The eyes.
The voice.
The warm, strong hand that I remembered touching me.
And right then I imagined it touching me everywhere else.
A part of me that still craved all of it—from both of them. If only they had spoken up and done the right thing way back when they should’ve done. They had the chance.
“No,” I said quietly, pulling my hand away. “We have to go.”
I turned to my sister. “Ready?”
She nodded.
And we took off running through the downpour, leaving Cooper and Nolan standing there and staring after us.
Chapter Four
Poppy Evans
Prue and I had barely reached her beat-up old sedan when a crackle of lightning streaked across the sky and followed by a boom of thunder so loud it made both of us scream.
“I’m going to go ahead and chalk this up as one of the worst ideas you’ve ever had,” I gritted out through clenched teeth as I squinted to see through the rain. “Do those windshield wipers go any faster? I can’t see a damn thing.”
“This is as fast as they go.” Her voice sounded a little shaky. Her knuckles had gone white where she gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands. “And you aren’t the one who needs to see, so... just shut up.”
She was obviously getting nervous, and I didn’t blame her for that. The people I did blame were both sitting at home, comfortably waiting for Prue to bring me to them.
And I also blamed myself for allowing my little sister to drag me out in the middle of a fucking monsoon to visit our parents when they only wanted a chance to badger me about all of my life choices up to that point, yet again.
Which, it had to be said, wasn’t an ideal way to spend an evening.
Not that we had anything to fight about this time. I was doing well back home in California, and I’d only come to town for a friend’s wedding, for God’s sake. Nothing controversial or even a little bit risqué.
Still, they would eventually bring up the past—they always did. And that was when the arguing would start, as it always had before.
“Can you see, though?” I asked, ignoring the rude “shut up,” part.
“Not really...”
“Perfect.” I turned to check behind us, but I saw blackness and rain and a pair of headlights way back in the distance. “It isn’t too late to turn around. There’s plenty of time before the car behind us catches up.”
“I’m scared to turn off the main road, though.” She glanced over at me, and through the dark car interior, I saw she was wide-eyed with fear. “What are we going to do?”
My heart pounded so hard and fast that my first instinct was to pull over and call for help. Whether we called the police or our parents or Jas and Muriel, it didn’t matter.
“Okay, slow down,” I said in the most soothing voice I could muster under the circumstances. “Slow down and calm down. Take a breath. Take a breath, Prue.” I waited for her to inhale and then slowly exhale. “There you go. See how it’s a little easier to see the road now that we’re going slower?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, still wide-eyed. “Yeah, okay. It is getting a little better.”
“It’s heavy rain. Nothing we haven’t seen before. Heavy rain is all.” I took a couple of deep breaths of my own as I tried to come up with a plan. “Should we pull over? Or do you think you can make it to Mom and Dad’s if we keep going nice and slow like this?”
“I-I think so.” She swallowed hard and nodded again. “Yeah, I think you’re right. It’s only water, right? I can handle rain.”
“I have faith in you, sis.” I was gripping my door handle so hard that my arm had started to hurt, but I did have faith in her. “Don’t hesitate to pull over if you start getting scared or you can’t see or whatever.”
A few minutes passed with the sky lighting up, the flashes as bright as day, while I never heard any thunder over the pounding din of the rain and the swish of windshield wipers. Prue concentrated on the road ahead, and I fought off the wave of nausea that always seemed to appear before a confrontation with my parents.
“So, what’s the deal with you and those guys?” Prue asked out of the blue. She still hadn’t taken her eyes off the road, but her brow furrowed as she recalled those tense moments under the canopy. “Why wouldn’t you talk to them?”
I’d been bracing for my parents to bring up the past, but I had a sneak preview of the upcoming interrogation from my little sister.
God.
Why didn’t everyone let go of the past?
I had.
Mostly.
At least I didn’t keep dredging it up over and over again.
“It’s... complicated.” I sighed and looked out my window, even though there wasn’t a damn thing out there but rain and darkness. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, anyway.”