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  I hear the front door open and slam against the wall before I see Royal standing at the mouth of the hall. “What’s going on? Fuck, Rach, I can hear you from the street.”

  At this point I’m frozen with shock. I don’t even know what to say to her. If she really doesn’t want to be here, then I can’t make her stay. Royal bends down and puts his finger under her chin and makes her look at him. “What is going on?” he asks gently.

  “I don’t want to be here anymore. I just want to get away from my life. I can’t handle it anymore,” she sobs, falling into his arms. “I just wanted to be wanted for once in my life. I wanted the guy to want me and he doesn’t.” I can see her tears soaking into Royal’s shirt.

  My hand goes up to the top of my head but I don’t have hair to pull out. Honestly, I don’t have anything anymore. I have nothing. “But, I do want you,” I whisper, and I know Royal hears me because he looks down at her like she’s lost her mind.

  “No you don’t! I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to break every single wall you have! You won’t talk about Annabella. You won’t talk about your father. You won’t talk about anything…you’re just there. I need more than that in my life.” I see her lip quiver and I want her to be in my arms but I don’t think she’d let me touch her again.

  “Rach, is this why you called me over here? I think you need to talk to Pierce before you leave. I think you both have a lot of things to talk about,” Royal gently tells her, smoothing a hand over her hair and down her back.

  “No. I gave him time to talk to me. He didn’t want to. I’m just done, okay? Take me home, please. I just want to forget this shit ever happened.” Her sobs get louder and Royal looks at me for answers.

  I just shrug my shoulders and walk away. If they leave my house or if they stay, I don’t give a fuck. Those lasts words were final for me. If she wants to forget, then I’ll make sure she forgets. I’ll be gone before they even make it back to her house.

  ***

  My father’s mom left me a huge trust fund. She was actually a really decent person and I miss her a lot. She was the only grandparent I got to know and she passed away a few years ago. She left me her cabin out in the woods in Arkansas. It’s only a four-hour drive, but I made it in three. I had to get away from Meadows. I had to get away from every bad memory I ever had.

  Everywhere I turn, I still see her face. I still see how fucked I made her. She’s fucking pregnant. I shouldn’t have done that to her. I just wanted her to be happy with the choices she was given in life. I didn’t want to lay any emotional baggage at her feet, and I come with a lot of it. I wanted her to be free from that.

  And she can think I’m a bad person all she wants but I still won’t put that on her. What my dad did to me…and my mom, no one should ever have to hear that. No one should have to live with that but my mother and me. No one else needs to know.

  Annabella is the same. Rachel doesn’t need to know the pain I went through for that bitch. She deserves better than me anyway. She deserves someone who can be open with her about his past, because I can’t. I can’t do that to her. It would be worse than right now. She’d leave me anyway.

  But she already left me.

  I sit on the couch of my cabin and watch the sweat pour off the side of my beer. I’m alone here. I’m always alone here. My mother knows where this place is, so does Wes, and I’m sure, before long, someone will be here to look for me. I shut my phone off hours ago because I didn’t want to have to explain to my mother what happened. I don’t want her to be mad at me.

  I just can’t tell anyone what happened with my father.

  I can’t tell anyone what happened with Annabella.

  They are my secrets, and I don’t want Rachel to be tainted by that horrible shit. And I plan on dying with those secrets. They are my cross to bear and suffer with.

  No one else’s.

  Chapter Ten

  “Ma.” I state her name a little harder than I should.

  Her green eyes look up at me, full of tears. And for once in my life she actually has a reason to cry. “My baby…” she mutters, taking her hand up to her face and wiping some tears away. “Graduating high school. Oh, I can’t believe it! I’m so fucking old!” Then she starts wailing.

  Fuck my life.

  “Mom! Stop being so damn dramatic. You’re going to embarrass Courtney,” Ashley calls out from the open doorway of my bedroom.

