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She nodded as she tested the waters of my patience in regards to bringing up the one person I refused to speak about. “Have you followed any of his career?”
I stared back at her as it felt like the oxygen was vanishing from the entire house. “Why would I? He was just a friend from high school, Sutton.”
She chewed on her bottom lip as she nodded as if she wasn’t the one who found him time and time again sneaking into my bedroom in the middle of the night when we were younger. “Right.”
“You should probably go,” I told her as I motioned back toward the front door. “I would hate for you to be late.”
“You can come with me,” she offered as she adjusted her Hermès bag on her shoulder and began to turn back to the door. “Maybe that would help you adjust with being back here.”
I shrugged as I glanced down at the sweatpants I was wearing. “I don’t know that I’m really country-club ready.”
“Please?” she said as she pushed out her bottom lip into a pleading pout. “I really don’t want to go but I promised Mom and Dad that I would go stand in for them. I would love to have you there to keep me company from all of those stuck-up, stuffy assholes.”
I choked out a laugh and shook my head. “I haven’t seen them in years.” I paused for a moment as a small smile crept onto my lips. “You know what—I’ll go. I can’t wait to horrify them when I tell them that I’m about to be a librarian.”
Sutton laughed with me but shook her head in disapproval. “Are you trying to piss Mom off?”
“Considering the fact that she forced me back here, yes, yes I am.”
Sutton half frowned but nodded in understanding. “You have an hour to get ready and no more. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes to get you.”
My eyebrows pinched together. “You just said I had an hour, though.”
“I know you, Winter. You’re going to need someone to light a fire under your ass for those last fifteen minutes if we want to get out the door on time.”
Sutton left with those as her parting words and as soon as she was out of the house, there was an eerie stillness that settled throughout the space. The house was big—far too big—and I would have been more content in a smaller place where my mind didn’t have the opportunity to wander the dark halls.
As I walked up the stairs to the second floor, it felt like he was everywhere. Kai was more than just a friend and my sister knew it. When he didn’t have to be at his own house, he was here. Even after my parents prohibited us from seeing one another. That was when he began to sneak in.
My parents were always wary of him and after he got arrested for defacing the side of the clubhouse at the country club, my parents didn’t want me tied to his reputation at all.
Kai had lost his safe place to go. I never knew where he was before the sunset in the evenings, but once the moon was hanging heavily in the sky above, he was climbing through my bedroom window. And he was always gone when I woke up in the morning.
Shaking the memories from my mind, I wandered down the hallway to my old bedroom. As I pushed open the door, I inhaled deeply and peered inside. It was just the way it was when I left. My large king-sized bed was on the opposing wall with built-in bookcases in the wall beside me. My heart crawled into my throat as I hovered in the doorway.
It took everything I had to step inside my room. I didn’t want to be here.
But even more… I didn’t want to be herewithout him.
After setting my things down on my bed, I wandered over to my old desk. My heart crawled into my stomach as I pulled open the middle drawer and reached inside. Tucked away, under an old notebook, was an envelope addressed to him. I slowly took the letter out, giving my eyes a moment to scan over the words I had written to him many years ago. The pain laced in every word scratched at my heart and settled within my bones.
It was a letter that I wrote to him, but I could never bring myself to send it. I bled all over the page, etching my heartbreak, stained with ink. I wanted him to know how badly he broke me, but I knew it would never change anything.
Tucking the letter back inside the center drawer, I abandoned my desk and walked over to my window.The same window he used to crawl through in the dead of night. The pain was palpable. My heart clenched, feeling the weight of the agony as it seeped into my soul.
I was left living with his ghost and it hurt worse knowing that he was out there somewhere living his life. He was living it without me and I would be willing to bet anything that I was never even a thought that crossed his mind. He pushed me as far away as possible and then simply forgot I even existed.
He never looked for me after I walked away from him that night.
After that night, I never heard from him again.
CHAPTER TWO
WINTER
My sister glanced over at me as I fidgeted in the dress she let me borrow for the night. I had brought most of my belongings with me, although there were still some that hadn’t been unpacked yet. That included all of my clothing, like what I needed to attend a charity banquet at a country club.
“Are you okay?” she asked me as she looked at me again from the corner of her eye. Her dark hair was pulled back in a French twist and two curled tendrils framed her slim face. “You look about as uncomfortable as a monkey wearing a diaper.”
