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Remember me…
Mom’s words resounded as I pressed the remote, then climbed into the car. I was backing out of the driveway before I knew it, braking the moment I was out on the street, then shoved the Jeep into gear before punching the accelerator.
The tires squealed before they caught and I shot forward. I drove the same damn streets I’d been driving for weeks now, ever since Caleb and Nick moved back home for a while. They came under the pretense of being together as a family, but the truth was, we felt more disconnected than ever before.
They didn’t bring me food, not before today. They barely even spoke to me, content with sitting in their rooms and having everything done for them. None of them spoke to me about Mom, and they sure as hell didn’t go near that room..
Stay away from her.Caleb’s warning rang in my head as headlights burned through the night. Headlights flared behind me, making me clench my fists around the steering wheel and head toward the city.
And as always, my thoughts returned to her.
That ache filled my chest, like it was my heart. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t catch my—
I yanked the wheel and braked, pulling over. My pulse thundered, until it was all I could hear. I leaned over the wheel and closed my eyes while I shook and shuddered.What the fuck was wrong with me?
I was coming apart.
Becoming the failure dad always knew I was.
And the one person who'd always believed in me was gone…
Remember me…she whispered as that ache in my chest balled into a fist and rammed into the back of my throat.Remember…
I wrenched my eyes open, let out a wounded fucking moan, and forced that agony back down, down in the pit inside me, where it belonged. I would not let it out, would not let them see me like this. I sucked in hard breaths until that wave passed, then glanced into the side mirror and pulled back out.
I drove through the streets, making my way to the lookout high above the city, and parked. Bright lights glittered and sparkled like jewels below me. I tried to think about something other than that churning abyss of grief inside me and slowly my thoughts turned to her…
The kid who wasn’t a kid.
Ryth Castlemaine.
I pulled up my phone and searched her name. The usual social media; Facebook, TikTok, an Instagram that hadn’t been touched in months. I searched her profiles and went through her photos. “Too trusting, aren’t you, Ryth?” Her photos were all there, for anyone to see.
In an instant, the memory of her panties came roaring back to me, and that fucking scent. “Pure, right?”
I hated the way I thought about her. I wasn’t like this, wasn’t so fuckingcruelaround other women. I stopped on an image of her, one where she was at the beach with her parents…a video. I hit play and listened to her laugh. “We come to the beach and here I am, left all alone. Where the hell are my parents?”
I leaned forward, watching the smile falter on her face.
The camera panned outwards, catching the two figures further along the beach. The way they faced each other, hands flailing in the air, it wasn’t hard to realize what was happening. They were arguing. She pulled the camera away.
“Looks like they’re busy,” she breathed, her words panicky and rushed. “But yeah guys, this is Castlemaine Beach, named after my father’s family, pretty cool, huh?”
“Cool,” I muttered as the video ended, freezing on her face in the frame.
That ugly fucking birthmark front and center in the camera’s view.
I bet she was bullied at school for that, bet all the kids made fun of her. Something inside me clenched with the thought. My breaths deepened and my body came alive. There was something about her that triggered something in me. Something about the splattering of freckles across her nose and those washed-out-looking gray eyes. What kind of fucking color were they supposed to be?
I licked my lips, remembering the way she'd looked at me as I strode from the dining room, as though she wanted to like me…as though she needed a friend.
I wasn’t her fucking friend.
I was thefurthest thing from a friend.
Especially for her.
I scrolled through her photos, letting myself get carried away, until I glanced at the time. Fuck. I’d been here for hours, hours looking at her goddamn social media. I leaned forward, started the four-wheel drive, and pulled out, making my way back home.