  I look back into the mirror and fix my red tie around my collar. I’m wearing a suit under my robe, which is totally lame. It’s way too damn hot for this shit. My jacket is tailored to fit me, so it doesn’t hang off me. Everything on my suit is black except my tie and my shoes. I picked out a red pair to match the tie because I’m cool like that.

  “Ash, I don’t know why you even try. She did this at both of our graduations. Luckily Uncle Grayson will be there. He’s the only one who knows how to control her outbursts.” Van throws in his comment from behind Ash.

  Ma gets up off my bed and smoothes down her pink dress. I would actually take her seriously when she says she’s getting old, if she didn’t dress like a woman in her twenties. The lady is in her forties and doesn’t look a day over thirty. She has all the high society women in Dallas in a fit because she looks so good. I just worry she’s going through a mid-life crisis.

  “Leave her alone. She can cry all she wants. It’ll take attention off of me,” I mutter, sitting down on the bed and sticking my feet in my shoes. I left over a week ago to go stay in my cabin and I didn’t come back until yesterday. I only took calls from my mother so she wouldn’t worry about where I was. I called the school and said I wasn’t coming back until graduation. Luckily, I got to talk to Joelle so she made it easy. I had three finals to take so I came in yesterday and did that. This is the last thing I have to do and I’m home free.

  Wes has called me four hundred times but I can’t talk to her. I can’t talk to anyone who might have spoken to Rachel. I would have skipped out on this today, but it’s important to those in my family and they matter more than my hurt feelings. Rachel doesn’t want to be with me and she never made me any promises. We just were and it was all so incredibly easy. And I could tell her until I’m blue in the face that I don’t want Annabella, but she won’t believe me.

  No one will believe me.

  Word got out to my mother and she’s been bitching at me for the past week about it. She thinks I’m still hung up on that bitch and I’ve tried to tell her the only girl I want in my life is Rachel. The only girl I want in my arms is Rachel. The only girl I want in my bed is Rachel. My words have fallen on deaf ears. They can’t seem to believe that I could just get over Annabella like that and fall for Rachel. But that’s what happened.

  Once Rachel entered my life she was a breath of fresh air, and Annabella was like standing really close to a garbage dump. I bet you can guess which one I would rather have.

  I’m not okay though because I learned something about myself this week. I love Rachel. Like, she’s constantly on my mind. I can’t eat, sleep or be without her love. I want her beside me in this life more than I ever wanted Annabella. I don’t know when it happened, but it did. Thinking about being with Annabella makes me want to cut my own wrists but thinking about being with Rachel makes me want to dance around to my own music.

  You might be confused and I’m sorry for that. I’m a guy; we don’t need dates and loving words. We don’t need fancy gestures or songs written in our honor. We need the girls to be themselves, we need them to be there for us, showing us they care and we need them to put up with our shit. Plus, they should be good in bed. I don’t really want to throw that out there because it makes me look like a dick, but it’s true. We don’t want girls to just lie there; they have to get into it.

  Rachel showed me all of that. Rachel is the most real person I have ever met in my life. She doesn’t hide behind her lies and walls, she just is. She lives out in the open and I need that in a woman. I know she cares. She dumped me because
I wouldn’t share parts of my past. She wouldn’t want to know if she didn’t care. And she put up with my shit like no other. She picked up my clothes off the floor when I refused to do it, she washed the dishes after we ate because I refused to do it and she spent two weeks with me calling out Annabella’s name in my sleep. If that’s not love, then screw it. I don’t want anything else.

  “Courtney, baby, we have to head over to the school. Lets go.” Ma pats my leg and walks out of the room.

  I stand up and shrug my jacket on. I grab my robe and hat from my dresser and follow her out. We meet Ash and Van in the living room and before I know it, we are heading out the front door.

  My steps falter when I see Wes standing outside in a dark blue dress that barely covers her thighs. Really? She’s going to drive Royal crazy once he knows that dress is under her robe. She starts chewing on her lip when she sees me exit the house. “Van said you were here. I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by. I really need to tell you something.”

