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Rachel Wehrli

Equinox

A Bloodlines Novel

Copyright © 2023 by Rachel Wehrli

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Rachel Wehrli asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Rachel Wehrli has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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To everyone with dreams and the courage to keep chasing them.

Contents

1. CHAPTER ONE
2. CHAPTER TWO
3. CHAPTER THREE
4. CHAPTER FOUR
5. CHAPTER FIVE
6. CHAPTER SIX
7. CHAPTER SEVEN
8. CHAPTER EIGHT
9. CHAPTER NINE
10. CHAPTER TEN
11. CHAPTER ELEVEN
12. CHAPTER TWELVE
13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
19. CHAPTER NINETEEN
20. CHAPTER TWENTY
21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
28. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
30. CHAPTER THIRTY
31. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
32. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
33. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
34. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
35. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
36. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
37. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
38. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
39. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
40. CHAPTER FORTY
41. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
42. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
43. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
44. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
45. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
46. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
47. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
48. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
49. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
50. CHAPTER FIFTY
51. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
52. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
53. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
54. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
55. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
56. About the Author
57. Also by Rachel Wehrli

CHAPTER ONE

Warren Towers sat unmoving in the passenger’s seat as his best friend Samuel Hemmings drove him from Ashby Preparatory Academy to the Towers estate. Absolutely and conclusively numb. Still reeling from all he had witnessed, from Kane finally purging the last shred of sanity he had left, to Ellie’s body sailing through the air and falling—dead. Every time he blinked, he saw her hit the building and violently cringed.

Two of his best friends, Sam and Jesse, and his mother, awaited him as he walked into the house. Eva Towers had instantly gone over to him to wrap her skin and bone arms around her son in the biggest, tightest hug she could muster. Warren hadn’t even been able to speak up to reassure her—numb vocal cords. No one wanted to be the first to break the standstill and ask him what had happened back at the school.

But someone had to.

“Is Kane…?”

Jesse let the question hang in the air, unfinished. Everyone in the room had their own ending—is Kane still crazy, is Kane still out there, is Kane dead?

Warren answered the latter. “No, he’s not dead. He left.”

“He gave up?” Jesse snorted. “Wuss.”

Sam asked the last question Warren wanted to answer. “Where is Ellie?”

Warren’s whole body flinched at hearing her name. He thought of everything he’d been through with her only to have it end so horrendously. Ellie and her adopted brother, Kane, had moved to San Catalin to find Warren and his friends for help. Kane suffered from the same supernatural powers and the same supernatural curse as them. Ellie had her own curse—clairvoyance—but her visions of the dark future didn’t suck the life out of her like their powers did to them. The curse had driven Kane insane, and he sought to kill Warren for his power to save his own life.

Ellie had never given up on her brother. She did everything to save him and Warren. Warren admired her for that. She had even gotten into the middle of their confrontation. Trying to get through to Kane one last time. And it had cost her a life.

“Where is she, Warren?” Sam asked again.

“Did she go with Kane?” Eva Towers, Warren’s mother, asked.

Warren flinched again, remembering how broken and deranged Kane had seemed when he realized he had killed his little sister. Warren had had no time to react before Kane had disappeared out of thin air, Ellie’s body gone with him.

“No…” Warren said, “not really.”

“Not really?” Jesse questioned. “What does that mean?”

This time, Warren’s mother spoke, guiding him to sink into their green couch and kneeled in front of him, her white silk robe pooling at her knees on the carpet. “Darling, just tell us what happened. Please.”

“She’s dead,” Warren spat.

Silence was the present villain the moment following Warren’s grim admission. The teenagers sat currently in a home they had grown up playing frivolously, but now it was the sight of a wake—pregnant with tension and sadness.

Eva reached up to hold both of his hands in hers. “What happened?”

“He must have gotten electricity powers from his dad. He sent this ball of it meant for me. She jumped in front of me and took it. Kane took her away.”

“She can’t be, just gone.” Sam shook his head in disbelief.

“Look, guys,” Warren spoke quietly, in a stupor, as if he didn’t quite know what he was saying or trying to say. “I—I need to be…”

“Alone?” Jesse finished for him, scoffing angrily. “No way.”

“Jesse, just go to the dorms,” Sam admonished him. His meaning was clear—give Warren his space. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jesse clenched his jaw, standing up quickly and marching towards the door.

“Wait,” Warren spoke up suddenly to stop him. “I have something for you.”

