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By the time I park in the lot, the sun has fully set. I grab the flowers from the passenger seat I bought on the way to the pier and get out of the car. It’s quiet out here except for the sound of some crickets and the buzz of traffic in the distance.
It takes me a bit to find her headstone. The cemetery is huge, and I have a bit of trouble reading in the dark. But finally, I find her—Natalie Anne Miller, Beloved daughter and sister.
My throat tightens as I stare down at the polished rock. I’ve never regretted running from any foster home until I ran away from the Millers. All I wanted to do was go back, but I knew what I heard that night. They didn’t need me around when their focus should be on Natalie.
“Sorry I wasn’t here,” I mumble, kneeling on the wet ground so I can place the daisies against the headstone. They were her favorites. For her seventeenth birthday, I’d given her a vase full of them because I was dead poor. She’d smiled so brightly. It was the first time I actually hugged someone back when they reached for me.
I stay with Natalie for a while. I don’t talk, just sit and listen to the sounds around me. It’s the first time I’ve been in a cemetery, but it’s not creepy like I thought it’d be. It’s just sad.
Something snaps behind me, and I turn to look over my shoulder. My heart nearly drops out of my chest when I get a look at the person approaching.
It’s Lucas Miller.
Two
Lucas
The blood in my veins comes to a standstill when I get a look at the guy sitting at Natalie’s grave. Someone I never thought I’d lay eyes on again. Shawn Brooks. The first guy I ever fell in love with. He’d blown into my life like a windstorm and then left just the same.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demand, stopping a few feet away from him. My anger wants to carry me closer, grab him by the collar and force him to tell me what the fuck he was thinking.
“I’m sorry.” Shawn stands quickly. Despite the fact that he’s grown into a man and is no longer the gangly sixteen-year-old he used to be, the wariness in his eyes is still the same. I don’t miss the way he glances around the cemetery, checking for exits in case I decide to do something.
I take a breath because no matter how pissed at him I may be, I don’t want to hurt him. Not ever. Too many people did that already, and I won’t be one of them. “I asked what you’re doing here.”
“I’m working a job,” he mumbles. “I freelance.”
“I don’t give a fuck about your job. What are you doing here in the cemetery? Atmy sister’sgrave?”
“I just wanted…” He trails off, and then his eyes turn dark and cold. Like they were when he first came to live with us. “I have just as much right to come here as anyone.”
“You left her,” I snap. “She wanted you around, and you just left. Too caught up in your own selfishness to even consider that she might need you.”
“I wasn’t caught up in anything.”
“Bullshit. You knew the doctor didn’t think she had a high chance of surviving, and you cut and ran before you had to see too much. Because that’s just what you do.”
“Go fuck yourself,” he snarls. “You don’t know anything about that night.”
“I know you left. You didn’t even have the decency to tell anyone goodbye. Didn’t even have the decency to tellmegoodbye.” I hate myself as I say it because it’s too much. I’m upset he left Natalie, but the betrayal was that he leftme. After everything we’d shared together, he left like it was nothing. And that’s what really stings.
“I had to,” Shawn says, his voice softening. “I didn’t want to, but it was for the best.”
I shake my head. “Maybe the best for you. But don’t try to act like it was the best for me or Natalie.”
His lips press into a thin line, but he doesn’t try to argue any further. I wish he would. Because the truth is, I know Shawn wouldn’t have left just because things were getting bad. He survived more than anyone I’ve ever known; Natalie getting sick really wouldn’t have scared him off.
I don’t know what else would’ve made him run though.
“I’ll go,” Shawn says. “I’m sorry.”
He starts to move past me, and I grab his arm. My grip isn’t tight, but he still flinches anyway.
“You’re going to just run off again?”
“What do you want me to do?” His voice is tired. Exhausted even. Where has he been all this time?
“I want you to at least tell me what happened. If you think it was for the best, you should tell me why you thought that. If you’re actually sorry, you’d do that.”
