Into the Fading Twilight (Starlight Grove, #2) (43)

Kol and Dex shared a look, but Dex nodded. “Of course.”

Kol studied me for a moment as if to make sure this was truly what I wanted. Then he, too, nodded—maybe a little more roughly than his brother, but the movement was similar.

My fingers started to tingle as the door closed behind the men, and I reminded myself to breathe.

“Nova, tell me what’s going on.” Brae’s face was a mixture of emotions. Some tells I knew like the back of my hand. Others were new: tiny expressions she’d gained over the time I was gone. We were both different now, and maybe we had to get to know each other all over again.

I clasped my hands in front of me, trying to hold tight to the will to live. Not just simple existence but to live fully, freely. “I need … I need space to heal. I need to step out on my own. To have a little bit of independence.”

“You’ll be living with Kol.” Hurt was the dominant emotion on Brae’s face now, engulfing all the others. “How is that on your own?”

“It’s my own apartment. My own entrance and exit. Space to … breathe.” I wanted her to understand me, to see what I needed. We’d never struggled with that before. She’d always been the one who got me. And the fact that we were missing each other so much, misunderstanding each other, hurt way more than any of the physical scars I carried.

“You’re saying I’m suffocating you,” she said quietly.

“Brae …”

Her amber eyes started to glimmer, tears gathering there. “Do you blame me?”

Icy shock ripped through me. “What? What are you talking about?”

“It was my idea to go on the hike.” Her voice cracked. “I’m the one who walked away from the trail to take one more damn wildflower picture. I left you alone.”

Brae’s tears came faster, sliding down her cheeks and falling to the floor. My heart cracked, shattering into millions of pieces that I knew I would never be able to reshape again.

“None of this is your fault. What happened to me is the responsibility of one person and one person only. And that’s Travis Moore.”

Something flickered in my memory—or my imagination. I was never sure. A jerk of my hair, my head snapping back. And then, it was gone.

I shook myself out of whatever it was, trying to focus on the here and now. On Brae. “You did everything for me, and it kills me that I can’t just be magically better for you.”

She jerked backward and then took a step forward as if she were going to touch me. God, I wanted that. I wanted to hug her, as I had so many times before. To feel that connection between us. She was my family. The only one I really had.

“I don’t expect you to be better. But I want to make sure you’re healing. And you won’t … you don’t talk to me. I don’t know how to help.” She shook out her hands as if trying to clear a muscle cramp. “I have been suffocating you. Thinking that if I just micromanage every tiny detail, I can fix it.”

“B, it’s not yours to fix. I’m the only one who can do that. And I need space to figure out how.”

We were both quiet for a moment, and I realized that it was the most honest I’d been with her since I returned.

She let out a long breath. “I love you, Supernova.”

I wanted to say those words back, but my throat closed around them. So I gave her another truth. “You’ve given me the biggest gifts of my life. And I know that it was you and Owen who kept me going down there. I may not exactly remember, but I know that. Because you always have. You’re my family.”

“Nova,” she croaked.

“You never gave up on me. When the rest of the world did, you never stopped. You’re the reason I’m still here.” Her and Kol.

“Stop it,” she rasped.

“It’s the truth. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

Brae shook her head. “You already have. You helped me raise my son when I had no one. You gave him and me a family.”

I shifted in place. “There was never any question in my mind. You two deserve the best.”

Brae wiped at her eyes. “You know, you’re an emotional bitch in another way. You just hide it better.”

I burst out laughing, and God, it felt so good. Like breaking another set of chains.

Brae smiled at me. “Think you’d share that boysenberry pie with me?”

One corner of my mouth tugged up. “Only if we can add ice cream.”

“Do I look like an idiot?”

I chuckled. “There might be whipped cream in the fridge, too.”

“Now you’re talking.”

As we walked out of the room that had been mine for a time, I felt lighter. Everything wasn’t magically better, but we were on our way to getting to know each other as we were now. And it was a gift in a way: getting to find friendship and sisterhood for a second time.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


Kol




MY EYES BURNED LIKE I’D BEEN STANDING IN THE MIDDLE of a forest fire all night. Or like they’d been dunked in paint stripper. I pinched the bridge of my nose as I stumbled down the stairs from the apartment and headed through the garage toward the kitchen. I’d grabbed a nap for all of forty-five minutes around three in the morning, but that was it. Today would be rough. But there was still so much to do.