“What?” the blond asked harshly. He immediately regretted it before following him into the expansive kitchen.

Warren, with zombie-like slow motions, gathered the roots of lavender and chamomile tea bags Ellie had left out on the kitchen counter. He paused, almost unable to hand it over. Ellie had prepared these things to help her brother come back from the precipice of insanity, wanting nothing more than to save him. Warren had tried everything to protect her, caring about her more than anything. Silently, he held the objects out to the blond boy. “Ellie got these. They’re relaxing, de-toxing or something. Grace told her about your mom, so she thought these could help.”

“She” Jesse trailed off in awe, staring at the objects in his hands. He was in awe, always being the reckless, irresponsible one, not worth helping. His mother had been drinking herself into a hole since his father died. And it had always been up to him to take care of her around everything else he had to deal with. It was harder on him because whenever alcohol wet her tongue, she lashed out at him and tore down his father, his hero. It was a tough thing to handle alone. And Ellie, this brand-new person in their world, had been planning to help him. “She thought of me and my mom when she was dealing with Kane?”

“She was just that kind of person. She helps—helped people,” Warren corrected himself painfully, clearing his throat. “Take them.”

Jesse nodded, turning to leave. He stopped in the entryway and kept his back to Warren as he spoke, uncharacteristically gentle and kind. “I’m sorry about Ellie. I really am.”

Warren didn’t look at him as he answered. “I know.”

CHAPTER TWO

Jesse couldn’t get himself to stop thinking as he drove to the dorms. He silently walked up the stairs to the second floor instead of the third floor where his dorm was. He walked further, to another room not too much farther down the hall, and knocked once. He fidgeted on his feet as he waited for her to answer, but she didn’t. He briefly entertained the thought of turning around and going back to his own dorm. But he decided against it, knocking again, this time harder.

Again, there was no answer, and doubts set in. It was late; she was probably asleep or something. They had only made out in the halls during the Homecoming dance. That was standard for him. More might be too much to ask. But he was going to ask, anyway. He just wanted to lose himself. He couldn’t keep thinking about Ellie dying for their battle by her brother’s hands. She was selfless and good. Better than all of them combined. And she was simply gone now.

Again, he knocked, loudly, and kept knocking until he heard a feminine voice inside call out, “What the fuck?” The door opened, revealing the girl from homecoming, Kalila Appleby, in some short pjs and a thin tank top. Her hair was tumbling into her face from the knot of dark hair at the top of her head, covering her sleep ridden eyes. She rubbed the skin under her eyes as she looked at him. “Everton? What the hell are you doing here?”

“You invited me, remember?” He grinned in a way he hoped was sexy and disarming. He was too tired to put all the moves he had on her. He wanted to lose himself in her and then leave. That’s it. She had invited him up before, so that wasn’t too out of line, right?

“Yeah, and you said you had to go hang with your friends,” she responded, citing the lame excuse he gave her. She brushed her hair away from her face with a puff of air from her bottom lip, glaring at the brown tendrils as if they were evil.

“Well, I’m done with that,” he said, choosing not to think about how the night concluded. “Does the offer still stand?”

She looked at him with narrowed eyes for a moment, taking in his hat-in-hand form. Slowly, she let the side of her lips lift in what could be a smile if she’d had a bit more sleep and stepped aside. “Come on in.”

“You really don’t have to still be here, Sammy.” Warren reassured his best friend for what felt like the hundredth time. He was tempted to break into his mother’s liquor cabinet for something to drown himself in. But he couldn’t fall into a full glass in front of his friend.

“I’m not letting you go through this alone,” Sam argued, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder in comfort. “You know I’m here for you.” The two had always been the closest, even when Sam had his twin sister, Jo. Sam wasn’t going to allow Warren to isolate himself.

“I know, man,” Warren said. “But I need to be alone.”

Sam didn’t agree. “That’s the last thing you need. You need—”

“To be alone!” Warren raised his voice, shrugging off his friend and standing up. He walked to the entryway into the rest of the house, not looking back. “Just go home, Sam.”

“Warren!” He called after him, but it fell on selectively deaf ears.

The only relief about the timing of everything—if good timing could exist now—was the free weekend to get their bearings before returning to classes. Jesse got to sleep in, his face digging into a yellow pillowcase. His eyes fluttered open and then immediately narrowed in confusion when he saw the yellow sheets under and wrapped around his body. He twisted his body around to look at his surroundings and smirked when he saw Kalila’s form next to him. Her back faced him as she curled her arms under her head and bent her knees towards the wall. For a moment, he thought she looked cute. But he shook that thought away.

