Into the Fading Twilight (Starlight Grove, #2) (42)

“Everything’s fine,” Kol said, his voice going a little bit flat.

“He’s, um, just helping me pack,” I said quietly.

Brae’s eyes widened. “Pack?”

“I got an apartment.” I forced my smile wide, hoping it would catch, and Brae would miraculously find the happy with me.

The confusion was back in her expression. “But you live here.”

“Hey, O,” Dex called. “How about thirty minutes of Switch before bed?”

Owen looked around the room. “Adult talk?”

“Super boring stuff,” Dex assured him.

Owen sighed as only a nine-going-on-thirteen-year-old boy could. “You know I’m gonna find out eventually, bro.”

Dex covered a laugh with a cough. “I’ll make sure you’re filled in by breakfast.”

Owen headed out to the living room as Brae moved deeper into my room. Her brows pulled together in a combination of worry and annoyance. “Nova. It’s too soon. You need support. People looking out for you.”

“I’m not losing that,” I said gently. “But I also need to start standing on my own two feet.”

Dex moved in behind Brae, squeezing her shoulder in a show of support.

“But you aren’t completely recovered. You have nightmares. What if you need something in the middle of the night?” Brae argued.

“Then she’ll ask me,” Kol cut in.

“She’ll what?” Brae asked.

“Nova’s moving into the apartment over my garage. Perfect blend of her own space but with people nearby if she needs them,” Kol went on.

Brae’s jaw went slack. She simply stared at Kol for a count of one, two, three, and then four. “But you don’t like anyone.”

He scowled at her. “I like lots of people.”

Dex snorted. “Real convincing.”

“You like your family and that’s it,” Brae argued. “You only started to tolerate me after I found Sky when she was missing.”

When Owen and Skylar were at summer camp, the counselors had thought Sky had gone missing or had gotten lost in the woods. In reality, she’d been doling out some justice to a camp bully. But Brae and Yeti had been the ones to find her.

“That’s not true,” Kol muttered.

Dex grinned at his brother. “It’s totally true.”

“You don’t even have an apartment over your garage,” Brae pointed out.

Kol shifted from foot to foot.

“It’s a new development,” Dex explained.

“When did that project start?” Brae pressed.

Kol cleared his throat, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “Almost three months ago.”

Right after I got out of the rehabilitation unit and moved in with Brae and Dex. Right after I confessed that I felt like I couldn’t breathe in my new living situation.

I stared out at the fast-descending twilight as I wrapped my arms around myself. Owen and Sky raced around Waylon Archer’s backyard as a goat and an honest-to-goodness mini-Highland cow charged by them.

Their noise was a comfort. It helped when everything else felt like it didn’t belong. Or maybe it was me who didn’t belong. Even my body didn’t feel like mine anymore. Starved. Scarred. Terrified.

I tried to breathe through it. To remind myself that I could breathe. Because I was still alive. I’d made it through. I should be grateful. Instead, I felt like I was drowning. Suffocating.

“See the fireflies?”

I jumped, startled, cursing myself at the reaction. But Kol didn’t react. He just stood there, watching the kids and the animals as a few glowing insects appeared. If I jumped around Brae, she rushed to apologize, to ask if I was okay. And worse, she looked like she was about to cry.

“We called them lightning bugs growing up.” My voice still held a rasp from lack of use, and that didn’t feel like me either.

“Apparently, they’re starting to go extinct. We’re lucky to see them at all around here.”

I liked that Kol didn’t hover. Didn’t ask how I was. He asked about anything but things that had to do with my ordeal. Maybe because he’d gotten an up-close look at it.

“It is a beautiful place to live. I don’t blame them for settling here.”

“Is here where you still want to be?”

Kol didn’t look at me as he asked the question. And I didn’t feel pressure to answer, which was maybe what made me want to give him the truth. My truth.

“I love the air here. The land. The bigness of everything. Makes my problems feel small.”

“Feels like there’s a but in there somewhere.”

He always saw beneath my words.

So I gave him my truth again. “Living in that cabin. The weight of those expectations. Even if she doesn’t mean to have them, even if she’s just happy I’m back … I feel like I can’t breathe.”

I pulled myself from the memory, staring first at Kol, wondering if he’d given me a place to go because I told him I needed it. But I’d have to deal with that possibility later. For now, I had to do something else. Something I’d been putting off. But if I wanted to step into my new life, I needed to be brave.

“Can I have a moment with Brae?” My voice didn’t sound like mine as I asked the question. But it was time. And I had to try.