14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

ISABEL

“You’re lost in your head.” Tucker brushed his finger under my jaw, drawing my gaze up to his. We were standing by his truck after getting home, and I’d been watching Nic walk across the lawns to the house next door, the porch lights from the two houses providing just enough light in the darkness. Tucker took my hand. “Was the talk bad? If I need to kick his ass, just tell me.”

I snorted slightly through a smirk and shook my head. “No. Just finally got some answers.”

“That you’re not going to tell me.” It wasn’t a question.

I squeezed his hand. “Some things stay between friends. Just like with us four. When he’s ready, he’ll tell y’all.”

Tucker wrapped his arm around my shoulders, bringing my side up to his. We’d just made it to the sidewalk when Annie and Jet pulled up next door.

“Want to wait?” Tucker asked, but I shook my head and grinned up at him.

“They tend to have long goodbyes.”

“Fuck, am I glad we don’t have to do that anymore. ”

I frowned. “We might. If I nail my audition, it’s something that will happen next year. I won’t be with y’all.”

Tucker grimaced. “I’d rather not think about that yet. We still have a few months.”

“True.” I tried to smile, wondering if I’d be able to handle a night without him by then. Was this audition pointless? Was going to Baste Academy even feasible anymore?

“Okay.” Tucker pulled me towards the door. “I know that look, and you need to get out of your head right now. If that’s something we have to do, we will figure it out. You are not giving up your dream.”

I swallowed the urge to cry and yanked Tucker down for a kiss. By the time we came up for air, Annie was smirking at us from where she leaned against the railing by the porch steps.

“Took y’all long enough.”

I blushed, smiling. “How were the races?”

Her eyes lit up. “Amazing. It was such a rush. The way he handled his car. Getting to watch him from inside and seeing him so intense and in control.” Her hands fisted over her thighs as her teeth pressed into her bottom lip. It was my turn to smirk, and Tucker pressed a hand on top of her head.

“Down girl. You can fuck Jet’s brains out tomorrow. Unless y’all already did tonight?” He winked, and Annie mock-glared up at him, twisting away from his hand.

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

“I think you mean you don’t fuck and tell.”

“Tucker.” I swatted his arm as we climbed the steps. Not that Annie cared. She pulled out her key, and we followed her in. Landing right in the middle of…something .

Mom and Uncle Blake looked up, their conversation coming to an instant stop, and guilt mixed with fear riddled Mom’s features.

“Hey, how was y’all’s night?”

I raised an eyebrow, exchanging a look with Annie. Neither of us were buying it.

“It was fine,” I replied.

“Especially for Annie,” Tucker murmured, and I swatted his stomach as Annie smacked his arm.

Mom and Uncle Blake gave us a weird look, their expressions making them look so much like brother and sister it was crazy.

“How are you feeling?” Mom looked at me.

“Fine. The nap and medicine earlier really helped.”

“Good.”

“So, what did we walk in on?” Annie cut in.

Mom froze, just for a split second, but it was there. “We were just talking.”

“Cool.” My sister nodded, walking around the armchair to drop into it. “About how y’all both know Zane’s parents?”

“Damn,” Tucker muttered as I shot Annie a look. I’d wanted to bring it up, but not like this. Not putting them on the spot.

Mom’s eyes widened before she covered her surprise with a look of frosted warning. “ That is none of your business. He’s just someone we used to know. End of story.”

“But–”

“No, Annabel. My personal life is just that. Personal. I used to know that man, and until today, he’s been out of my life. That’s it. That’s all you need to know. ”

I looked at Uncle Blake, and he gave me a small sympathetic smile. His lips were shut, too.

Annie looked between them before pushing herself back up. “Fine. Then I don’t want to hear you complain when we hold back from you.”

She walked around the couch, her head held high with her frustration, and I followed. Because she had a point. After all the crap Mom gave me today, she was doing the same thing.

“Goodnight,” I heard Tucker say to them as we reached the stairs.

Annie went straight to her room, half-slamming the door, and I had barely walked into ours when Tucker gently took my arm by the elbow, pulling me to his chest. His hands locked behind my lower back, and I looked up, my hands resting on his abs between us.