She stirred in her sleep and turned over, slowly opening her eyes. “Hey—you’re still here?”

He sat up. “Well, yeah, I just woke up.”

She laughed briefly, stretching her arms to the ceiling. “Oh. I heard you usually leave before the girl wakes up.”

For some reason, however truthful that statement may be, that bothered him. “Make me sound like a dick, why don’t you?”

She didn’t take him seriously. “No judgement. It was a fun little post-dance sleepover. I have to get going soon, though.”

Taking the hint loud and clear, Jesse gathered his pants and blazer. He was slipping them on as a question occurred to him. “Where’s your roommate? Did we kick her out?”

Kalila scoffed. “No. She’s barely here. Her boyfriend is in college and has his own room in the campus apartments. She’s always there on weekends.”

“Oh, okay,” he stated. He had no idea what to say. He might have been still reeling from Ellie’s death and all those feelings whirling around inside him, and he didn’t get to lose all of himself the way he intended. He lost himself for a night. And here he was, being slapped in the face by reality, and it didn’t feel good. “I’m gonna get going, then.”

Kalila was gathering a toiletry bag as she responded noncommittally. “Okay—see you around, Everton.”

The door clicked softly behind him, and he thought maybe he had dreamed everything. He hadn’t quite got what he wanted, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He cursed when his phone started ringing loudly in his pocket, blaring some metal song, and he swiped to ignore the call out of sheer frustration. He cursed himself again when he saw the call was from the hospital. He could kick his own ass for forgetting one important thing—Jo was still in the hospital, in a coma from Kane’s curse.

He paid no mind to the traffic laws of San Catalin as he raced to the hospital. He couldn’t believe he had forgotten about her. She was his best friend. Practically his little sister. And all he could do last night was to be an ass to a mourning Warren and go hook up with a random girl.

When he got there, he didn’t care that he parked like a douche bag, half of his car’s ass hanging in the spot next to him. He got those glares older people give the rude new generation while he tapped his feet on the ground impatiently waiting for the elevator. He tapped the button for the floor he wanted about a dozen times when the elevator doors opened. He knew where her room was and saw white coats talking to her inside—awake and seemingly normal.

He slammed himself through the door. “Jo? You’re awake?”

She smiled sarcastically. “Good morning to you too, Jesse.”

“I got a call, and I thought—” he cut himself off, not really knowing what he had thought, he just didn’t think anything good. “I thought something was wrong.”

“I’m fine,” she told him carefully, not really understanding what had happened to her. “The doctors were just saying that I can go home later today. Need you to call Sam and the ‘rents, though.”

“I’ve got it,” he said, already pulling his phone and walking back out into the hall. Thank god. Kane obviously wasn’t dead, so he must have taken the curse off himself. Either he did it out of the goodness of his heart, decided he didn’t need her down for the count anymore, or he was too weak to keep the curse up any longer. Either way, Jesse was just glad Johanna ‘Biddy’ Hemmings was okay again.

CHAPTER THREE

Nora Ruiz and her older sister Blair were the other pair of new siblings that year at Ashby Preparatory Academy in San Catalin. They had also befriended Warren and his friends just as Kane and Ellie had, but had yet to reveal their supernatural origins. Blair was the secretive and domineering type. She bestowed orders on Nora to keep their powers and their knowledge to themselves as they tried to uncover Kane’s identity. But Nora shed her doormat personality at the height of the troubles, Homecoming night, and stood up for herself. Of course, not used to not being blindly followed, Blair regressed into hermit mode in her dorm room.

“Blair?” Nora called through her sister’s dorm room door tentatively, raising her hand to knock again. “Blair, come on! I’m sorry!”

The door opened to reveal a red-eyed Grace—Sam’s girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend, and Blair’s roommate—sniffing slightly. “Blair isn’t here. She went out about an hour ago.”

Nora took in Grace’s disheveled appearance. It was almost noon, and she was still in pajamas, without her hair or makeup done. That wouldn’t be so alarming on a Sunday if it wasn’t Grace Howard in front of her. Grace was always manicured and done up to look her best, whether she was attending class or hanging around the dorms. But this girl in front of her didn’t look anything like the girl Nora had come to know. “Are—are you okay?”

Grace sniffed and shook her head. “I’m, I’m fine. I’m just tired out from the dance.”

