Page 84 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2

Snow grabs my hand and massages her thumbs into the top of it, grounding me. I fight against shutting down to not feel the pain of her words.

“Stay here,” she whispers, tilting my head back up. “Please, keep listening to me. I need you to listen to me.”

She bites the upper corner of her lip as her first tear breaches her left eyelid.

“Okay,” I croak, before clearing my throat and licking my lips. “I’m listening, Snow.”

She wipes her eyes, but more tears come. “My parents washed their hands of raising me and Auty when Summer died, and I became her everything, even when she treated me like nothing. Every move I’ve made has been for her; you know that. Every single one… except music. Music was for me. And then I gave that up… for you. I chose you, even when you didn’t choose me. And even after all that, I locked my dream up and threw away the key. And by the time I was able to get back to my dream, I was so fucked up, baby. You have no idea how fucked up I really was. How much I thought I wanted to die, but was too chickenshit, so I would take any and everything hoping I wouldn’t wake up the next day.

“Turns out I’m Ford tough,” she chuckles, her thumbs rubbing my knuckles now. “A car accident couldn’t kill me. Neither could a stint in rehab and relapsing. And now, the same person I felt broke me, has put me back together again.”

Snow raises my hand to her lips, kissing each one of my knuckles. I focus on how soft her lips are, my dick growing in my pants.

“Staying here with you would be a cop out, Rico. I’ve been clean for ten months. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve went ten months without a drink or a hit of something? Not since before I met you.”

“Snow, that was–”

“I was thirteen. Yeah. And the best part is, I don’t have an urge. The only urge I have is to create. I wanna lock myself in the studio for days on end and write and put down verses and stack my vocals and bug Shad about which button does what. I wanna put out songs and music videos and have shows where people are screaming my lyrics back to me. I wanna cash my first six-figure check and go crazy and not think about how much I gotta give Pops to give to Auty, or Turkey, or my parents. I wanna put out an album, bae. A whole cohesive album. I’ve been working on it for years, half-assing it. But I feel like I’m finally ready. You made that possible, and I love you even more for it. So much I could see myself choosing you again. But there’s a part of me that knows that choosing you would be the easy choice, and I’d always wonder if it was easy because I love you, or easy because I was afraid of failing.”

Snow wipes her face again and licks her lips. “It’s easy to blame my life imploding on tequila and coke. Or even us beefing. But we’re not beefing anymore. And I’m not drunk or high anymore. This is my shot, Rico. I have a real shot, and I need to know if all that shit was hindering me, or if I’m fucked up regardless. I need to know I can do it on my own, if I can be someone standing on my own two… like you did.”

My eyebrows pull as I snatch my hand away from her. Knots form in my belly, but Snow presses on.

“Look at all you did… without Fredo,” she presses. “You’ve built something so amazing here. You’ve come so far from Luney from the Birch, and can’t no one say they gave you anything. You did this. You kept going, when the Luney I knew didn’t move without Tune. Tell me you understand, Rico. Tell me you see where I’m coming from.”

The lie tastes like acid on my tongue. Her eyes round, begging me to say what she wants me to say. She wants me to be okay with letting her go chase her dreams.

She and Nan definitely planned this.

I stand to my feet. Bring my hand down over my face. When I focus back on Snow, her head is down, more tears falling into her lap.

It would be easy to lie to her. To really make her believe the bullshit notion that I would be okay with her living out her dreams and living life without me. I’ve lied to her about more important things and she believed me, or lied to herself enough to accept it.

But I can’t do that. Not about this. Nan’s wrong. She’s not her favorite vase. And I didn’t fix her to show her off for others.

You’re wrong, Rick.

My head snaps to the other side of the room, where Fredo leans casually against the wall. I shout at him in my head, all the things I want to say to him. How he’s wrong. How he’s fucked up for leaving me here. How, despite Snow finally telling me how proud she is of me, the words mean nothing because my twin, my brother, isn’t here with me, raising his son instead of me.

But he just smiles, like he always does. Combs his fingers through his hair, his neck tattoo peeking through the curtain of curls.

Snow choosing herself doesn’t mean she’s abandoning you. Let her become who she’s destined to be. Be there at the finish line.

They’re both asking for too much. I turn away from him, about to walk out, but a broken sob stops me.

So instead, I cup Snow’s chin and lean down at the same time. She turns her head, and I let her, placing my lips on her cheek instead, and resting my forehead on her temple.

After a long moment, I straighten my back and walk out, closing the door gently behind me.

To her credit, she waits until I’m on the other side of the door to break down.

Wyn

My door bursts open, with Miele bellowing my name before she face plants into the bed.

I look around, noting that Rico is gone, even though the sun is barely up.

Things have been tense since the guys came to Belize and I poured my heart out. I don’t know why I expected Rico to understand. It will never be in him to let me go.