Grabbing my phone off of the coffee table, where I left it when I realized I didn’t have any pockets to put it in, I walk out the door with a promise I’ll be back tomorrow. Outside, the winds start to howl, whipping through the trees and tugging at strands of my hair. A tumultuous storm to reflect a tumultuous heart. As my tennis shoes dig into the gravel of our driveway, I pull up my messages and text the only other place that feels like home.
Me: Nolan, can I stay at your place? I can’t be home tonight.
The reply is instant.
Nolan:On my way to get you.
Chapter 21
Callie
Thunder booms in the distance, and rain falls in never-ending sheets, but the storm doesn’t have the same rage as ones I’ve summoned before. It’s more as if the building pressure was too much and so the clouds—and vicariously my heart—needed some kind of release.
Watching the wipers run on full blast, I snuggle deeper into Nolan’s jacket, breathing in his familiar spicy cologne mixed with the slightly sweet scent of engine grease. He was working on one of his cars when I texted—evident by the black smears coating his jeans, plain t-shirt, and around his fingernails.
Underneath his coat, I’m soaking wet. My hair is plastered against my face and hangs like a weighted blanket over my shoulder. Small rivers trail from the tips down the nylon fabric, then splatter on the leather seat. The heater is running on max, but I’m not any drier. The air inside the cab is just wetter.
After I texted Nolan, I couldn’t sit and wait. Every second I wasn’t moving felt like I’d suffocate under the weight of my own emotions, so I just started walking. Thankfully Nolan didn’t ask questions when he found me on the side of the highway, wet and shivering with mud caking my shoes. He simply pulled over, the engine still running, and helped me inside, handing me his coat for warmth.
“I let the other guys know you were coming over,” Nolan tells me, rubbing his hand along the inside of the windshield to clear away some of the condensation before driving through the gates and up the winding road to his home.
I nod that I heard him and go back to staring at the blurry world just outside the window. The entire drive here I’ve been silent, too afraid that I won’t have the words to explain what’s really wrong. Why I’m so upset.Will he understand how much it scares me to live a thousand years? To know I’ll lose everyone I love only a quarter into my long life.
Is it wrong of me to be mad at my aunt… grandmother, for lying to me? She’s still related to me. She’s still connected to my mother. How she’s connected is all that’s changed.
Nolan takes the winding road carefully, and it’s as we’re driving past Donovan’s black truck and Connor’s blue Tahoe that I finally summon up at least basic niceties.
“Thank you,” I utter into the silent cab. “For coming to get me.”
“Always,” he murmurs with a sideways glance, worry evident in his arctic blue eyes.
Sniffing, I offer up a tight smile, my heart a twisted mess inside me.
We go back to silence as he hits the button for the garage and parks his Audi in the vacant stall. After turning off the engine, he turns to face me, his gaze trailing along my profile. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“I needed to get away,” I answer, before abruptly getting out of the car, afraid I’ll break under his concerned stare.
“Yeah, I got that,” Nolan mutters, following me out. After locking the doors, he shoves the key fob into his pocket. “Does it have anything to do with what happened at school?”
I frown. What happened at school feels like it took place years ago, and it takes me a moment to pull what he means from my swirling thoughts.
“Not directly, no,” I answer vaguely, my tennis shoes squeaking and squishing as I walk toward the door inside.
“Now that’s an answer that would make Connor proud,” he teases, trying to get a smile out of me, but it falls flat.
Outside the rain sounds like it’s shouting, and with each step I take toward the house, every breath becomes increasingly more difficult. The garage feels too small, the air too thin, and the idea of being enclosed has my heart racing. I rub my hand across my chest, like I can massage oxygen into my lungs, but it’s not enough.
“Love, what is it?” Nolan rushes to my side, grasping my shoulders to make me stand still.
“I need air,” I cry, panic squeezing my throat. It’s too much. Too much. Too much. Make it stop.
He immediately heads for the back wall and slams his hand over a black button. The garage bay door slides open, and cool air rushes in. Needing to move, I walk back out into the rain, letting it pound down on me, and take gasping breaths of the cool night air.
Nolan strides out after me, water soaking his clothes and plastering his platinum blond hair against his head, and pleads, “Talk to me.”
“I need to keep moving,” I insist, walking a small circuit around a planter filled with small shrubs in the courtyard.
“Then we’ll keep moving,” he states, jogging up beside me and reaching for my hand.