“You didn’t go to the dance last night,” Nora said as gently as she could. “Sam was there with Jesse and Warren. Kane didn’t show up either. Sam said you guys had a fight.”

Grace slouched into the doorway and nodded tearfully. “I kissed somebody else. I told him yesterday, and we had a fight in the hospital. He just left and now he’s not answering his phone.”

Call it self-centered, but for a moment, Nora only wondered if it was Kane that Grace had kissed. It would make sense. Kane and Ellie had been new transfer students, just like Nora and her sister Blair. Only Blair and Nora knew that the other pair of siblings were supernatural. As well as Warren, Sam, Jesse, and Jo. None of the others knew about her and her sister’s true nature, however. When they had moved here, Kane had taken an interest in Nora. But Grace had been flirting and hanging off Kane’s every word the whole time they’d known each other, all the while encouraging Nora to go for it. She could call it anything she wanted, but it was nothing short of shady. And Nora couldn’t help but wonder if Kane liked it—liked Grace—and that was the reason he didn’t show for the dance last night.

“That’s awful,” Nora feigned sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

Grace shook her head frantically. “This is all my fault. I did this. I wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to see me again.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Nora tried to assure the girl, even if she wasn’t invested in saving her relationship with Sam. “I’m sure he’s mad, but you’ve guys have been together for a long time. He loves you. You just have to get his trust back.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

Nora shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Jo hugged her brother tightly when he got to the hospital. “Where’s mom and dad?”

Sam sheepishly grimaced at her, hedging around the harsh truth. “Dad’s still out of town, but he’s catching the next flight back. Mom was busy with—”

“She just didn’t want to come.” Jo sighed. It was no secret that the Hemmings parents weren’t the most parental of the bunch. Out of the whole last generation, one could say that Eva was the most devoted mother and Jesse’s dad, the most devoted father. Sadly, Mr. and Mrs. Hemmings fell way below par on that front. “Where’s Blair?”

“We assume she’s back at the dorms,” Jesse chimed in. “She was here for most of the night. She looked pretty broken up.”

“I should go tell her that I’m all right,” Jo said. “But how am I all right? What even happened?”

“What do you remember?” Jesse asked her, worried that she was still suffering from some side effects of an unknown supernatural coma curse.

Jo shrugged, lying back and comfortable. “I remember having this fight with Blair in her room. Then I went to my car to drive to Sam’s—and the car flipped over a lot. I passed out then.”

“We should explain this somewhere else,” Sam spoke lowly, eyeing some nurses walking throughout the hall.

“Let’s go.”

They headed out to Sam’s apartment to settle Jo in there, so she didn’t have to deal with her self-centered roommate, who may not want to help her out. Sam would look out for his sister and keep her close. Kane may have left of his own volition, but Sam didn’t trust the grief-stricken psychopath not to come back and hurt anyone else.

It took both Sam and Jesse and half an hour to get through all the events of Homecoming night. They took their time explaining everything to her so she could understand without getting overwhelmed. Jo still felt confused by all the new information.

“So, you’re saying Kane did this to me to get to Warren?” Jo asked, rubbing her temples to guard against the headache beginning to set into her brain. She was too tired for this. She had just woken up from a coma, after all.

Jesse rubbed the back of his neck, not wanting to go over it all again, not wanting to think about what happened that night. But Jo needed to be caught up. Mostly, he let Sam do the talking. “Yeah, he was being poetic. Car crashes seemed to be his thing.”

“He did it to show us that he was serious with his threats,” Sam elaborated on Jesse’s cynicism. “He used us against Warren to get him to do what he wants. But Ellie tried to talk him down at the dance. Warren followed them out of the building and a fight broke out.”

Jo looked between them, noticing how solemn they looked. They looked like they were holding something back. “Is Warren okay?”

“He’s fine,” Sam answered her. But the way his jaw flexed, she could tell that wasn’t the end of the story.

“So, if he’s okay, why do you both look like someone took a bat to your new cars?” she posed for them, sitting up in Sam’s bed. “Something happened. Did Warren kill Kane?”

“No, he didn’t have to,” Jesse scowled. “The coward ran off after the fight.”

Jo arched her brow up, giving them the look a mother would give her misbehaving children until they confessed to their hi-jinks. Any minute now, she would start tapping her foot.

Sam groaned, dragging a hand down his face before speaking in one breath. “Ellie got caught in the crossfire. Kane hit her with a ball of electricity, or something meant for Warren. She died.”

