Before You

“You knew this wouldn’t be easy, and you knew it would end this way.”

“I know.”

Things with Billie had turned into a giant game of dodgeball. I’d had to duck every time a question was asked that would reveal too much of who I was. I’d had to avoid meeting her father or any members of her family, which was so fucked up but my mind made sense of that too.

But what that really meant was Billie didn’t know Casey at all. She had never met him. The person she had fallen in love with was Jared.

I got up from the chair and walked to the edge of the balcony. There was a metal railing that ran the entire width, and I hung my hands over it, crossing my fingers in the air. “I know what it feels like to not have her in my life.”

“I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot better, having her in it.”

“Isn’t that the fucking truth?”

The more I glanced around, the more I felt the storm in the air. And I saw change everywhere I looked, even feeling it during each inhale. They were reminders I didn’t need. More places that were screaming out her absence as though my heart wasn’t feeling it enough already.

Goddamn it, I would do anything to get Billie back.

But the two things she wanted—her mother and her brother—were two things I’d never be able to give her.

SEVENTY-FOUR

JARED

Me: I just want you to forgive me.

Billie: Maybe one day.

SEVENTY-FIVE

BILLIE

“HEY, VERONICA,” I said to the barista who stood on the other side of the counter of the coffee shop I went to every morning.

She smiled, her fingers circling a medium paper cup. “Your usual?”

“Please.”

Knowing the amount already, I got the cash out of my bag and handed it to her once she gave me the coffee. She returned my change, and I weaved past the line that had formed inside the small café. I was just getting closer to the door when I heard my name.

I pulled the cup away from my lips, glancing up from the ground to see who had said it.

If I hadn’t already swallowed the gulp of coffee, I would have choked. Because it was already down my throat, I stopped breathing instead.

We all had ghosts. Mine left tiny white feathers when I least expected it. I didn’t know if they had come from my mother or brother. It didn’t matter. When I saw one, I paused, filling with the most intense emotion.

I also had another ghost.

And he was holding open the door to the coffee shop, staring into my eyes, and I was filled with an emotion that literally took my breath away.

“Jared …” I tried to inhale and couldn’t. “Hi.”

A woman bumped into my shoulder when she attempted to get by, her tray of coffees threatening to spill, and that was when I realized I was standing in the middle of the doorway.

With him still holding the door, I headed toward it, and when I got to his side, his fingers went to reach for my lower back to embrace me, but he stopped halfway. And then we both looked at his hand that was still hanging in the air.

He left it there, his gaze moving up to my eyes. “How are you?”

I slid to the side of the door, so I wouldn’t block the entrance. “I’m okay.”

I hadn’t lied to him at any point while we were together, so I wasn’t going to start now. Besides, he would see right through it. He knew what I looked like at my worst, and there had been points during our relationship where he definitely saw my smile at its best.

The place I was in now, I didn’t know what it was called.

In-between maybe.

He joined me against the brick building, pressed against it in a spot where we weren’t in the main path of the sidewalk. Where he positioned himself was only a few feet away, and that was making it even harder for me to find air.

It had been two months since I last saw him and several weeks since he sent a text. I understood why they had slowed and stopped.

Still, part of me missed them.

No matter how much time had passed, this didn’t get easier.

Especially now as I took in his handsome face.

Kissing Jared would make me forget. It would take away all the pain, giving me the taste I’d been craving every minute since I kicked him out.

But I had to keep reminding myself that he couldn’t be the hero who had protected me from the crash and the man who had killed half of my family.