The Summer I Saved You (The Summer #2)(25)

I walk the twins to the car, my hand gently resting atop each little head, dropping to my knees when we reach it and pulling them to me. Small lips are pressed to my cheeks and Henry clings, briefly, which makes it so much harder.

Jeremy deigns to climb from the car at last. “Let’s go, guys.” His voice is hard, edged with threat.

They release me and climb into the back. By the time I rise, he’s already walking away.

“Sophie’s allergy meds are in her bag,” I begin. “I wrote the instructions on a—”

“I know about her allergies,” he says, swinging the door open.

He doesn’t. I can’t think of a time he ever reminded her to take her meds or came to her appointments. I barrel on anyway. “Henry will need the night-light—”

He turns, smirking. “Parenting isn’t rocket science, Lucie. If you’d ever done anything significant with your life, you’d understand that.”

My stomach sinks as they drive away, knowing he won’t remind Henry to pee before he goes to bed or move his milk away when it’s too close to the edge of the table. Knowing he’ll be enraged when it goes wrong—when the milk spills or Henry has an accident or Sophie’s eyelids swell after they’ve just arrived at the park because he didn’t remind her to take her meds.

I’ve done this to my children, by leaving. How many days and nights of their lives will they spend under his thumb, suffering him because I couldn’t stand to keep doing so myself? Will there ever come a day when I’m certain it was the right decision?

I work on the plans for the seventh floor all night. Even once I’m in bed, I work, trying to distance myself from the loneliness of this empty house and the fear that it’s always going to be this way.

I’m woken in the middle of the night by the ringing phone. The lights are on, the laptop still open beside me, and I nearly fall out of bed trying to grab my cell before it wakes the kids, until I remember that they’re not here to be woken.

It’s Jeremy. My hands shake as I swipe over the screen to answer.

“Open the door,” he demands.

I’m still too panicked and sleep-dazed to ask why. Blearily, I rush downstairs and fling the door open to find him standing on the porch with Henry sound asleep in his arms.

“What happened?” I ask.

Jeremy’s gaze goes to my tank top and boy shorts. I guess I should have put on a robe, but it’s certainly nothing he hasn’t seen before. He was barely interested even when I wore less.

“Take him upstairs,” he says, thrusting Henry at me. I stand frozen, open-mouthed as he returns to the car to get Sophie. Whitney is sitting in the passenger seat, her face lit by her phone screen, as if none of this is happening around her.

“What are you doing?” I demand when he returns with Sophie. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Yes, Lucie,” he says, “I’m aware of the time. I have to head out of town, so I'm bringing the kids back.”

My eyes are still barely open, but I feel rage rushing through my bloodstream and it’s a thousand times more effective than caffeine.

“You what?”

He glares at me. “Unless you want them to wake up, keep it down.”

Grinding my teeth, I head up the stairs with him at my heels. I tuck Henry in while he deals with Sophie, and then I follow him back outside, the grass damp and sticky against my bare feet. "What could possibly have come up this late at night?"

He’s already rolling his eyes, bored with this conversation before it’s begun. "We’re taking a road trip. Whitney’s friends rented a place in the mountains.”

I know better than anyone how selfish he is, yet I’m still appalled. It’s the first night he’s spent with them since we left, and he couldn’t even manage that.

“They’re going to wake up to discover you just ditched them,” I say, my voice low with fury—a fury that threatens to turn into tears if I back away from it for a second. “How’s that supposed to make them feel?”

He rolls his eyes once more. "This is so typical. You should be fucking ecstatic. You want them all the time, and now you get them, but you’re still bitching.”

“Yes, of course I’m bitching! You're running off on a last-minute trip with your teenage girlfriend and you don’t give a shit about how that will make the twins feel."

He laughs. "Do you hear how bitter you are? Maybe that’s why you’re home alone on a Saturday night."

I sink to the front step as Jeremy peels out of the driveway, trying hard not to cry. Part of it is frustration at how little control I have here, that he can hurt my children and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. But it’s also that his words, as always, carry just enough truth to do damage. He was right—I had a free Saturday and I chose to spend it working before falling asleep alone. Maybe I am bitter. Maybe I deserved the way he treated me, the way my mother and father treated me too.

Maybe it really is me who’s the problem.

“Hey,” says a voice. Caleb—hair sleep-tousled and eyes barely open—emerges into the circle of light cast by the lamp on the side of his garage. The sight of him briefly knocks every other thought from my head. He’s in nothing but shorts—smooth skin and taut muscles on full display. He runs his hands through his hair and his biceps pop in response, his abs flashing to life, stacked neatly one atop the next like a pack of dinner rolls.