Like most reactions to that kind of news, Jo’s hands flew to her mouth to smother the gasp pushing its way out. She felt this horrible gut-wrenching feeling, like someone put their fist into her abdomen and started squeezing and pulling. She may not have been close to Ellie, but to hear about her death still left that sick to her stomach feeling. “She’s dead?”

“Yeah,” Jesse confirmed. “Warren’s not in good shape.”

“Who would be after watching someone get killed? And Ellie wasn’t just anyone to him, either. She was his girlfriend,” Jo questioned rhetorically. “God, he must be a wreck.”

Sam sat himself at his desk in his room. “He’ll be okay in time. I don’t know how much time, but we’re all going to be there for him.”

“Of course,” Jo agreed, letting a tear fall from her eye before she wiped it away. “Whatever he needs.”

Sam segued the conversation to another topic. “We can’t tell anyone about them, though. How are we supposed to explain to the police that Kane killed his sister with magic and left with her dead body? If we’re asked, we say we don’t know. We haven’t heard from either of them since the dance.”

Jo turned to him, incredulous. “There’ll be an investigation. They won’t just let it go. Two teens in town just up and vanish from one of the best prep schools on the West coast? That’s not going to go unnoticed.”

“We know,” Sam agreed. “But we can’t just make up a big story around them to make it make sense. We have to be just as confused as they are about where Kane and Ellie are. Otherwise, we’re suspects, and that won’t just go away.”

Jesse glared at him. “So, what? We just play dumb until the cops go away?”

“Do we report them missing?” Jo asked.

Sam shrugged. It’s not like he was an expert on big cover-ups of crimes. “Maybe not officially. Maybe we just talk to the teachers, Rosier. Voice concerns. Make it clear we haven’t seen either Kane or Ellie. Then the adults can contact the authorities for us, and we won’t seem like we’re hiding anything.”

“Have you thought everything out?” Jesse asked sarcastically. “It seems so, and Ellie’s not even cold yet.”

“We have to be smart, Jesse,” Sam pointed out, frustrated. “If we just walk around like we’re in mourning, someone will notice.”

“Yeah, try telling Warren that,” Jesse spat, standing up in a huff and storming out.

Sam sighed as his friend rushed out, looking at his sister. “Get some rest. We all have school tomorrow.”

Jo nodded, sitting up as her brother kissed her forehead and left. She then lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes, but she knew that she wouldn’t get any rest with the truckload of information just dumped on her.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was the most challenging thing in the world for Warren to walk through the halls like nothing happened. Around him, students were busy gossiping about the dance and all the fun they had. They groaned about being back at school and whispered about some juicy gossip. He didn’t know what, but something had the school excited.

He couldn’t be excited with them. He couldn’t rejoice about a magical night with the girl of his dreams. He couldn’t even enjoy the fact that he technically won in a fight between him and Kane. Because he didn’t really win. Or at least, it didn’t feel like he won. Instead, it felt like his insides were falling out of his body, and he wasn’t whole. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Ellie’s body flying through the air and heard it smacking into the building. Heard her skull crack against stone. Saw her blood in the grass. Over and over again. He couldn’t get the sounds or her shut eyes out of his head and the most sadistic part of him didn’t want to. All he had left of her were memories.

As he walked through the halls, ignorant of the joy happening around him, he thought of her and couldn’t stop the clenching of his fists. He wanted to punch something, to hurt something. Something named Kane, preferably. But that wasn’t an option. He had to go to class and pretend he was all right.

Sam had come to him last night, telling him what Warren knew, but exactly what he didn’t want to hear. They had to keep quiet about what happened that night. They had to be ignorant; they had to act like they had no idea where Ellie or Kane went. Then they had to act concerned, because they had no idea where Ellie or Kane were. He had to conceal his emotions—moping, mourning, and grieving—as he couldn’t be seen like that.

He knew Sam was right. He could admit that. But it didn’t make it any easier to walk through the school and go to classes and pretend that everything was fine. It wouldn’t make it any easier to look someone in the eye and tell them he didn’t know Ellie’s fate, if she was okay or not. But he guessed it wasn’t supposed to be easy.

He sat next to an empty seat. Most of the other students assumed Ellie would be sitting there. But no, she wasn’t—not anymore. Instead, Sam sat on his other side and Warren set his backpack in the chair Ellie wouldn’t be needing anymore.

