Page 39 of The Storm

It followsme like a shadow the whole day. His coldness. That harsh laugh. The disappointment. It’s there in my gut, and it grows until I’m almost trembling with barely contained anger by the time it starts to get dark outside.

I can’t shake it off no matter how hard I try. It’s right there in the forefront of my mind. It’s a ball of thorns I want to pick up and toss away, but every time I try, it just digs deeper into my skin.

I pace the length of my room and listen to the thunder rumbling in the distance. The wind rattles the windowpanes and rain pounds against glass. I pace. I simmer with anger. Thinking of the years spent passively taking all his shit makes me scream inside, because how fucking pathetic is that?

Anger is like acid. It dissolves everything else until I’m all claws and chaos.

Unable to take it any longer, I grab my jacket and march to Dia’s room.

“Car keys?” I say the moment I step into her room.

“On the shelf,” she says distractedly, eyes on her phone, thumbs flying over the screen. She glances up just as I turn to leave and frowns. “Where are you headed?”

“Out for a bit.”

Her eyes flick to the window. “Dude, there’s a storm out there. A nasty one.”

“I won’t be long.”

“But—”

“Don’t have time. I’ll be back in a bit.”

She waves her phone toward me. “But it says here?—”

I’m already jogging down the stairs.

When I push the front door open it slams against the side of the house. The fuck? Even the weather is dramatic today.

Wind tears across the driveway, tossing twigs and leaves around. The sky is so dark it looks black, with heavy clouds rushing over it. Every now and then a flash of lightning cuts across it, lighting everything up in a stark white before the darkness takes over again.

I make a run for the car, but in the thirty seconds it takes me to get in, I’m already soaking wet.

It only makes me angrier, and that well was already overflowing. I grip the steering wheel. The wipers fight for their life to keep up with the downpour.

Nick works at a diner on the outskirts of Annapolis. The lights are on inside, but the parking lot is completely empty. I turn off the engine and grip the wheel again. Somewhere in the back of my mind is a voice of reason that says none of this is a good idea, but it’s faint enough that it’s easy to ignore.

I slam the car door shut behind me. The rain has gotten even heavier, and the thunder and lightning are right above my head now. The wind pelts my face with water, and the bell above the restaurant door lets out a jaunty jingle that gets almost completely lost in the noise of the storm when I pull the door open.

The place is empty.

I stand there, dripping rainwater, and for a moment, I have this bone-deep realization that everything I’ve done today is idiotic. Every thought that has gone through my head and pushed me to this moment right here and now… incredibly stupid.

But then the door to the kitchen flies open, and there’s Nick, and all the irritation flows back out from behind that flimsy excuse of a dam I was starting to construct.

His brows rise when he sees me standing there. He leans his forearms on the counter and looks me up and down.

“Sorry,” he says. “We’re closed.”

My teeth grind together, and my fingers tighten into fists.

“You’re a dick.” I wipe the wet hair out of my face. I’m out of words. I guess that’s what I came here to say, and now I’m done. It’s so stupidly anticlimactic that I’m more embarrassed by how lame it all is than about the outburst itself.

He tilts his head to the side. “You drove all the way here to tell me I’m a dick?”

Maybe I would back down with my tail between my legs, if…

If he weren’t so goddamn flippant about this. If I somehow mattered at all. Because here I am, and he takes up about two-thirds of my headspace at any given moment, and sure, a lot of it is irritation. But not all of it.