Page 20 of Kane

We’re supposed to evolve. Get better. Move on…

So why did those words sting so fucking much when she said them?

“Your carriage awaits,” I tease him, noting the momentary blush in his cheeks. I glance up at Nash, whose gaze is set on Carter. Just like it always is when he’s waiting. The way he looks at him has me green with envy because no one, not even my subs, have ever looked at me like that.

Not unless you count Ryder…

But even I know that’s reaching. One look, one possible tip-flirtation does not mean the guy is my prince charming, and just because I grew up on the wrong side of town doesn’t make me fucking Cinderella.

The smile that forms on Carter’s face is genuine, and I feel a pang of guilt along with the jealousy. He’s waited years to smile like this, and I am happy to see the guy living his life and moving forward, but it also hurts because I know Margie is right. He doesn’t need me anymore. Because he has Nash, and Nash loves him and will make sure he’s okay.

Which means, one day, maybe even soon, he’ll probably stop coming here, because he won’t need the group anymore, either. Won’t need me or my sorry excuse for friendship because I can’t be as open and genuine with him as he is with me.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed from a life spent in therapy and support groups, it is that people come and go all the time. Some might stay for a while, a few years, even, like Carter, or even me. But ultimately, one day they stop showing up, and no one ever questions it.

No one asks if they’re okay or wonders if they finally lost their battles and gave into their dark thoughts. Or if they relapsed.

No one wants to ask, because we’re all terrified of what the answer will be.

So we just move on, like they never existed in the first place.

Sometimes I look them up just to settle my unrelenting paranoia that they are not, in fact, dead in a ditch somewhere, alone. Sometimes I’m wrong.

But most of the time, I’m right, and that is a whole other brand of pain. Knowing that there is the possibility that this—all of this—might never actually help is like a sentence far worse than death.

Which is why I stopped trying to make friends in the first place, but somehow Carter weaseled his way past my defenses and now I’m afraid he’ll disappear, too.

“Later,” he says, waving with a grin and rosy cheeks.

“See you later.” I keep my hands in my pockets, praying that it’s the truth.

I wait until he gets into the truck and closes the door. Until I see Nash smirk, lean over, and kiss him, and that’s when I make my exit. They’ve offered me rides, but I need the walk.

I hunch my shoulders and make my way towards the subway, deeper in the chill. At this time of night, with the weather, there’s barely anyone out, and there’s almost an eerie sort of stillness that pervades over the city as the snowflakes start to fall. The subway’s sparse; save for a few people who look like they’d rather be anywhere else, and a homeless man dozing off at the other end of the car. The lights in the subway flicker; shadows dancing like ballerinas at the opera along the faded, dirty walls and doors. The silence is deafening; the low hum of the lights, the only sound, the only evidence of time moving at all. I lean back, my head hitting the window pane with a thud and close my eyes, just for a moment, and when I open them again, it isn’t until we’ve hit my stop. The homeless man still lays there, so I check to make sure he’s breathing before I get off. He is.

There’s already a few inches of snow on the sidewalk when I make it to my house, which is an old Victorian townhome split into a duplex, about forty-five minutes out from the city. When I bought it, it was a complete disaster, but it was way more affordable than anything else I could find. I’ve spent the last two years fixing up the place in my spare time, but it doesn’t look much better. When I’m not working or researching, or trying to work through this mental block, or I can’t sleep, sometimes I tinker around with the projects I started, the ones that have been sitting for months, waiting for me to pick them back up.

I just… have no desire to keep pouring myself into it. I don’t know if that desire will ever come back. Just as I make it up the steps to my stoop, my keys in hand, I hear a rather loud, high-pitched meow, and a flash of orange lightning darts past me, kicking up snow onto my boots as it goes.

Fucking Pumpkin.

I sigh, because this has to be the third time this week Mrs. Burnside’s rambunctious new rescue—well, technically, I’m the one who actually rescued the little guy after she begged for my help to get him out of the sewer pipe he was trapped in a few weeks ago. Though you’d never know it by the way he’s constantly causing chaos. Kitten’s a regular Houdini, which is probably how he ended up in the damn sewer pipe to begin with.

“The fuck you doing out here you little heathen?” I tsk, scooping him up with one hand. “Trying to give me a damn heart attack?”

Pumpkin meows in protest, swatting at me with his tiny claws.

“Don’t you dare,” I growl as he wriggles in my grasp, meowing and hissing at me. Snow sticks to his fur and he sounds pissed, but when I tuck him against my chest and wrap my coat around him, he starts purring like a damn machine and nuzzles his face against my coat.

I roll my eyes, sighing in defeat.

“You know, you could have this all day,” I nip, my thumb brushing over his small head. His fur is soft, but slightly damp from the snow. “If you stayed inside like a good little kitty.”

Pumpkin mewls, his paws already starting to knead my coat. His tiny frame warms up against me as he purrs; ignoring my chastising.

“Come on,” I mutter, using one hand to clutch him close while I turn to head down the steps and over to his owner’s. “Let’s get you back to your mama,” I say, one foot on the step.

Pumpkin cries, almost like he’s begging me not to take him home, and I don’t know how I feel about that. But I guess if I was cozy and warm, wrapped up in a thick wool peacoat, in this weather, I’d want to stay where I was at, too.