  “Can you wait until later? We need to get to the school.” I have no intention of hearing what she needs to tell me. Odds are, it’s about Rachel and I just don’t want to know. I don’t want to know anything about Rachel until she finds out what she’s having. After that, I don’t want to be around until she brings my child into the world.

  Wes lets out a little scream and slams her fists against her thighs. “Will you just fucking listen? Why does no one in this family ever listen to me? I know I’m the littlest member and I tend to overreact about things, but Jesus! I’m the smartest person in this family also! You’d think that would make you people stand up and listen!” Then before I can stop her she runs toward me and throws her arms around my shoulders, making me stoop down with her weight. “That day…that day she broke up with you, she asked me who Ella was. I didn’t think when I told her you used to call Annabella that. She didn’t know that you were talking about Annabella until I told her.”

  No wonder it took Rachel two weeks to talk about what I was saying in my sleep. She had no idea who I was talking about. I open my mouth to say something but Wes cuts me off. “She’s scared, Pierce. She’s terrified of you and not physically; she knows you would never hurt her like that. She’s scared to be with you because she loves you and she couldn’t handle it if Annabella came back and you left her for that bitch. I tried to tell her that she shouldn’t be scared at all because I know you would never do that. But she won’t listen to me. She won’t listen to anyone. I don’t know what to do to fix this.”

  She finally pulls her face away from my neck and looks up at me, tears shining in her eyes. I lift my thumb up and wipe some of them away. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for every bad thing that happens Wes. If she is scared she should have talked to me about it. I didn’t realize I was talking about Annabella in my sleep. I knew I was having dreams about her but they don’t mean anything to me. I honestly wish I wasn’t having them. They make me fucking sick.”

  “But if I hadn’t told her, she wouldn’t have known. You could have explained it to her and she would have understood.” She closes her eyes and a few more tears leak out.

  I kiss her forehead and throw my arm around her neck, leading her away from the front of the house. “It’s not your fault Wes. It’s Rachel’s and mine. And only the two of us can fix it and neither one of us want to fix it.”

  I feel Wes shake her head against my arm as we walk to her car. “That’s where you’re wrong.” She breaks away from me and leans up against her Kia. “She is miserable without you. She wears pajamas to school, she doesn’t wear any makeup and she cusses everyone out. She’s moodier than any pregnant woman should be. She misses you so much and she won’t admit it. Royal has been trying to get the address for your cabin this whole time but I wouldn’t tell him, neither would your mom. I knew you needed the time alone.”

  “She broke up with me, Wes. She wouldn’t listen to me when I told her Annabella means nothing to me. That’s on her. If she wants to believe I’d leave everything good I had with her for that bitch, then let her think that. Most of this town already thinks I’m a piece of shit. She can, too.” I climb in her passenger seat, noticing my family has already left for the school in my mother’s car.

  Wes climbs into the driver’s seat a few minutes later. “Well, you are wrong. Right now this entire town thinks Rachel is a piece of shit, not you. Kellan even told her she made the biggest mistake breaking up with you. He also told her she couldn’t find anyone like you who could love her like she wanted. She just wouldn’t open her eyes and see it.”

  Anger spreads through my body at the mention of Kellan speaking to Rachel. That tool has no right to speak to her. “She did what she had to do to protect herself. That’s what Rachel is good at, protecting herself. That’s how we got into this situation in the first place. She wanted to see someone else in more pain than her. She had to know that someone else could hurt more than she did or she would have been destroyed. That’s how her brain works.”

  “I don’t care if she was protecting herself. She hurt you for no reason and I make sure she knows that every day. I’ll keep making her know that for the rest of her life. She’s having my baby cousin and I’m madly in love with her twin brother. She takes that threat very seriously.” Then she laughs while backing out of the driveway.

