Mark kept looking from person to person, and after a moment he threw his hands up in the air. “Am I the only one pissed right now?”
Matteo said nothing, just sat between Logan and Nate on the couch. Mason moved to stand next to me and touched the small of my back, his hand shifting under my shirt to rest against my skin.
“Why are you mad, Mark?” he asked.
“Because—” he sputtered. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“We can’t tell you.” Logan disentangled his arm from the back of the couch and leaned forward.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re friends with Quinn,” Logan explained.
“But he’s working with Adam.” Mark pointed to Mason.
“Doesn’t mean I’m friends with him.”
“He thinks you are.”
Mason frowned, his hand pressing harder against my back. He tugged me against him. “What do you mean?”
“He thinks you guys are all copacetic. Becky, too. They were asking what was going on last night, since everyone knew you were at that party.”
That didn’t sound right. “Becky asked, too?” I said.
He looked at me. “Well, I mean…” He lifted a shoulder. “She was there, and Adam was asking me. She didn’t tell him to be quiet or anything. I just took it to mean she agreed with him.”
Becky loved Adam, but she understood we weren’t friends with him. That made me feel like something else was going on, but it wasn’t something I could get from Mark. When Mason and Logan fell quiet and remained that way, I knew what they were doing. Mark might be friends with Logan, and friendly-ish with Mason, but he was my stepbrother. He was mine to handle.
I moved forward. “Mark, are you asking because you were worried about me, or because Adam asked you to find out what was going on?”
“He—” Mark stopped again. He gripped the back of his neck. “Adam didn’t really ask in so many words, not like he wanted me to find out. But it still pissed me off. I had no clue what was going on, and then I heard there were gunshots at a party you were at? Yeah, I guess I got mad.” He glared at Logan, then Mason. “She’s not just yours. She’s mine, too. My sister. My family. You can’t keep putting her in danger all the time.”
I didn’t look up at Mason. I didn’t dare because he was either ready to rip Mark’s head off, or—I didn’t want to know. I stepped toward my stepbrother. “Mark, it’s not like that.”
“Yes, it is, Sam. It has been for a long time.”
He was coming after Mason. There was no way things would end fine now. I saw Logan stand to come to his brother’s defense. You attack one, you attack all. That was our motto. But this was my stepbrother.
I held my hands out, as if to help silence him. “Mark, it’s not like that. I swear.”
“It has been, Sam! You can’t argue that. Those girls putting you in the hospital. Didn’t you guys deal with a drug dealer the other year? How is that safe for Sam? And Sebastian? I mean, there’s a pattern, and you guys can’t deny it. Over and over again my sister is in danger. And this year, a guy tried to hurt her at the carnival, the fucking carnival. We gotta go to work tomorrow, and I’ll be worried the entire time that someone’s grabbing her or worse, just like that Broudou guy tried.”
I felt Mason right behind me. Logan had moved forward to stand on his other side. I saw Nate rising out of the corner of my eye. This was so not good.
Mark opened his mouth to keep going, and there was so much he could say.
I closed my eyes. The list was long, but then I felt that storm inside of me again—it was pressing and pressing, trying to get free, until suddenly I yelled out, “It’s not them!”
There was a moment of silence.
“You can’t say it’s not them, Sam. I know—”
“It’s me.”
I opened my eyes, knowing everything was right there. He could see the pain, the yearning, the rage. All of it was showing, and I couldn’t do a damned thing to hide it.
“This summer, it’s been me, Mark. I went to that fighting event without Mason. I shouldn’t have gone, and I should’ve left right away. I didn’t. I’m the one who put him in danger. And getting a job at a carnival, where someone from Roussou could easily find me? It was your idea, but I sure went for it. All summer I’ve been lost. I was thinking of psychology, but it didn’t feel right. Not completely. All the other majors I thought of didn’t fit either, so I don’t have one. I have no clue what I want to do with my life. Mason’s got two career paths he’s getting ready for. Logan is doing communications, and everyone knows he’ll be amazing at whatever he ends up doing with it.”
“I will?”
“Heather is running Manny’s, and she’s going to marry Channing.”
Mason looked down at me. I saw the movement from the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Shame flooded me as my words spilled out. “Even Becky and Adam know what they’re doing with their lives. They’re getting married. He’s either going to take over his dad’s company or go to law school. And she’s going with him.”
One by one, I was removing the knots inside me. I tossed them out until there were just two left. They were the biggest of all, and I moved away so Mason wasn’t touching me. It didn’t feel right to let him comfort me as I said this.
My voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “And my mom’s getting married this summer. I’m not avoiding her because she wants back in. I’m avoiding her because…” Here it was. The first boulder was her, but the second was what she represented. “…She’s getting married, and I think the whole thing is a crock of shit.”
Her.
Marriage.
All of it.
I didn’t want to get married.
That was the last boulder sitting on my chest, but I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t tell Mason because I knew it was something he wanted.
I didn’t believe in marriage anymore. It was one more thing my mother had destroyed for me.
“Excuse me.” I left. I didn’t know where I was going, but I couldn’t stay here. The truth was going to spill from me, and I wouldn’t risk it. I could lose Mason that way.
“Sam!”
He followed me outside, but I turned and held my hands out. “No. Let me go.”
I still couldn’t look at him, but his voice sounded closer when he said, “Sam, what’s going on?”
It was me. I was the monster here. It was all me.
“Just…let me go, for now.” I started forward again. “I need some time.”
And before he could grab me or change my mind, I took off.
I didn’t stick to the sidewalk or the roads. I cut through back paths, and when I came to a crossroads, I ran away from any place I’d ever been before.
I ran and walked for hours.
I went all over. I was close to Roussou at one point before I circled back to the east end of Fallen Crest. I didn’t go to anyone else. It wasn’t right to talk about this feeling with anyone other than Mason, but I wasn’t ready to talk to him about it.
For once I was in a position where I couldn’t go to him and know everything would be fine, no matter what. It might not be. This could be a game changer.
My stomach rumbled, and spotting a grocery store, I went inside. I needed water and some kind of sustenance. I still had a few miles to cover before I was home. I’d have to rest the rest of the night and tomorrow morning to recover before going in to work.
I wanted to dart in and out. I wanted it to be quick. I knew I smelled, so I decided to just grab some energy gel packets. I wouldn’t have to wait for my stomach to digest them.
I moved toward the right aisle, and that was when I saw her.
I had to laugh.
I’d been avoiding Analise for so long, but this was the moment we would really cross paths: in the freaking grocery store. My aisle was next to hers, but there she was, holding a bag of coffee. No one else was in the aisle, and she hadn’t looked up. I could still go.
But I must’ve made a sound because even as that thought flitted through my mind, she looked over.