Something Zale said last night swims up through the beer and the confusion to bob up and down on the surface of my memory.
This town is poison, Grey. Elora knew that.
That night on the dock, at the end of last summer, things had gone so wrong. It was my last night in town, and I’d wanted us to spend it together. Just the two of us. Like always. That was our end-of-summer tradition. Elora had been acting so weird for months, but I figured . . . if we could just have that one good night . . . then everything would be okay. Then she’d run off somewhere for most of the evening. And when she finally showed back up, she was evasive and distant. Not in the mood to talk. So I accused her of being selfish, and she accused me of smothering her.
Grow the fuck up! We’re separate people, Grey! We’re allowed to have our own lives! I’m getting out of here soon. I promise you that. And don’t expect me to ever come back to this shithole town. Not even for you!
Her words tore my heart out. And the hurt of it set me on fire with rage. I called her a bitch. And then I said the worst thing of all. The one thing I knew would cut her to the bone. I told Elora that she’d never get out of this place. Not if she lived to be a hundred. Because she’d never have the guts to face life out in the real world.
Not on her own.
Especially not without me.
I looked my twin flame right in the face and told her that she’d die here. In La Cachette. And there was nothing she could do to change that.
And that’s when she called me a pathetic liar. And punched me. Right in the mouth.
It was her fist that caused the bruise under my jaw, but it was her words that drew blood.
There’s nothing special about you, Grey. And there’s nothing special about us. A few years from now, I won’t even remember you ever existed.
For almost a year, those parting words have been the first thing I hear when I open my eyes in the morning, and the last thing I hear before I fall asleep at night. They ring and echo in my head every single second of every day, like Evie’s wind chimes.
They’ve been the rock in my rock bottom.
And now Hart’s telling me she didn’t mean them. Not really.
And I don’t know where that leaves me.
Except drifting.
Hart makes his way back to me. He squats down low and puts a warm hand on my bare knee to steady himself. “You shouldn’t have come home this year. I shouldn’t have let you.” He tips his head way back and drains the very last drop from the whiskey bottle. “But I needed you so bad, Greycie.” His voice cracks, and my heart cracks right along with it. “God, I fuckin’ needed you.” The pain in his eyes makes me ache. “I needed to be with someone who loved her as much as I did. Ya know?” He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “But you got no business bein’ here. There’s nothin’ good here any more.”
Hart’s face is swimming back and forth in front of me. I try to focus on him, through the alcohol and the tears that are welling up in my eyes. He’s the only anchor I have left. And I finally let myself reach out and touch those beautiful curls.
“You’re here,” I tell him, and I guess I’m not too drunk to get embarrassed, because I add, “And Honey. Evie. All the others.”
“Yeah. Well, don’t come back for me.” Hart lurches to his feet and throws the empty whiskey bottle with everything he has. It slams into the boardwalk piling behind me and shatters into a million pieces. “Because I’m gonna end up a piece-of-shit loser in the end. An abuser and a filthy drunk. Worthless and mean and alone.” There’s cottonmouth venom in his words. The low warning hiss of a snake that’s let itself get cornered. “Until somebody finally puts me down. Like an old rabid dog.”
“Hart,” I beg him. “Don’t.”
“Just like my mama had to do my old man.”
The boat moves and I feel seasick. Because that isn’t what I want for him.
“You could leave,” I tell him. “You could get out of here and go somewhere different.” Hart shakes his head.
“This place is a riptide. And we’re all caught in it. Nobody ever gets outta here.” He looks down at me. “Well, nobody but you. The rest of us, we’re stuck here. For good.” One corner of his mouth twitches up. “Except for maybe Sera. I could sorta see her going to college somewhere. Studyin’ French literature and drinkin’ eight-dollar coffee at some hole-in-the-wall place full of stuck-up, pretentious assholes.”