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Chapter Thirty-Two
Nala
The ocean before sunrise is the quietest time at the beach. Especially today, when the swells are all capped in white, and the sky is still gray and moody—the sun not yet making its ascent.
I don’t take my board out of my Jeep and head to the water like most mornings, and not because the waves are rough. I’ve been surfing as long as I’ve been walking—it’s not the water I would have a hard time controlling today. It’s me.
Instead, this morning I walk to the sand and sit at the edge, just far enough away that the water will miss me when is crashes on the shore, but close enough I can feel and smell the salt with the wind while I search for my center again.
Jordan came home last night, not even an hour after I showed up. I wasn’t surprised, not really. Malcolm is nothing, if not predictable. His anger was strong enough that I knew he would search out his brothers, and since Hunter’s house was farther away, it only made sense that it would be Brooks he went to first. But Brooks would call Hunter, and Hunter would have shown up. That’s the way they work.
Kind of like Jordan showed up on my doorstep, and Isa called not long after.
“Are you okay?”
We both knew the answer to that, but the words I used would give her a gauge of just what I needed. In the year plus that we’ve been roommates, Jordan has become my closest friend. She’s thoughtful, smart, empathetic, and every day she grows a little less afraid of herself, which might be the reason I was so quiet when she came to me last night. Right now, for all of my bravado and not-so-gentle nudging when I was helping Jordan break free from her past last year, I am afraid of mine.
Watching Mal last night, I also realized I might be afraid of the future. As much as I said I was in control, as much as I wanted to believe it, I lost control of my feelings for Malcolm, and it wasn’t until I walked away from him last night that I realized I might not survive when he leaves me this time.
So last night, when Jordan came home and asked me how I was, I didn’t answer. Being Jordan, she didn’t push it. Instead, she went to the fridge, crabbed a carton of Rocky Road and a bottle of whip cream, and brought both back to the couch. A half a carton later, she let me lay my head on her shoulder and cry, and she never once asked me for words.
But this morning, alone on the water, words are what I have. And I know who I want to give them to.
“He loves me. At least, he did. I think.” I sigh and scrub my hands over my eyes, trying to press away the tears that sit there. “Remember the day I told you I loved Mal? God, you were so disgusted.” I laugh, able to recall with almost perfect clarity the way Ashton’s eyes would get wide and her nose would scrunch when she found something truly gross. “You made your face—the one that made you look equal parts impressed and horrified, and then you said ‘Why? He’s a barbarian.’ I laughed at that, because I knew it, and still, I fell for him anyway.” I flex my feet and let my toes pop out of the sand, the off-white grains dusting off, and then I bury them again. “I knew things about him you didn’t—things I didn’t tell you, partly because he asked me not to, and partly because it made me feel good to have a secret between just him and me.”
I think about how my heart would pound when I got to the beach and found him already waiting for me sometimes, or when I would look over and he’d be on his own board in the water, suddenly next to me. Those times that all added up to a heart full of love for Malcolm Brady. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—not just about that, but about a lot of things,” I murmur, thinking back to when we were almost sixteen and just how sick Ashton had gotten. “And I’m sorry for the part of me that was mad at you for not being there—the part that wanted you with me every night, the one who pushed you to go out even when I could see how tired and upset you were.”
I wipe my eyes again, resting my head on my knees. “I’m sorry, Ash. Sorry I kept all of these moments from you, and sorry that I disappeared when you needed me most. Mostly, I’m sorry I let someone else break me, and that I couldn’t be strong for you when you needed me.”
“Did I break you, Nala?”
My shoulders tense at Malcolm’s voice, and the ache in my heart goes deeper when I turn and see him standing there. I want to be mad, because I know by the look on his face that he’s been there for a while. But I can’t be, not the way I wish I could, because Malcolm’s face right now is the fallen prince I’ve always remembered. So beautiful, with his dark hair messy and unkempt around his chiseled face, framing eyes bluer than one can begin to imagine.
Today, those eyes are tortured in a way I would never have guessed, not when I have spent so much time trying to forget him, and hold him at arm’s length.
“Was it me you ran away from?” he asks, staying where he is. I want to shake my head, to tell himnoand ease any part of the burden he’s carrying, but I can’t. For whatever reason, after Malcolm I was a girl set to destroy herself. However unfair, a very real part of me blamed him for that. And I’m not entirely sure a part of me doesn’t still.
“I learned a long time ago that other people don’t have the power to break us—not unless we give it to them.” It’s a vague answer, one he calls me on right away.
“Did you give me that kind of power?” Now, he pushes himself closer to me, settling down in the sand beside me. He’s left inches between us, though, a space that feels much larger and more purposeful than it physically appears.
Since the day he took me to bed, Mal has made a point to touch me when we’re in the same place. He doesn’t ask, he just does. He made me feel safe, protected even. Loved. Now, hours after I told him about the darkest scar I carry, he’s giving me space, and I feel it as if I am on an island alone.
“Nala,” Mal brings my focus away from the gap between us—to his face. His expression is near-tortured, but it’s also determined. “It’s time to talk about it,” he says. “All of it.”
I know he’s right, but there’s still a part of me that’s focusing on that gap, and I’m not sure that I can handle watching it grow. “I don’t know if there’s really anything left to talk about,” I say.
“Bullshit.” The word snaps out of him, and when he grabs my hand, a thrill runs through me. “What about what I want to say? What about the things you won’t let me say, the questions you won’t let me ask?”
“Maybe I don’t have answers for you,” I grit out.
Now, he leans down so he’s in my face. “That’s bullshit, too.”
I hold eye contact, needing to best him, overpower him, like he always seems to overpower me, but he doesn’t back down. The passion and forcefulness I desired only seconds ago is here, but now I don’t know if I can handle it.
“Fine,” I croak out, twisting my hand out of his grip and wrapping my arms around my legs again. “Talk. Say what you need; ask what you want.” He stares at my hand, at me, a second, and then he settles back, eyes glued to me instead of the water.
“When did it happen?” he asks.