“You need to go to Annie.”

“What?”

“I meant to tell you earlier. I think she’s having a hard time. You should go spend the night with her tonight.”

“But…” I looked back at our bed, nerves flaring in my middle even as part of me called to be with my sister again when she needed me.

“We haven’t tried a night apart since that night, and you just brought up next year, even part of this summer really, if we consider basketball. Let’s test how we do. See what we’re working with.”

God, why did he have to make sense right now? I wanted to be with Annie. I did. I missed our time together, but sleeping without him?

“Come on. You can do this. I’m right in here if you need me.” He gave me an encouraging squeeze, and I nodded, knowing he was right. If I went to Baste Academy next year, we’d have to learn how to be apart.

“This is not going to become a normal thing.” I pointed a finger at him as I went to go change, and he smacked my ass as I pulled open the dresser drawer.

“Not even a chance of that, princess.”

ANNIE

I was just coming out of the bathroom and pulling the covers back on my bed when my door opened.

“Izzy?” I took in her silhouette from the dim light behind her.

“Mind if I stay in here with you tonight?”

“Really?” I dialed back my excitement for a second. “Everything with Tucker okay?”

“Yeah.” She closed the door and ran around our beds on her tiptoes, the outline of her form bending to turn on her old nightlight. “So much better.” She sighed and pulled back her covers. “What?” She paused when she saw me still watching her, one knee on her bed.

“I’m just surprised you’re not staying with Tucker. You’re sure everything’s okay? You usually only stay in here when y’all fight or something.”

“We’re not fighting. I promise. He suggested I stay with you and get some sister time in. He’s right down the hall if I need him. That, and it’s also a good way for us to try to start sleeping apart sometimes since we might have to next year. ”

I was excited until that last part, and my face dropped with my stomach. “Sounds good. Let me know how it goes.” I crawled under the covers, giving her my back as tears pricked behind my eyes.

“Annie?” I could hear her coming around the bed.

“No. It’s fine.”

“Obviously not.” She squatted down in front of me, and I rolled away, not wanting her to see I was trying not to cry. Too mad right now and hurt.

“Okay, seriously. What’s going on? I thought you were happy I was in here a minute ago.”

“I was.”

“So, then what, sis? Tucker mentioned you were having a hard time, so I’m here. I want to spend time with you, but it’s pointless if you’re like this.”

“Oh, my God. Do you even hear yourself?” I threw my covers back to glare over my shoulder, finding Izzy standing there with her hands on her hips. Any urge I had to cry was gone. Now, I was just pissed.

“What?” Izzy threw her arms out. “What am I doing wrong?”

I rolled my eyes and turned away again. “No wonder Tucker gets so annoyed sometimes.”

I felt the sting in her chest in mine, making me regret that comment. But not by much. I hated what it was like between us right now. Especially that she couldn’t see it.

Listening as Izzy inhaled a deep breath, knowing she was searching for patience, I felt her sit on my bed behind me. Her hand rested on my arm, and my heart throbbed in my chest.

Missing it. Hoping.

Shutting it all out .

Like I’d been shutting everything out.

Shoving it all back for as long as my body would let me.

“Talk to me, sis.”

“Just go, Izzy. Try your experiment in another room tonight. I’m not in the mood.”

I knew she was frowning without even looking. I knew her so well.

But it felt like she barely knew me or even saw me anymore.

“I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that part, but I was being honest. If I can’t stay with Tucker, you’re my next safe place to turn to. He’s my rock, but you’ve always been my tether. My home.”

“Funny. It hasn’t felt like that in a while now.”

“What do you mean?”

Relenting to the conversation, I rolled to my back, my eyes fixed on the ceiling instead of her. “You didn’t even know that I needed you. You haven’t known it for months. Which I get . A huge part of me gets it. You were grieving, are grieving, and I gladly relinquished you to Tucker. You needed him. Not me. But I still needed you , and even now when you’re getting better, you haven’t noticed it. Tucker had to tell you that I needed time with you, and that’s just because he saw me about to break down today.”

