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Avoided answering questions I had no answer for.
Because I hadn’t a single clue on how to deal with her.
Didn’t understand myself why the last words she’d said to me bothered me still.
“You’ll have the rest of your life to think, Hunter. Goodnight.”
It’s the effect those words had on me that caused my need for a separation.
But then again, she was everywhere.
Her laughter. Her soft vanilla scent. Her presence.
In my home. In pictures.
Memories.
My only escape was her mother deciding to visit family down in Orlando for Christmas Day and Eve. Those forty-eight hours were both a blessing and curse. All the knowing looks made relaxing near impossible, but my family was smart enough to not voice those questions out loud.
Instead, they let me sulk in quiet. I missed her smile, and the bashful way she’d always given me my gift.
Not this year. Because of me.
Because I think that deep down she was hiding from me as well, and that stung. There was no fight from her. No cornering me.
Bailey had given me what I’d asked for: time.
Fuck, I hated that. Hated everything.
Coming back here was a mistake, and one I wouldn’t make again any time some.
And sneaking into her room is any better?
No. It wasn’t.
It was the second stupidest decision since coming back.
I’d taken the set of emergency keys Mom had in a kitchen drawer, a bottle of liquor, and walked my ass over. For a while, I stood behind the house and looked up into the window that was hers.
Battled with my thoughts, but I had to do this.
Give her my gift the only way I could.
With that thought, I placed my bottle down on one of the deck chairs and unlocked the back door. They weren’t there—her mother was at work, and the girls were having a sleepover at a classmate’s home.
I closed the door behind me that led into their family room. Everything was as I’d remembered: tidy and with that soft, sweet scent of lavender that was comforting. The lights inside the room flickered on, a motion sensor triggered, and Bailey’s cat, Patches, looked up and glared. She eyed me from her perch on the cat tree.
For two minutes it was a staring contest; she hissed, and I laughed. Patches spent her time between here and our home; my dog was her homie. She complained, and he laid there not giving a fuck as long as the diva didn’t scratch.
Another minute and she jumped down, passing beside me on her way to the kitchen with a touch of annoyance. As if she knew what I’d come to do.
What I was too pussy to do in person.
“Prissy little shit,” I chuckled low, not thinking much of the loud meow that followed me up the stairs. Her room was the first door to the right, and I walked in without pause.
The door was wide open and her room in a small disarray; the bed was unmade, and a tiny gift sat beside a photo of us on her nightstand. This one was unlike the others that covered her dresser and nightstand.
Picking it up, I admired our closeness. How simple shit was between us.
