Sitting in my car, I watch the pouring rain bounce off my windshield. Water pummels my piece of junk so hard I’m scared the glass is going to crack. I jerk at the distant thunder, glancing toward my house. It’s past eleven. My mom is still at work, and the only cars in the driveway are Kendrick’s and Will’s.
He’s still here.
I should run inside, crash into bed, and stop thinking about my dad. I’m good at that. Suppressing my emotions. Been doing it for two months now. It’s easy, really, only requires two steps. Step one: make excuses for my him. Step two: push the truth into the deepest corner of my mind.
It’s always worked before, but not this time. What Morgan said is haunting me. He’s back in town? Morgan’s mom, Ms. James, wouldn’t get this wrong.
She knows my dad, wouldn’t confuse him with somebody else. But then… why hasn’t he called? Silencing my better judgment, I dial the number I know by heart.
It rings.
Rings again.
What are you doing? If he wanted to talk to you, he would.
In a moment of panic, I rip the phone away from my ear, but a voice comes on before I can chicken out.
“Hello?”
My heart rate peaks.
I inch the phone closer, struck dumb.
“Hello?” the voice asks again.
But it’s not my dad’s.
It’s a woman.
“H-Hi…” I inhale a sharp breath. “I’m looking for Nick. Is this the right number?”
“Who’s asking?”
“His daughter.”
Silence.
A load of it.
“Oh. Hm… He’s not here right now. Can I take a message?”
“Yes. Please tell him I called, and I’d like it if he could call me back.”
“Of course.”
I don’t remember how the call ended. Or the world’s most awkward goodbye. The truth weighs on my heart when the disconnecting click reaches my ear.
He’s with somebody else.
Already.
I will myself out of the car, taking my time, facing the storm head-on. A normal person would’ve run to escape the rain, but this person isn’t normal.
I can’t be normal and hurt this much.
The violent, cold rain is a relief, a release from the million questions spinning in my brain. It soaks me, frees me in a way I can’t explain. If only it washed the pain away permanently…
I unlock the front door and push it open, rushing into the downstairs bathroom to dry myself. I can hear my brother swearing at someone, most likely Will, over the sounds of video game explosions. It’s clear he just got his ass handed to him.
“Fuck you,” Kendrick snarls.
“Buy me dinner first.”
I smile at his voice.
Yeah, that’s Will all right.
Done with this day, I scurry into the living room to find a laughing Will sprawled across the couch next to my sore loser of a brother. Kendrick is bruised—crazy bruised—but I don’t question it. It happens every once in a while. He takes a beating, then disappears for a bit so my mom doesn’t see him like this.
Except he usually doesn’t come back home at all. I’m surprised he’s even here. A bag of clothes sits at his feet. Ah. He probably just came to get his stuff before retreating to the shadows until he doesn’t look like he got into an argument with a hammer.
I notice Will changed out of his distracting, too-hot-to-be-legal training outfit and is now wearing a plain T-shirt and dark jeans. As soon as they become aware of my presence, Kendrick scoffs, raising an eyebrow.
“What happened to you?” Kendrick points to my clothes.
Right. I’m soaked.
“It’s called rain. It’s pouring outside.”
“It is?” He’s surprised.
“Yeah. You would know that if you opened the curtains every once in a while. How do you even see?” I glimpse at the drawn blinds, peeling wet hair off my face.
“Are you okay?”
These are the last words I expected to hear.
My gaze flies to him.
Will.
Conflicted blue eyes meet mine. I’ve never seen that look on him before. He’s not mocking me, or arrogant. He’s genuinely asking. And, I’m probably crazy, but he almost looks…
Worried?
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I sputter, caught off guard, and breeze past them. I catch Kendrick eyeing Will suspiciously on my way to the staircase. This has to be the first time Will’s ever directly addressed me in front of my brother.
“What? She looks like she just ran over a puppy,” Will says as I’m climbing up the stairs, and I swallow a smile. Seconds later, I’m shutting my bedroom door and falling backward onto my bed. I must lie there for twenty minutes, scrolling through social media and wondering what just happened.
Who’s the woman who picked up?
Why hasn’t my dad called since he left?
What happened for my parents to take the final step and get a divorce? I knew things weren’t going well, but moving out overnight? Isn’t that a bit sudden? Unless something’s been going on behind the scenes this whole time and I was too blind to notice? I need to ask my mom, and I won’t let her change the subject. Not anymore.
I assume the guys are leaving when I hear the front door slam. I rush to my window, and, as suspected, Will and Kendrick are parting ways, heading for their cars. Kendrick’s the first to drive off. Exhausted, I decide I should probably change out of my wet clothes before catching hypothermia and lock myself into my bathroom to get ready for bed.
When I step back into my room in a T-shirt and shorts five minutes later, I expect to crash into bed, pass out, and hopefully let slumber wipe my tortured mind clean.
But what I definitely don’t expect…
Is to find William Martins lying on my bed.
I screech so loud I scare myself, backing away too fast and slipping on God knows what. I fall on my ass, bumping my head on my dresser in the process because why not? Laughter instantly pours out of Will.
“Damn. I’m that scary?”
Dazed, I rub the back of my skull and look up, discerning his broad-shouldered silhouette a few steps away. Snickering, he offers me his hand.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
“What does it look