It was like a weight was eased from my chest. Not gone but shifted so there was some relief from the pressure. I’d been holding back for so long. For so long I’d had to, but now that I knew Izzy was doing better and still couldn’t read me? That vent just now was well deserved.

Silence followed. Izzy didn’t move. I knew she was stunned and processing. I could feel her denial slowly shifting into guilt as she realized it was true. My sister was my tether, just like she’d claimed, but it had grown tattered and frayed, the bonds of the strands slowly unraveling like our connection.

She’d left me alone.

“Annie, I’m so sorry,” she eventually said, and I could hear and feel the remorse in her words, but a part of me had shut down. I was missing my opportunity to fix it. My mind screamed at me to not be a bitch. To let it go. To get my sister back now that she was here. But my mouth and my body wouldn’t listen.

I just rolled back to my side away from her and closed my eyes. Hating her. Hating this. Hating myself for shutting down. I hated so much of myself nowadays. I closed my eyes, signaling I was done.

Izzy tried a few more times, but eventually, she sighed, getting up to go back to her bed.

Neither of us slept. The purple clock on the wall ticked through the verbal silence, the tension building. Both of us wanted to talk. She didn’t know what to say. I was too stubborn.

Right when I thought I couldn’t take the silence anymore, Izzy spoke. “I’m not going until we fix this. I may have dropped the ball this time. Apparently, I still am, but when you dropped the ball after Daddy died, I forgave you. We will be okay again.”

She rolled away after that, and a tear finally fell free, dripping down onto my pillow.

At some point after that, I drifted into a restless sleep.

“Mom!” The scream wrenched from my throat as I dropped to my knees, the shards of glass cutting into my skin through my jeans as I grasped her hand, smearing the blood that coated her palm. Nothing. She couldn’t hear me. A strangled sound escaped from my throat, my hands now touching along her body. Looking for where to fix it. Where I could help.

Knicks covered her skin. Blood everywhere.

“Mom,” I sobbed, my vision blurring with tears, desperation swirling through me. I had to fix her. I couldn’t lose her. I’d already lost so much.

“Mom. Mom!” I tapped at her cheeks, too afraid to move her. Terrified of where the blood was coming from. She didn’t respond, and I pressed two fingers to her neck, relief bursting through me even as fear ricocheted through every inch of my body. She had a pulse, but it was so weak.

“Mom, please.” I searched over her again. “Answer me,” I sobbed, begging.

My phone started to ring, and I grabbed it, pulling it with shaky, blood-covered hands from my back pocket. Tucker’s name lit up the screen, but I couldn’t answer it, my finger just leaving swipes of blood in its wake. I scraped my hand and the phone across my stomach, wiping the blood onto my shirt.

“Tucker,” I sobbed.

“Sis, it’s me. What’s wrong?” Izzy’s voice came through instead.

“Mom,” I gasped. “Call 911.”

Ending the call as soon as I said it, I checked for Mom’s pulse again. It already felt weaker.

No. No, no, no. I couldn’t lose her. I couldn’t lose anyone else. My eyes searched desperately again, finally spotting the red saturated near her back, staining its way up the side of her shirt. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I ran my bloody hand back through my hair, and then on pure instinct, I grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled, ripping the material up her body.

My stomach rolled. Dizziness swam over my vision. I blinked, steadying myself from swaying, but no, the shard of glass sticking through her ribs was still there.

“Annie!” I heard Jet’s voice as the front door flung against the wall.

I looked up, desperate as he appeared in my kitchen, Stefano right behind him.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do!”

Stefano was already on the phone, dropping down by Mom’s side, and Jet stepped towards me, those blue eyes gentle, terrified, yet still my anchor in the swirling ocean I was drowning in.

“It’s my mom, babe. Please,” I begged as he gently pulled me away.

I woke up gasping for air, tears streaming hot down my cheeks, and shot up in bed. I couldn’t breathe, the images still there. Scrambling from the covers to stand, still gasping for breath, I took two steps before Izzy was bolting from her bed.

“Annie?!”

I held a hand out. I could do this. I’d done it before. I just needed to move. I needed past the images so I could breathe.

