Page 170 of The Exit Strategy

“Geez, Dude. You want a fork?” I ask as he stuffs a big bite into his mouth with his fingers.

He shrugs, but I hand him one anyway.

“Do you want to heat it up?”

“No. I just need sustenance.”

He’s such a dork. It’s such a doctory thing to say.

I sit next to him at the two-person island as he demolishes three-quarters of the container, drinks two glasses of water, and finally washes his hands, all before he turns his blue gaze my way.

His smile is as sad as mine.

“Noley.” Just one word bleeds with all my pain. “You came. All the way from Tokyo.”

“I’ve heard, yes. It’s a bitch of a flight.”

“Mom—” I choke on her name. It’s as close as I come to admitting that she’s hurt me in ways that will never fully heal.

Nolan looks at me with our mother’s eyes and our father’s nose, his elbows resting on the counter between us.

“I’m here, Junie. For you. For Cole. For us. Always. Cole and Hudson will make sure that we all get through this. Fen is going scorched earth against Grace and Natalie now. And I’m here for you.”

That’s when I stop holding it in.

Not the tears that escaped without permission in Hudson’s rental car.

Not the ones that blended in with the water in the shower.

This time, I cry properly, with my whole body, as I slide to the floor just so I won’t fall off my stool.

It’s a release—a lifetime of hatred and never feeling like enough, of never knowing who I was or where I belonged.

And it’s a lot.

Nolan wedges himself in between me and the island, his back resting against the dishwasher, and pulls me into him without speaking. He holds me to him like he did when I was eight and the boys at school had figured out my mom had forgotten me again, and I weep into the front of his wrinkled button-down.

He doesn’t shush me. With one hand on the crown of my head, he lets me ruin his shirt while he waits.

When I finally pull back, Nolan doesn’t meet my eye with any judgment.

“I—” Hiccup. “I’m sorry about your shirt.”

“I have other shirts, Junie.”

I don’t know what to say next. I’m…untethered. Emotionally. Physically. Lost. “You ate all my pasta.”

He chuckles quietly. “You have other pasta.” He hands me a tissue from a box he managed to grab at some point and stares at me while I blow my nose like a toddler—with no shame and zero fucks to give. “Tell me what you need, Juniper.”

“I—I don’t know.” I sound pitiful. “I really don’t.”

“Okay.” It doesn’t sound okay though.

“Whatever you want to say, just say it, Noley.”

He huffs, but it’s not really a laugh. “So damn pushy. But fine. I need you to know that I’m angry with you both. I want to be clear about that. I’ve spent the last twenty hours trying to decide which of you I was angrier at, and I gave up somewhere over the ocean. It’s a tie. But I’m here. I love you. And I’m furious.”

Unease swirls in my gut. “You’re furious? At me?”