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“You’re hurt. You’re always like this when people let you down. You were like this with Marty. Not this bad, but cut up. Hell, you still are. She’s trying to make up for the way things ended with her and Rebel. She’s trying to help. He’s moved on and gotten over it. So much so, he’s fine with Summer and Marty being friends. And you’re still punishing her. It was a million years ago.”
“This is different.” Marty keeps calling me. Texting me. About Ivy. Won’t tell me what it is though. Wants to speak to me. Says it’s important. I haven’t had the guts to call her. Don’t want her to confirm what I know.
“I know that. I do. All I’m saying is that—”
“Ivy didn’t love me.” I admit the thing that has been eating me alive. “She doesn’t. She was never going to. It was all a ruse. I fell in love with someone who was never really there.”
“You’re an idiot if you believe that.” Rebel joins us, Summer on his arm. Her hand on his chest. Supportive.
It chills me to the bone—but not because they share such a bond. It’s because I’m jealous. I wanted that. For a moment I thought I had it. I’d felt the heat of it. The comfort. The connection. The ease of loving someone who truly got me all the way to my marrow.
“It wasn’t real.” I shrug, but I don’t feel at all nonchalant. I’m a tidal wave of emotion, twisting and turning and boiling. I’m in hell.
“This thing that happened with Ivy… it’s nothing at all like what happened with Mom,” Riot says. “Please tell me that’s not what you’re thinking when you say she wasn’t there. Mom was sick. Is sick.”
I shrug. “Does it matter?”
“Ivy was there,” Rebel says. “And she is hurting. As much as you are. You do realize that, right? You do get that the feelings between you were real.”
“We could all see it,” Summer says.
“How do you know how much she’s hurting?” I spit at him. When he broke up with Summer I was there. We could see he was being an idiot and we tried to tell him. Tried to fix it. But that was different. Summer never stabbed him in the back.
“It doesn’t matter.” He scratches the side of his nose.
The back of my neck prickles when he can’t meet my eye. Twenty-six years of sharing this connection and it doesn’t just turn off. It’s there in the itch just under the collar of my shirt. In our eyes that are so identical I can read his thoughts. “Did you talk to her?”
“No.” He runs a finger along the inside of his collar. A trickle of sweat runs down his neck. It could be the outdoor heaters, but I’m betting it’s got more to do with keeping quiet about something.
“She’s hurting. You just said that. How do you know if you didn’t speak to her?”
“Conjecture.” He swallows.
“Bullshit.” I grab his shirt. Crumple the material in my fist. Yank him closer. I love my brother, but I warned him about messing with Ivy. That rule still feels like it applies. “What am I missing? Why are you championing her so hard?”
“Firstly, don’t make me wail on you.” He breaks my grip on his shirt. “Because I don’t care how cut up you are, I will.”
“Secondly?” I ask, ignoring the fact that he never admits we’re equally matched in a fight.
Suspicion flares bright. He’s supportive of Ivy, not distrustful. That means he’s checked her out for himself. Decided he can trust her. But she’s Hawthorne’s sister. It doesn’t make sense. He should be as pissed as I am, but he isn’t.
“We need to talk.” He exhales long and low. “But not here. Not with everyone around.”
“Then we’ll go somewhere else.” I stub out the end of my cigarette in one of the ashtrays. “Now.”
“I can get a ride with Ro,” Summer says to my twin.
“I’m coming back to get you,” he tells her.
Riot falls in beside me as we make our way through the party. There are people everywhere and none of them matter.
By the time the valet brings Emmy around, Rebel is with us.
We pile into the Impala. Rebel behind the wheel. Riot stretched out in the backseat. Top down because as chilly as the night is the stars are bright. Plus Emmy was in the shop for far longer than Rebel could handle, so now he’s making up missed time with his baby.
“Talk,” I say when I can’t handle the silence any longer.
Rebel switches on the radio. It’s the only part of Emmy that doesn’t belong in another era. A newer model, it has Bluetooth and syncs up to a playlist on his phone. Music soothes into the car. Quiet background noise.
