I study their faces.
I study mine.
Without context, we almost appear intimate on a level we never were.
I’m in the middle in my light, cotton sundress with the spaghetti straps and tiny, purple tulips scattered across the slightly dirty fabric. My hair is a dark mane tangled around my flushed cheeks by the wind. I remember fighting with the strands, trying to keep them out of my face.
I remember I had an elastic earlier that morning. It held the heavy weight away from my blue eyes. But something happened to it after my walk through the woods.
In the glass, my reflection frowns as I try to remember that single moment from that day. The black void that continues to mask my memory. I thought I was gone a few minutes. I hadn’t gone far. I spotted a ring of flowers off the path and gone to have a closer look, but when I returned, everyone was in a panic. Mom was nearly hysterical. It had been hours, she said.
The crease between my brows deepens as I fight to pull the rest through. But all I recall after that is my Uncle Kevin finding me wandering around on my own, barefoot, hair tangled with twigs and leaves. My dress was stained with dirt. My cheeks were red and blotchy from crying.
But Mom helped clean me up and we all concluded I must have gotten lost and scared.
Still it wasn’t fear that kept me awake at night.
It wasn’t fear turning food into ash in my mouth.
It took years and several therapy sessions to diagnose the crippling weight of depression compressing the life out of me.
Grief.
Loss.
But up until Aunt Laura’s death, I haven’t lost anyone. Still, everything in my life felt empty. An endless cataclysm threatening to drown me.
Not that you could tell in the photo. And perhaps they did it intentionally to cheer me up, but in that moment, captured forever beneath glass, Kellen is behind me, a looming tower of muscles and deep, penetrating eyes the warm brown of espresso beans. Roan and Lukan, equally enormous, equally beautiful with their finely chiseled features and matching dimples stand on either side with their arms hooked around my middle.
That whole moment is still a blur, a hazy dream that replayed in my head a million times over the years and I still can’t believe it happened. If I wasn’t holding the proof in my hands, I’d think I made it up in my head.
Roan and Lukan slipped up next to me, possessively anchored their arms around me and pulled me close. And while I was comforted by their proximity, Kellen pressed into my back, captured my hips. The act had caught me off guard. It shows on my face tipped up to his, blue eyes wide, lips parted in surprise. And his face, tilted down like he’s contemplating whether or not to kiss me.
And that’s how Mom captured us.
Me caught between the three men who unexpectedly vanished from my life not long after this photo was taken. Last I heard from Jenna, Aunt Laura’s eldest daughter, Kellen got married a few years back. Roan was engaged and Lukan had a girlfriend. They’d all moved on without me. Which is fine. As much as the fantasy was fun, I no longer desired them. Or anyone.
Feeling that familiar pang of darkness, I quickly set the photo back on the end table and look away from it. I turn my attention to the room and the nine million candles, charms, and bells still left to count.
The thought alone has me dropping back against the cushion, exhaustion weighing me down.
I need a minute.
Between the long drive and the magnitude of my task, I just need to recharge my batteries.
Yawning, I recline on the stiff cushions and close my eyes.
Just for a second.
CHAPTER TWO
I open my eyes to the familiar scent of pine. Cloves. The rich musk of soil. It lingers through the open space where I lie on a soft bed of feathers beneath a canopy of stars and tangled branches.
“Rina.” His voice rushes with urgency, with a pull of desperation that has me pushing up on the sheets. “You’re here.”
I almost laugh at the statement.
“Aren’t I always?” I tease.
