Page 26 of Falling Back to You

I pounded on the front door. Maybe Olive took her car again. She has to be here. She has to. The door swung open on ten-year-old Quinn, her brown eyes wide—Noelle’s eyes.

“Quinnie, where’s Noelle?” I demanded.

“I thought she was with you.” Her bottom lip wobbled. “She left, and Phoebe said you eloped.”

Eloped. Anything other than the ugly truth.

Quinn offered me a scrap of paper. It held Noelle’s loopy handwriting. I’d always loved her penmanship. She promised to call in a few days.

Why didn’t she promise me that?

Because she was breaking up with me.

A month before our wedding.

“Why?” I rasped.

“They were fighting again,” Quinn whispered, hugging the note to her chest. A too-big azurite ring on her finger. Another ring of Noelle’s. She was leaving jewelry behind left and right.

I grimaced. Things had always been tense in the Shepherd house. They were harder on Noelle than the other girls. Noelle’s words scraped through my mind. I’ve already said things, you just weren’t listening. Surely she was being dramatic. Overreacting.

Quinn sniffed. “I wished she’d taken me, too.”

You and me both, squirt. I was a stinking mess so I didn’t pull her into a hug. Just ruffled her hair and stammered a goodbye before running back home. I punched in Noelle’s number as I ran. Straight to voicemail.

“Noelle, it’s me. Call me. We need to talk.”

I tried her again and left another message. I texted. Nothing.

Jumping into my truck, I started driving, pressure pulsing behind my eyes. Maybe she needed to get away for a few days. Clear her head.

I checked all our favourite spots, driving all night. But there was no sign of her curly hair or dancing eyes anywhere.

Finally, with an empty tank, I pulled back into the driveway as the sun peeked over the horizon. Anger and sadness clawed at my insides, and I smashed my hand against the steering wheel and roared.

Breathing hard, I slunk out of the truck, slamming the door to try and drown out the birdsong twittering in the breeze. I hated those birds.

“Cal,” Pops called, meeting me on the front porch, face lined with worry. Like he’d been up all night, too.

The words tangled in my throat, and all I could do was shove the crumpled note and ring at him.

He met my gaze with all the sympathy in the world.

“Pops,” I croaked, unsure of what to say or how to say it. How did you condense heartbreak into words when you were bleeding out on the inside?

That was all it took. He tugged me into a fierce hug as the full weight of the loss of the girl I loved crashed over me.

She was gone, taking my whole heart with her. She wasn’t coming back, and I couldn’t move on without her.

What did I do?

Chapter eight

Noelle

Macy missed her calling as an opera singer. She had the vocal range for it.

My ears were still ringing from the shriek she let out when I told her Cal was Ruby’s mysterious stranger for the photo shoot over video chat.