32. Hannah

Hannah

T hat was awkward,” Savannah chimes, coming into the kitchen after Mason leaves. She sits down at the kitchen table, watching me through a guarded gaze.

Savannah freaking Carpenter. You know, I’m starting to think the cold, indifferent Carpenter smolder should be patented. God knows they’ve all got it down to a T.

I wipe the corner of my eye, hoping foolishly, that she can’t see that I’ve been crying.

“Things seem . . . tense,” Savannah chimes when I step to the fridge.

“What was your first clue?”

She chuckles, but it’s lacking in any real humor.

“You know, your sister could learn a thing or two from you. She never did have a sense of humor.”

“Nope,” I agree, pouring two glasses of lemonade. I only put one ice cube in hers, though, because screw her and her high and mighty attitude. “That why you came to speak to me? About Missy?”

“ Melissa is the furthest thing from my mind right now.”

“Let me guess,” I sit the glass down in front of her and slip into a chair on the other side of the table, wincing when at the slide of the denim against the marks from Mason’s fingers on my ass. “I am?”

“No,” she replies coolly. “Though you are there. Festering.”

“I’ve been told I have that effect on people.” I keep my voice as sweet as possible, the venom-laced pretty words rolling off my tongue easily now. There’s no use trying to win her over. She’s already said what she needed to.

Which doesn’t explain why she’s here now.

“If you want the truth,” she starts, her tone clipped. “I came to apologize. It wasn’t my place to say those things the other night.”

I blink, though her apology doesn’t really mean much because I can tell she doesn’t mean it.

But . . . there’s that voice in the back of my mind, practically forcing me to play devil’s advocate.

“No,” I sigh, relaxing back in the chair. “It was. I can understand.”

“You can’t.”

“No? My sister became addicted to drugs because of your stepfather.”

“So, perhaps both our families are assholes.”

I pause, staring at her.

“So, you’re here because . . .”

“Because Mason enlightened me on a few issues the other night and I’m finding it hard to hate you as much as I want to.”

Wow. Can’t accuse her of beating around the bush.

“So you came to tell me you didn’t hate me?”

“Mason’s a good man and he cares about you. Regardless of how I feel, I want him to be happy.”

“Savannah, I know my sister hurt your family. I know she did some really awful , horrible things. I’m not excusing that, nor am I trying to hide her from that.”

Her blue eyes narrow on me. “So, why are you trying to help her?”

I suck in a deep breath, wiping my clammy hands on my jeans. “Because as bad as she is, she’s my sister. Her death would solve nothing and it wouldn’t make anyone feel better. Prison is the best place for her if she really did what they’re saying she did.”

“You would rather her rot away in a jail cell than take a bullet to the brain?”

“None of us are innocent,” I murmur, forcing myself to take a drink of my lemonade. “Some of us just have bigger sins to pay for.”

Savannah regards me coldly, and I can read every expression on her face as the thoughts flash through her mind.

“You and I are a lot alike,” she murmurs eventually.

She’s right. We both have scars. Deep wounds that have since scabbed over, but that still haunt us every day. Though I don’t know what hers are, I’m willing to bet those knives cut just as deep.

“Yeah, we are.”

“So how did you turn out normal? Mommy dearest, succubus sister . . .”

I shrug. “What’s normal?”

She smirks. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

I pause because I’ve wanted to ask this for a long time, but I’ve never had the courage to.

“Do you think . . . do you think Mason blames himself for whatever happened with Marcus.”

Her eyes fill with disgust at the name, as if saying it three times will cause him to poof magically into the air.

“He does,” she bites, but that anger dissipates as her eyes fill with tears. “I hate that he went to live with our grandmother because Marcus didn’t want him at home. I hate that he’s built all this by himself when we should have been there to help him. He’s been on his own for a long time. Until . . . now. He’s hard on himself. I hate it, but . . . we’ve never been that close.”

“There’s still time,” I offer and she nods slowly, gaze trained on her hands.

“Yeah, I guess so. We’re working on it. Slowly.” She clears her throat, finishing her lemonade. “Hannah, I want to ask you something.”

“Of course,” I answer, though I’m not sure if I really want to.

“Do you love Mason?”

I nearly choke on an ice cube, coughing and sputtering as it slides down my throat.

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you love him?” she repeats.

“Love isn’t the end of pain,” I explain, though my chest aches because, of course, I can’t stop thinking about the disgust on his face when he found out we’d forgotten a condom. “If I loved him, it wouldn’t change anything.”

She actually chuckles this time.

Rude.

“Wow,” she breathes, shaking her head. “We really are alike.”

“What does that mean?”

For the first time since I’ve met her, a smile tugs on her lips, but she pushes it down.

“You’ll see.”

She gets up from the table, crosses to the sink, and rinses her cup out.

“Well, I’ve got to go. I wasn’t supposed to be out today, with everything happening, but I nearly forced Antonio to bring me over because I needed to get this off my mind.”

She pauses on the way back, stooping down to pick up the little box on top of the trash.

“This is going to fuck you up.”

“Wonderful.” I’m not bitter or anything.

“While it grosses me out to think about my brother having sex with anyone ,” she sighs dramatically, chucking the box back in the can. “I can’t say I haven’t been there myself. Shitty ex-boyfriend,” she winks.

“Savannah?” I call when she starts to walk away and she stops turning back to me. “How did you and Logan figure it all out?”

She smiles softly and it’s the most emotion I’ve seen since she arrived. There’s real love there. Love I’m not used to.

“He saved my life,” she answers quietly. “In return, I gave him my soul.”

And then, without another word, she leaves.