  She’s quiet for awhile and doesn’t speak again until we reach the school parking lot. She parks and turns off the car. She rotates in her seat to face me and then she lets me have it. “I know you love her. I know you would do anything for her. But running away and letting her go is not the way to solve anything. You need to get in her face and make her believe you. You need to show her all the ways you love her.” Then she gets out of her car and walks away.

  Chapter Eleven

  Even in this crowd, Rachel stands out. At least to me. It probably helps that we are seated in alphabetical order for the graduation ceremony. I’m only two rows ahead of her and Royal in the “P” section. They sit in the “S” section, Rachel to the left of Royal. Honestly, they both look like crap.

  Rachel isn’t wearing any makeup and her eyes have bags under them. Her lovely brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail at the back of her neck. My eyes have been burning to see her ever since I got back in to town yesterday. She hasn’t looked up once since I started walking down the row looking for my seat.

  Royal was staring at her, but something makes him look up and his soulful brown eyes meet mine. I see him nudge her elbow and she looks over to scowl at him. When she follows his eyes, my heart nearly stops. Our eyes meet for a split second and I see the pain and sorrow she wishes she could hide.

  I don’t linger any more after that. I just find my seat and sit down. I pretend I don’t feel four pairs of eyes staring at me. I spotted Channing on the same row as Royal and Rachel. Paisley sits further back in the “V” section. I know all their eyes are looking at me right now. I couldn’t care less. Let them look; I’m not going to show any emotion. I’m not going to show them I’m dying inside. That’s only for me to know.

  I’m looking down at my black robe when a hush falls over the student body. I feel several more pairs of eyes on me and I look up to see a girl with honey colored hair in a blue robe, walking down a row I assume holds the “G” section.

  Annabella Mother Fucking Gage.

  Rage, hot and powerful, pumps through my veins and it takes everything inside of me not to get up and leave this place. I keep repeating over and over again that I’m here for my mother and no one else.

  Someone taps me on the shoulder and I turn around to see Nathan behind me. He wasn’t seated when I got here but he’s almost directly behind me in the “R” section. “What is she doing here?” he mouths, his eyes going from me to Annabella.

  “Fuck if I know,” I mouth back, turning in my seat. She must have finished her year out in home school but was still allowed to walk with us.

  I see Wes turn around in her seat after her neighbor whisper
s in her ear. My cousin has never been one to physically fight but I can feel her rage all the way over here. She stands up and I figure she is about to launch herself over the rows between the “B” and “G” sections.

  I stand up fast, about to run to her. She won’t receive her diploma if she gets into a fight right now. That girl has been excited about Yale for the past five months and I’d hate to see her not able to go because of Annabella.

  Luckily, the girl beside her calms her down enough to get her seated. Though Wes still turns around in her seat and stares daggers at Annabella. I notice Annabella’s honey colored head looking around the students and I know who she’s trying to find.

  Me.

  I look down at my legs and I keep my eyes there through “Your Guardian Angel” by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, our graduation song, and through the speeches. I block them all out because I don’t care one bit what any of them say. I just want to get out of here. I want to go back to my cabin and live the rest of my life there. I don’t have to worry about all this bullshit there.

  Annabella would never step foot in Arkansas. It’s beneath her. Whatever, every single person in Arkansas is better than that bitch.

  When they call her name I don’t look, and I can feel a chill down my spine when her eyes land on me. I keep my head down until I know she’s off the stage. I don’t lift my head until it’s my row’s turn to get up and head toward the stage. Luckily, Annabella is sitting on the opposite side so I don’t have to worry about her reaching out to get my attention.

  My name is finally called and I walk across the stage and my eyes go to my mother, who is crying dramatically, like I knew she would be. I’m surprised to see Victor standing at the bottom of the bleachers and he gives me a salute. I smile for him because none of this is his fault. He’s just protecting his sister, which is his right. I would do the same if Ashley pulled the shit Annabella did.