“Man, you okay?” he heard Sam ask him as the teacher began the lecture.

But he didn’t answer.

Frustration gnawed at Sam. Grace had been following him like a pouting puppy. She waited by his locker in between classes. She tried to flag him down in the one class she had with him. She tried to get his attention any way she could, but he couldn’t face her. Every time he looked at her, he felt rage beating in his chest at the thought that she had put her lips and hands on Kane. And then that thought led to the fact that Kane killed Ellie, just ripped a human life from this Earth. And he felt a whole other rage. Over a weekend, his girlfriend that he used to want to spend his life with became a testament to the worst time of his best friend’s life. So, he didn’t talk to her. In fact, he ignored her and avoided her as best as he could.

It didn’t work out that way for very long. Having been a couple for a long time, she knew his schedule backwards and forwards. So, she cornered him outside of his class before heading to lunch. She didn’t weep, or plead, or even really look at him straight in the eye. She grabbed his arm and dragged him back around the corner to an empty stretch of hallway leading out to a grassy knoll with a picnic table. He could have easily gotten out of her grasp and walked off, but he knew that when Grace Howard was on a mission, she’d be persistent as Hell until she got her way.

“We need to talk about this, Samuel.”

He knew it was serious when she used his full name. She’d call him Sam with the others and then always Sammy when they were alone. Never Samuel.

“Talk about what?” he asked, not wanting to go to blows with his girlfriend—or ex-girlfriend maybe—in the middle of the school day after everything.

“Us,” she said.

“Us?” He leaned forward like he didn’t hear her clearly, but they both knew that he did. “What ‘us,’ Grace? You kissed Kane, behind my back, right after we had a fight about how I didn’t like him. What did you think was going to happen after that?”

“It was a stupid mistake, okay?” she admitted, not letting her eyes water. She had done enough crying. “But it’s over with. I can’t change the past.”

“No, you can’t, and you can’t make up for it, either,” he spat at her, feeling his rage, his hurt boil over. He would have given everything to this girl, everything he had. But she took all he had and threw it back in his face. “Do you expect me to ever trust you again? Do you expect me to just—forget that it ever happened? Because I can’t do that, Grace! And you should have known that.”

“So, I should have kept it to myself?” she asked him rhetorically. “I’m not like you, Sam. I can’t just keep secrets from the people I care about. It would have killed me inside if I did!”

He pointed an accusatory finger at her, his face morphing into a glare for her. “Don’t you dare try to pin this on me, Grace. You didn’t kiss Kane just because you were mad at me!”

“Don’t you see that maybe you always keeping secrets from me, may have pushed me away? You can’t treat people like that. You can’t pull them close and then keep them at arm’s length, that’s now how it works. You couldn’t even give me a straight answer for why you dislike Kane.”

“Do I need another reason now?” He turned his back on her, not being able to stomach the sight of her. He couldn’t believe what their relationship had turned into. “You cheated on me, Grace! No matter what you say or what you throw at me—you can’t take that back!”

“I would if I could in a second!” she shouted, her hair whipping around her face.

“But you can’t!” He finally broke and knew that there was nothing salvageable here anymore. She would keep trying to pin the blame on him, as if it was his fault that she strayed. And she would never admit that she was wrong. She would say it was a mistake, and it was over, not that she was wrong or the one truly at fault. Of course, to her, he had to have a hand in it too, so it wasn’t all on her. “I can’t do this anymore. We’re done, Grace.”

With most breakups, for the person doing the dumping, it should have felt like a weight being lifted. It should have felt good, cutting her loose, carving that baggage out of his life. With all that happened, he had the realization that life was way too short and could be cut shorter at any moment. He couldn’t waste his time on a girl he couldn’t trust enough to give all of himself to the relationship. Grace more than proved that she wasn’t the girl to jump all in with, to spend his life with.

But walking away from her was still walking away from a year of his life that he spent with her. Walking away from her—he was still walking back into the different baggage of his life. The fallout of Kane—Ellie’s death.

When he turned to walk away, he heard her call after him. But he ignored her pleas to come back and made his way to the cafe to see his genuine friends. He would forget about her, forget about them, and move on with his life.

CHAPTER FIVE

Jo was nervous. For the first time in her life, a girl made her nervous. She had always been self-reliant, confident, and didn’t give a damn what anyone thought or said about her. That’s

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 01.10.2023
ISBN: 978-3-7554-5476-2

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Widmung:
To all those with dreams and the courage to keep chasing them.