And Claire wasn’t.
How dare I still want her? When I knew what she’d done.
How dare she make me think back on all the times I’d doubted Claire only to come up with several reasons we’d been struggling.
It was all there.
In her stare.
It was there every time she smiled at me. Every time she rolled her eyes and fought back, it was there. Every time I woke up in a cold sweat only to rush to Annie’s room to make sure she was okay, still alive, breathing.
And now it was gone.
Replaced with a chilling emptiness that made me want to crash to my knees and crawl toward her, beg the universe to give them back.
God, give it back!
“Go,” Annie said. Her voice didn’t waver. Tears didn’t fill her eyes. There was no reaction other than emptiness.
“I’m lonely!” she’d screamed at me, her pain palpable.
And I’d wanted to scream back so desperately, “Me too! God, me too!
Instead, I’d offered her what? A place to watch TV?
Snacks?
My own cousins, so she didn’t feel so alone when I knew it didn’t do shit when you were hurting and surrounded by people, that if anything, it made it worse.
“Annie.” My voice cracked. “I was upset. I didn’t mean—”
“What else is new?” she said in a hollow voice. “Ash Abandonato upset again. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.” She lifted her shoulder like it didn’t matter anymore.
Like I didn’t matter.
I may as well be invisible.
“Claire—” I stopped myself.
Holy fuck.
Annie’s head whipped up. “What the hell did you just call me?”
“It slipped, I’m sorry. I didn’t—I’m sorry... Fuck!” I ran my hands through my hair and moved toward her.
“I’m not her,” Annie whispered. “I’m sorry, Ash, but I’ll never be her.”
She sidestepped me and walked right into Tank’s arms.
And I let her.
I let her because he was what she needed.
I let her because it would be selfish to demand her attention, to force her heart when everything in my soul bubbled to the surface then crashed like a wave over me, damaging, destroying, killing.
I didn’t look back.
I didn’t want to see the look of anger on Tank’s face or the one of horror on hers. I walked away.
And I kept walking.
To my car.
Then from my car to my house.
Then to my mom’s greenhouse, to the flowers I’d planted the day of Claire’s death.
I mindlessly dug through the dirt.
Then I cut.
And cut some more.
I didn’t wipe off my hands as I gripped the flowers and laid them in the bucket.
And then I went back to get some more.
Losing myself in the mindless feel of the soil beneath my fingertips and the stems of the flowers as I collected.
Maybe this was my life now.
There was no in between the grief and the healing.
There was only this empty feeling in my soul and sickness in my chest.
All that was left of me.
Were the pieces nobody wanted.
And the ones I desperately needed someone to put back together because I no longer knew how to do it on my own.
And I lacked the heart and energy to even fucking try.
If I was really being honest, I’d admit the only person brave enough had been the one I’d just accidentally called my dead girlfriend.
And now, she was lost to me too.
It was better for her.
Better for everyone.
Chapter Nineteen
“Grief is not a disorder, sign, a disease, or sign of weakness; it is an emotional, physical, and spiritual entity, the price you pay for love, the only cure for love, is to grieve.” —Earl Grollman
Annie
I was livid.
So hurt that I was done.
And I burned to tell him exactly that.
So when Tank had dropped me off after offering to shoot him in the face, I’d slammed the door and marched toward the pool house.
Because how dare he!
The bastard called me by her name!
And it brought back everything he didn’t even know.
How I thought I was trying to save him, give him the closure he needed—the love he needed!
“So stupid,” I muttered to myself.
I was seriously an idiot.
Ash was never going to change.
Sure, he looked perfectly fine to most of his family, but deep down, he was dark, rotten, cursed. And I wanted no part of it because already he was bringing me down with him.
God, and I’d basically begged him to be my friend that night!
So. Stupid.
I wanted to smack myself as I marched into the guest house, throwing open the door, ready to wage a war against him.
I nearly tripped over a lamp in the dark.
And then I noticed the dirt on the floor, dirty footsteps?
What the heck?
The footsteps led around a throw pillow that had seen better days if the dagger sticking into its center was any indication. I kept following the steps into the dark kitchen. The only light was the one above the cooktop, and even that was faint.
Ash was sitting in front of it, a bottle of whiskey in his dirty hands. God, it looked like he’d dug up a grave.