Page 74 of The Embers That Remain

“He thought I was someone else.”

His jaw clenched again; his gaze never left the evidence of what happened.

“He didn’t mean to,” I repeated.

“I know. But it doesn’t change the fact that somebody hurt you.”

Neither of us spoke. The wind stirred the oak trees lining the edge of the parking lot, scattering a handful of brittle leaves across the asphalt between us.

Lane rubbed the back of his neck. “Does it still hurt?”

My fingers brushed the fading bruise. “Only if I forget it’s there.”

I’d spent the last two days avoiding mirrors because every time I caught my reflection, I recalled that moment all over again. Grandpa’s confusion. The flash of fear in his eyes. The split second when I realized he wasn’t seeing me—he was seeing someone else. Makeup had been my attempt to make everything feel normal. A little concealer. A little denial. A way to convince everyone else that I was fine, even if I wasn’t quite there yet.

The parking lot was almost empty now. The voices from inside The Hope Center faded as the last volunteers left. For a second, it felt like we were the only two people left in the world.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to forget seeing you hurt and knowing I wasn’t there.” My pulse quickened.

Because anger I could handle. Anger was easy. Anger gave me something to fight against. It reminded me why I had kept my distance, why I had built walls high enough that even I sometimes forgot what was on the other side. But this? This quiet regret in his eyes was harder. Lane wasn’t trying to make me feel guilty for not calling him. He wasn’t demanding to know why I hadn’t leaned on him. He wasn’t trying to rewrite what happened or pretend he could have prevented it.

He was just standing there, wishing he could have been there.

And somehow that hurt more. I looked away, focusing on the empty parking spaces around us, the cracked pavement beneath my shoes, anything that wasn’t him. Because the most dangerous thing about Lane had never been the way he made me feel safe. It was the way, standing there in the middle of an empty parking lot, I caught myself wondering if maybe I’d been wrong to believe I could never trust him again.

Thirty-Six

Lane

By the time my truck turned into Cali’s driveway the following evening, I had spent the better part of twenty-four hours convincing myself that showing up at her house with a duffel bag was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

It was not.

Common sense should’ve sent me back to the truck.

The porch light cast a warm glow across the front steps, and through the living room window I could see shadows of movement inside. I grabbed my duffel bag as I climbed out of my truck.

The bruise beneath her eye had followed me into every hour of the night. Every time sleep finally threatened to come, her face flashed behind my eyelids. She’d stood in that parking lot insisting she was fine while looking like she hadn’t had anyone take care of her in years. She wasn’t doing this by herself anymore.

Halfway up the steps, I nearly turned around because what I was planning to do bordered on insane. Too late now. My knuckles rapped against the door before common sense caught up.

A few seconds later, the door opened, and Cali stood frozen. She wore an oversized sweatshirt and leggings, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail. She looked like she’d spent the day taking care of everyone but herself, completely unaware that, to me, she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“Oh no.”

A grin tugged at my mouth because even after all this time, she still knew me.

“Oh yes.”

“Lane.”

I stepped inside before she could gather enough momentum to shut the door in my face.

The house smelled faintly of coffee and lemons. A television played softly in the family room.

“How’s Jimmy?” I asked. She closed the door with exaggerated care that somehow felt more threatening than slamming it.

“He fell asleep twenty minutes ago after watching Wheel of Fortune.”