Sleep never came. I tried counting sheep but the only things hopping over a fence were my regrets.
The next morning, I got ready like it was any other day. I put on bright yellow to channel the sun, to illuminate my smile, to appear lighter than my soul would ever feel again. I repeated to myself how I’d known Jett and I wouldn’t last. I told myself I would handle it. But it was like barbed wire had coiled itself around my heart, constricting everything. The blood wasn’t pumping right, the oxygen wasn’t circulating.
As I got onto the train, I felt it. The jump in my heart. The little skitter, not even really a skip. The light flutter that should have signaled to me that something was off. I didn’t pay it any attention. Health anxiety consumed me when I was first told I didn’t have cancer anymore. I conditioned myself to ignore the signs, to curve my mind’s attention away from my body’s symptoms. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that my heart was breaking, the crushing weight was normal.
I remember stepping off the train. I remember how the clouds looked so, so gray. Like the rain was coming. Like the bleakness and the turmoil swirling in them wanted out, wanted to dampen the world and bring us all down.
The first drop was the one that did me in. It hit my cheek harder than a bullet, and I couldn’t take any more pressure.
Witnesses say I looked confused, disoriented as I made my way across the street, that I stopped to look up at the first drops of rain. When the car hit me, I went down without a fight. My eyes rolled to the back of my head before I even hit the ground.
35
Jett
I hadn’t lookedup from my computer since I’d arrived that morning, long before anyone else. I’d blacked out the windows and put my focus where it needed to be.
Victory Blakely had stolen too much of my attention already. She’d muscled her way into my thoughts, my dreams, and my damn hopes for the future.
And I wasn’t a man who planned happily ever afters.
In the conference room, we’d gone back and forth about her keeping the one secret she should have told me. But I understood why she hadn’t. I saw the fear in her eyes, the way she’d seized up during that commercial.
Like a puzzle piece clicking into place, it all made sense. She rushed into life head-on, afraid she’d run out of time to live. She focused on the good, the positive, the brightness of life because she didn’t want to waste time with the crushing darkness of the reality she’d already endured.
I couldn’t sleep thinking about how she drew people in with her magnetic optimism, the force actually helped her maintain a buoyant momentum despite her depressing past. My heart ached.
My pride held on to being right with a death grip. She should have told me. I should have been the first person to know. Not Bastian. Not a damn stranger.
I sighed and took two of the paperweights in my hand to roll round and round.
Brey shoved the door to my office open so violently it would have smacked the wall had we not installed a door stopper. “What did you say to her?”
I raised my eyebrows at the dark-haired woman my brother married. Her face was tight with emotion, and her green eyes blazed bright against her olive skin. She shook with anger. I knew she wanted to lash out—her claws were sharpened, her fangs bared.
I didn’t reply. I waited. Just as in business, waiting pushed people to open up, even when it was personal.
“She didn’t come to work, and she didn’t answer my calls last night. Jax told me about the …” Her eyes closed momentarily in pain. “I should have known. She never told me. But you did something. She wouldn’t have skipped work because of this.”
I looked back at my keyboard, pride rearing its ugly head because she hadn’t called me either, and I wanted her to apologize. I knew I should be apologizing too. I wanted her to do it first though. “Maybe she’s sick.”
“Get real!” Brey bellowed.
I jumped at the volume of her voice. “Woman, we are at work.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “You think I care about that more than I care about the well-being of my friend?” She waited a beat and when I met her with silence, she stalked toward my desk and slammed my laptop closed. “Call her right now!”
“I’m not calling her, Brey.”
She narrowed those blazing emeralds at me. I set down my paperweights and lined them up. “You should get back to work.”
Maybe she contemplated it as she chewed the inside of her cheek, but I doubt it. Because the next thing I knew, she swiped the paperweights off my desk so forcefully, the burst of color shattered everywhere.
Then she slammed her hand down on the desk. “Call her and find out where she is. Now.”
Getting emotional over a phone call wasn’t worth all this. I picked up my phone and dialed her number.
No answer.