AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I needed space.
Springing to my feet, I narrowly avoided his grasp as he reached for me. “Pip, wait.”
I didn’t slow down, knowing that if I so much as paused, he’d catch me. And if he caught me, he’d be there to witness me fall apart.
Truth be told, I didn’t care that Hampton was gay, at least not in the sense that there was something wrong with it. I cared because I knew he would never be able to love me the way I loved him.
The way he loved my brother.
My dead brother.
A sob tore from my chest as I threw Jack’s bedroom door open and raced into the hall, slamming into someone on the other side of the door.
“Piper?” Lawson said, concern lacing his voice. “Are you okay?”
I bit my lips to keep the tears that were so desperately trying to escape at bay and nodded.
“Pip!” Hampton called again, and Lawson looked from me to his brother and then back again.
His voice was low with warning as he asked, “What’s going on?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced a small smile to my face. “Nothing. I’m fine, really. Excuse me.”
I wiggled out of his arms and turned, running the short distance to my bedroom. After slamming and locking the door, I threw myself on the bed and finally let it all out.
The pain of losing Jack.
The pain of rejection.
The pain of ultimately losing the only man I’d truly ever wanted.
It was too much. All of it.
I could hear Lawson’s voice, thick with anger, through the door, but his words were muffled and I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Nor could I bring myself to care.
I just needed this nightmare to end.
I laughed bitterly. This was one bad dream I knew I wouldn’t be waking up from.
5
Piper
The house was filled with people and yet, without Jack, it felt so empty. The rooms I’d spent my childhood in were different, the people I’d grown up with like strangers. Nothing was actually different, but it had changed all the same.
It had been three weeks since we’d buried my brother. Life around us continued, but for the four of us, time seemed to stand still.
Hampton had withdrawn so far into himself, I wasn’t sure that the person who emerged would even resemble the happy-go-lucky boy I’d once known. He’d finished out the semester from his bedroom, refusing to go back despite his parents’ insistence that getting back into a routine would be good for him. Instead, he spent the days in the gym, beating the shit out of weight bags and his muscles. He was trying to ease the hurt of not being able to save the person he loved the only way he knew how: by punishing himself.
Georgia had done the opposite, immediately going back to the dorms the day after the funeral. We’d talked daily and she always asked how I was holding up, but when I asked about her, she changed the subject to something else, refusing to talk about what had happened. She’d promised to go to that party with us that night. She should have been in the car with Jack, Hampton, and me, but had blown us off for a date. I was relieved, thanking the gods above that she’d been her typical flakey self. But Georgia was consumed with guilt. Guilt that she hadn’t seen Jack for months before he’d died. Guilt that she’d not shown up that fateful night. But most of all, guilt washed over her every time she felt relief that she was alive while one of her closest friends was six feet under.
As for me, I’d walked across the stage, accepting a diploma for both myself and on behalf of Jack Kelley. I’d immediately gone home and locked myself in Jack’s room, unable to bear the parties and celebrations everyone else in our class was enjoying. My mother hadn’t pressed the issue, and for that I was thankful. I didn’t think I could stand to watch my mother fall apart again.
Lawson had graduated college, and in true Lawson form, he’d been top of his class. He’d seemed pretty much the same after Jack’s death, introverted and quiet, but there were times when I would catch him unaware and I could see the pain in his eyes, the sadness that w
e were all feeling written all over his face. I overheard him talking to his mother once, so I knew he blamed himself for not taking the keys from Jack. Even though the accident was technically the other driver’s fault, Lawson was convinced that if he had been driving us, he would have reacted differently, wouldn’t have overcorrected.
