How can I when everything in there bears witness to how well and hard he raised me and how much he sacrificed himself for me?
I didn’t even consider moving out after high school. People my age want to get away from their parents, but I didn’t. It’s where home is.
A sudden shiver jolts me upright when the jacket that’s been covering me falls down my arms and to my lap.
My fingers trace the material and I’m surprised they don’t catch fire. It doesn’t matter that I don’t remember him putting it on me, or how I even ended up lying in the chair. The smell gives it away. A little bit spicy and woodsy with an undertone of musk, but it’s still strong and manly and so much like him.
The man I hugged and whose chest I cried into.
The man whose shirt I probably messed up.
He didn’t touch me back, didn’t console me, but having him there, even immobile, was enough for me.
He still had his body tight and rigid like the day of the kiss. He still refused any contact with me, just like back then, but that’s okay.
He covered me with his jacket. And maybe I can keep it like I’ve kept a lot of him with me.
Like his notebook, his shirt when he once forgot it, his hoodies from when he runs with Dad. Most of them were my father’s, but if Nate wore them even once, then they became his. Don’t ask me why. It’s the law. Then there’s a scarf that he gave me because it got cold. A book about law. Make that plural. A pen. Okay, pens, plural again.
And no, I’m not a stalker. I just like collecting. And by collecting, I mean the things that belong to him.
But he’s not here now.
And there’s a hole the size of a continent in the pit of my stomach because now I’m thinking he’s abandoned me and I need to deal with these jumbled feelings on my own.
I came on too strong again, didn’t I? Now, he really thinks I’m an unstoppable pervert who’ll keep touching him whenever I can.
I wasn’t supposed to. I wouldn’t have if he hadn’t touched me first and told me those words that just triggered everything. The fact that I needed to deal with it to get over it.
But he was supposed to be there for when I did deal with it. He shouldn’t have left me another memento of himself and then disappeared.
I stagger to my unsteady feet, rubbing at my face with the back of my hands and wiping them on my denim shorts before I neatly lay the jacket on my forearm. It needs to be all prim and proper like him. Though I probably smudged it with my snot and tears earlier.
Yikes.
My fingers graze the bracelet he gave me as I tiptoe around the corner, searching for a very familiar tall man with eyes that could send someone to hell.
Specifically me.
Still, I forge on because I can’t do this on my own. I can’t stare at Dad’s bruised, lifeless body and remain standing. No amount of lists or desensitizing or empty brain syndrome could have prepared me for this.
My sneakers make an inaudible sound on the floor as I look for him. It doesn’t take me long to find him, but before I can rejoice, my heart clenches.
He’s not alone. He’s with the witch. Aspen.
Dad calls her that. The witch. I haven’t used that name for her in the past, but now I do because maybe she’s enchanting Nate with black magic. After all, she’s the only woman he pays any attention to. The only woman he relaxes around and shows that slight twitch in his lips to.
Some would call it a smile. But I’ve always considered it half a smile. Almost there, but not really.
Anyway, he only shows it to her and I hate it and her. I hate how put-together she is. How she wears high heels and walks comfortably in them, as if they’re nonexistent, and has the best collection of pant and skirt suits ever, not like my dull jean shorts and favorite white sneakers. I hate how her hair is bright red like her lipstick, not coppery and rusty like mine.
But what I hate the most is how compatible she is with Nate. How effortlessly they flow, how good they look together without even trying. She’s successful, cunning, and a boss bitch in their firm. The exact type of woman I imagine Nate being attracted to.
I overheard him say it to Dad once, that he likes women who go after their careers as aggressively as men do. He likes intelligent women with fire, like Aspen.
It’s not a surprise that the king likes a queen.
Because that’s the thing, right? The king doesn’t look in the direction of damsels in distress, doesn’t like doing any saving.
Suddenly, I’m hyperaware of what I am to him. A hurdle that’s pulling him down. An obligation left behind by his best friend.