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As I finish my workout, the realization sinks in that I’m still carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. With a sigh, I know I need to address the situation with Bastian.
I need to figure out where he wants to go from here. He says he doesn’t want to see Sienna ever again, but I doubt he means it. Once I finish my workout, I head back home and check his room, hoping to talk to him.
He’s not there, or anywhere else in the house. I wonder if he went over to the garage. He usually goes there when he needs space. I head over there now to check.
“Hey,” I call out, walking through the front. Bastian grunts in response, tinkering with a Royal Enfield Continental GT.
I come over and sit on a stool near his workbench. “I know you’re upset but you can’t just pretend like everything is fine.”
“Ain’t nothing to talk about,” Bastian says, voice curt. “You gonna stand around or hand me a torque wrench?”
I reach out and grab a wrench from his workbench and stand up, passing it over to him. “Quit the act. We both know what's going on. You and Sienna, the blow-up at lunch.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Bastian says while tightening a lug nut. I can see the way his jaw flexes when he grits his teeth to tighten it and I know he’s trying to avoid the topic. He doesn’t want to admit that he fucked up.
“Stop playing,” I tell him. “You threw her out with nowhere to go. You let your ego get in the way of common decency and what’s worse, you’ve pissed off Caleb. He’s not talking to you right now.”
“Don’t care,” Bastian says, the sound of the wrench emphasizing his words. “I told you that I never want to see her face again.”
I roll my eyes. “Bastian. Be for real. You’re not serious, you’re just mad.”
“She doesn’t belong here, not in our world,” he says, sitting up. His eyes are downcast, shoulders tensed. “She’s an outsider. She doesn’t belong.”
“You brought her into this world!” I throw my hands up and start walking away.
“And I kicked her back out,” Bastian calls. I ignore him and head for my bike, needing to get away from him for now. If he’s going to refuse to acknowledge how he messed up and drove Sienna away, then I’m not willing to be the mediator this time.
As the days crawl by, Sienna remains conspicuously absent from Caspian Springs, her stuff remaining untouched. Even her research is being neglected. No one’s seen her around the town.
Caleb has barricaded himself in his room, his silence palpable. Bastian, on the other hand, wears his sullenness like a cloak, though he feigns indifference.
Sienna’s absence hangs heavy over us all. Even if I could find her, which I can’t—there’s no way I could bring her back without pissing off Bastian.
I feel like there’s nothing I can do to fix things except to try to keep moving forward. Despite my best efforts at maintaining a sense of normalcy at the bike shop, Bastian’s bad mood is getting us in trouble left and right with the customers.
Fed up, I approach him one morning. “Go home,” I say. “Until you can be less of an asshole, I don’t want you around here.”
Bastian leaves in a huff and I spend the rest of the day trying to play nice with some of the regulars, so they won’t leave and take their business elsewhere.
“Thanks for the discount,” Billy says as I ring him up. “If it weren’t for you, I probably would have gone elsewhere after Bas was such a dick to me earlier.”
“No probs. Bastian wasn’t feeling good, but we value your business and I wanted to make it up to you.”
“Sorry he’s sick,” Billy says. “Hope he feels better soon.”
“Me too,” I mutter as Billy leaves.
Flipping the sign to Closed, I decide to take my lunch break and maybe try again to talk some sense into my pig-headed brother.
Just as I’m locking up though, I spot Flynn, one of the local teens who sometimes helps out in the bike shop. He’s rushing up to me, a worried look on his face.
“What’s up, Flynn?” I ask.
“Serpents,” he tells me, bending over to catch his breath. “There’s a Serpent over at Delilah’s sign store, and he’s harassing her.”
I swear and twist the key in the lock. “I’ll take care of it,” I tell him. “No stress.”
He watches as I pull out my phone and call Bastian up. “Hey,” I say. “We got a problem.”
