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I drove the Buick back to Rare Earth for the third time that night. It was dark, my makeshift lock untouched.
“Fuck, Shiloh,” I said, pacing the dark parking lot, thinking. “Please, baby…”
I got back behind the wheel and pushed the Buick as fast as the heavy engine could take to my place. Maybe Shiloh needed me at home, and I wasn’t there, so she went looking…
My place was dark, quiet in the early hours. The parking lot empty but for tenants’ cars. So was the back-storage area.
Fucking stupid. Why would she come here? You did this to her. She doesn’t want you. She won’t want you ever again…
I shut up the incessant voice long enough to think. Violet was at college. Who else did she know? Amber?
And suddenly, I knew. The one place to go when the rest of the world was fucked.
Wheels squealed as I tore the Buick out of my complex and headed toward the coast. I screeched into a spot in the parking lot and ran as fast as I could along the beach path, tripping over rocks in the dark, slamming my knee into a boulder.
I saw the light of the bonfire first and then there she was.
Thank Christ…
Shiloh was sitting in one of our beach chairs, three of my beer bottles sticking out of the sand around her feet, a fourth in her hand. Blearily, she watched the fire and lifted the bottle to her lips. I couldn’t blame her. I wanted to get plowed and pretend like that night never happened too.
Except she can’t drink.
“Shiloh?”
She swiveled her head, and it was obvious she was wasted. She could hardly keep her eyes open, swaying in her seat.
“Ronan…” she said and then pitched to the side and puked.
“Fuck.”
I hurried to her, held her hair out of her face as she retched up all the beer. Her body was shaking from the cold and the allergic reaction she was having to the alcohol.
When she finished, she lay back against the chair, eyes closed and shivering.
“Hold on, baby,” I said. “Just…hold on.”
I hurried to the Shack for the small stash of blankets we’d collected over the winter and grabbed one.
“Who am I?” Shiloh asked, her head lolling as I wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “I’m a mistake. No. Worse than a mistake.”
“You’re not a fucking mistake,” I said, kneeling in front of her, face to face. I pulled the blanket tight around her. “You need to get home…”
“A mistake, at least, isn’t violent. What I am…” She shook her head. “I’m a violation.”
I clenched my teeth to hear the pain in her words.
“Shiloh, look at me. You’re not…that. You’re…”
Everything good and beautiful in my life.
But I’d ruined hers. I clenched my jaw. “Come on. We have to get you home.”
Shiloh shuddered, her face flush, and retched again, dry heaving and gasping for air.
“I’m empty,” she said when she caught her breath. Her bleary brown eyes met mine, tears shining in them. “There’s nothing in me because there’s nothing in me. I’m…nothing.”
“Stop talking like that,” I said, lifting her from the chair. “The last fucking thing you are is nothing.”
