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CHAPTER36
ZEKE
I waitby the truck while Tabby hugs everyone on our snow-covered front lawn. Tightening my crossed arms, I hunch against the wind, darting my gaze down the street. Nova’s haunting gaze still reverberates through me, and I’m pissed I didn’t ask her to come. I was about to. I was about to say what I know I should say, but I just fucking can’t make myself do it.
I need you.
I need her with me to get me through this. I want her to come with me to drop Tabby off at the RV place in Morleau, where Briggs had all the damage repaired from the fire in the spring. I don’t work on RVs. Nova’s van was even a stretch, but when she showed up in my shop, I couldn’t turn her away.
Now, I’m being a coldhearted prick to her, and I can’t stop myself from going deeper and deeper into my head. Tabby is leaving, and I’m pushing Nova away. I’m sliding backward into something I don’t want to be anymore, losing my footing with each failed attempt to not be Zeke Stryker, colossal fuck-up.
I’m not sure why I ever tried in the first place. This is who I am. Why fight it?
“Tab, we gotta go,” I call harshly, and she peels herself from Xan’s tight hug.
“Call us every day, okay?” Xan holds her shoulders, and tears shine in his eyes. It digs at my gut, and I spin on my heel and get into the vehicle.
I can’t watch them. My usual response to Xan crying is to make fun of him, but this time, there’s a burning along the back of my throat that I struggle to swallow down.
I look down to my lap and pick at a small, fraying hole in my jeans. Eventually, the door opens, and a blast of cold air accompanies Tabby.
It takes a minute to look at her. Her eyes are red, and tears cling to her skin. I open my mouth to say something but have to clamp my teeth shut around this unfamiliar, twisting pain.
“Don’t you start, too,” she warns me.
I’m the unemotional brother—the one who doesn’t cry like Xan, who doesn’t get angry like Jet. I am neutral.
“You have everything you need?” I ask, forcing my voice even. She nods, and I pull away from the house.
I know she’s freaking out. The look in her eye shows me how fast her thoughts are moving, and it helps me ignore my own cracking resolve. I’m able to strengthen myself and focus on breaking the tension in the truck, not adding to it with my own shit.
After a few minutes on the highway, I just can’t handle the quiet, so I toss my phone to her. She startles, clutching the device, and pushes her glasses up her nose.
“What’s this?”
“I made a playlist on Spotify for us,” I say, and she wrinkles her nose. “Some stuff we used to listen to.”
She navigates to the list and plugs the device in to play it through the speakers. Music blares, and Tabby’s face breaks into a huge smile.
“Oh my God.” She laughs through fresh tears at the song we used to listen to as kids. Her head bobs, and her finger taps out the beat as she sings silently.
I hate feeling so contained, so I take a big breath and belt out the lyrics, startling her. She folds over herself in a cackling laugh, then joins me in singing.
She loses that lost look in her eye, her mind moving away from her anxiety and back to the moment. I keep the smile on my face, the words flowing from my mouth and the lightness in my heart. But my gut is a tangled, twisted, fucked up mess.
I drop Tabby’s bag at her feet in front of the RV shop. “Are you sure you’re ready? To go, I mean? It’s January, Tab. Is this really what you want to do? I know how you get.”
She throws her arms around my shoulders as I talk, and we rock from side to side in a tight hug. After a long while, she pries herself from my grip.
“I’ll be fine. You better go.” She smiles, but I know her. She’s terrified and doesn’t want me there to see it. She doesn’t want to draw out this uncomfortable goodbye.
“I love you, you big idiot,” she says, and backs away.
At this moment, I’m overwhelmed with the urge to tell her not to go. That I can’t navigate this whole Nova thing without her. She’s been my support system since the day she was born. She’s been my focus for so long. Why couldn’t it be Del or Pris who is leaving? Sure, I’d miss them, but I barely see Pris, anyway. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a meaningful conversation with her. It would be way easier than this.
Tabby disappears through the doors, and I look around at the rows of RVs, swallowing my emotions.
By the time I’m on the highway, my knuckles are white, and my jaw is so tight it hurts. The music plays faintly, and I twitch my shoulder as if I can wipe the melody away from my ears. I reach out and hammer the power button so there’s nothing on the display other than the time.
Each minute ticks down as I drive back to Raston. The only sound is the hum of tires on wet pavement. It’s soothing and maddening at the same time.
I’m tangled up inside my head, keeping this empty space in my chest filled with angry, spiralling thoughts until I pull up to my house.
My legs won’t move, and I sit in the truck for who knows how long until I realize that Nova is watching me from the basement window, the curtain pinched in her fingers and her brows furrowed.
The moment I see her, there’s a rattling in my heart as everything I’m trying to hold in—that I’ve been holding in—thrashes against its restraints. Panic rises in me, and I realize I’m at a breaking point. The thing I desperately hold onto and what I want more than anything are about to crash head-on.
I need to get inside and to my room, but that look on her face says I’m not going to succeed.
