and refusing to let go.
The thought slices through me, clean and merciless.
I wanted to believe he chose me. Me. Not my history. Not my proximity to pain. But I’m not the girl he wants. I’m just the last piece of everything he lost.
Chapter Twenty-six