She stopped, watching me pace the wooden slats of our bedroom floor as my breathing slowly settled.

“I’m getting the light,” she said, warning me, and I winced, blinking through the brightness when it came back on .

My hands rested on my hips as I focused on the floor, watching the lines and grooves in the wood as I continued to pace, waiting for my heart rate to come back down.

Izzy sat on her bed, watching me. I couldn’t look at her. Not yet. I headed to the bathroom, my limbs still shaky, and splashed some water on my face at the sink, dabbing it dry with a towel before turning around. My eyes finally met hers, finding questions, regret, guilt, concern. So many emotions were swirling through her gaze. We just stared, so much unspoken between us, but we heard every word.

This time, she felt it.

She finally understood what she’d left me alone to deal with.

“You should have told me.”

I walked over to sit on my bed, pulling the covers up over my crossed legs, and Izzy shifted to face me. “You had your own nightmares,” I finally answered, my voice sounding dead.

“And that’s the biggest BS response you could give me. Annie , that’s not just a nightmare. You couldn’t breathe .” She pressed a hand to her chest. “If I’d known. I mean, I knew you’d mentioned nightmares before, and yes , I should have sucked up my own problems to check in on you when I found out, but I never imagined anything like that. Why didn’t I feel when you had them?”

I popped a shoulder, my index finger tapping at my toes through the blanket, the touch of something soft reassuring me I was here, not there. “You did. I know you did sometimes, at least.”

“What? When? ”

“There were times you or Tucker would mention you jolting awake. Sometimes you’d even gasp for breath, but you didn’t know why. You couldn’t remember the dream. Y’all always assumed it was about Zoey. I know a lot of nights it was, but sometimes, it was my dream that woke you up.”

Izzy dropped her head, and I watched her hard swallow before she brushed a few tears from her cheeks. “Oh, my God. Sis… I’m such an awful person. An awful sister.”

“You didn’t know.”

“And that makes it okay? You are literally traumatized over what happened to Mom, but you’ve been hiding it from me.”

“Because I didn’t want to have to tell you I needed you. You used to just know. And you were going through enough.” I hardened my voice then. As much as feeling her absence gutted me, I’d make the same choice. I would always make sure she was okay first.

She shook her head. “Don’t do that. Don’t make yourself the martyr. As much as you want to take care of me? I want to take care of you . I dropped the ball, yes, but I was numb on the inside in so many ways for months . I wasn’t pulling away. I was in literal survival mode. If I didn’t realize what was happening, you should have told me ,” she stressed, giving me a stern look. She shook her head, her frustration with me clear. “Does Jet even know how bad it is?”

“He saw it. Once. But it wasn’t as intense, and it was before Nic moved into his room. I can’t even sneak into his bed on those bad nights anymore.”

“So, what do you do? Go through that every time?” She threw her arm out to the room where I’d been pacing .

“Not always. Tonight’s was bad. It was worse than most of them. Usually when one hits, I grab my headphones and go for a run. They don’t happen all the time. A couple of nights a week, tops, but when I have one, it’s vicious. Way worse than it used to be. Like the worse my stress gets, the worse the nightmare becomes. And the worse the nightmares get, the worse my stress gets. It’s a vicious cycle.”

Izzy closed her eyes and ran her fingers back through her hair, taking a deep breath before dropping her hands onto her lap. “I just wish I had known. About the nightmares, how much you’ve been stressing over everything, all of it.” She got up and crossed the space between our beds, and like we’d done a million times while growing up, I lifted the covers and scooted over to make room.

Izzy crawled in next to me, and we clutched each other’s hands above the covers, our heads touching and hair mixing together on the pillow.

“I am so sorry I wasn’t here for you. Thank you for protecting me and putting me first. But you are my sister . I never want you to go through anything like this alone. And because I think you need to hear it, even if I missed this , I did feel other things from you. Our connection was my lifeline sometimes.” I closed my eyes with a tight swallow, and Izzy squeezed my hand with hers. “We’re a set, sis. It’s you and me together.”

“Always,” our voices mixed in the dark, and I felt the rest of that weight lift from my chest, air finally reaching my lungs again.