Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

EASTON

K nowing that Chase is waiting for me as soon as this class is over is making time move at a snail’s pace. Correction, a dead snail’s pace. I’m aging at this damn desk. Made worse by the fact that we’re going over a test that I kicked ass on. It’s a bit surprising, given my struggles with numbers. But as it turns out, the more streamlined version of vague math goes over way better in my head than the advanced geometry that Mom forced me to take.

What’s also weird is how detached I’m becoming towards my shitty childhood. Sure, it sucked and I’m probably never going to be happy about that, but I’m less angry than I was. It’s gradual, but as my relationship with Brady improves, the less space my negative thoughts take up. Closure for me looks a lot like moving on, having my brother by my side, and letting myself be happy. I know it’s different for him, but I also haven’t been getting harassed nonstop by them for four years, so it makes sense.

Healing is a strange thing.

Part of that for me is also believing Chase’s family cares about me. I’ve been more involved with them since Parker left, and it’s been so normal, it’s scary. But the videos from Sage make me want to keep trying until it’s less frightening. I’ve gotten one every day for the last week, she’s alarmingly good at taking videos of herself and sending them to who she wants them to go to. The one today was a recap of what she had for breakfast and that she wants me to come over to color with her again.

I watched it, like, ten times.

If I can really do this, be in a relationship with Chase, I could have a huge family. Like, for the rest of my life. No more looking around the table at Thanksgiving and seeing strangers that have the audacity to call themselves loving relatives. Instead, I can have them. A family that sees me, cares for me, doesn’t want me to hide so as not to offend them with my existence. I can laugh with them, belong with them. The transition has been almost alarming in how easy it is for them, like they were waiting on me, which is a ridiculous but strangely comforting thought.

There’s a small part of me that will always be sad for the fourteen-year-old Easton who was scared to leave his older brother’s side and knew without a shadow of a doubt he was going to burn in hell, but mainly, I just wish I could go back and tell him how much better things will get. Just give it time, not even ten years, and you’ll find where you’re meant to be. A place where your broken pieces aren’t an inconvenience, just a reason to love on you extra.

What a fucking turnaround.

Finally, our time is up, and it’s a monumental effort to not sprint out the doors. It’s drizzling outside, which used to bum me out, but it doesn’t seem as depressing anymore. I couldn’t be more obsessed with the nature around here, so now, it just reminds me that I’m not the only thing that needs a bit of rain to grow. Awareness tingles along the back of my neck as I navigate through the parking lot, looking for Chase. He must be able to see me, so he can’t be far.

I find him a few cars away, and rush that way. When the door opens, his dark head pops up as fast as a lightning bolt. “Hey, sweetheart,” he mumbles with a kiss after I get in. “You got out early. I was going to wait for you out front so you didn’t have to walk through the rain.”

Always so thoughtful. “It’s okay, I don’t mind the rain. It’s been kind of nice, actually.”

Chase’s eyebrows hit his hairline as he presses the back of his hand to my forehead. I laugh and bat it away. “Just gotta make sure you’re not sick or something. I’ve been half convinced this whole time that you’d melt in the rain.”

I try to glare at him, but it lasts all of a second before I’m laughing again. Being around him is so simple. I was kind of worried that I’d be ready to have some space with him working from home but even with being around him this much, I’m dreading when he has to go back. And not in the co-dependent way I’d feel when Aaron would leave me. I’m just going to miss him. Spending all this time with him is only cementing the feelings I tried so desperately to avoid for the longest time.

I may not be brave enough to talk to Chase about them yet, but being able to acknowledge it to myself is a step in the right direction. It’s not even that I’m stressed about how the conversation will go, he wouldn’t act like this with me if he didn’t have some sort of investment in me. But Chase and I have had nothing but hard conversations since I ran from Boston. Excruciatingly painful conversations that do not come easily to me, by any means. For now, I just want to enjoy nothing dark and ominous hanging over our heads for once. I’m managing better, I’m doing better. I’m so much happier and healthier than I was. I want to soak it up for a while.

Chase’s hand stays glued to my thigh the entire time we’re out getting lunch, and I feel so happy that it threatens to burst out of me like sun rays cresting the horizon. This. This is all I ever wanted, and he’s the only person I want it with. Call me simplistic maybe, it’s not like we’re doing anything awe-inspiring or anything, but to someone who hasn’t felt safe a day in my life, it’s everything.

After work, Chase dresses for the gym, and I lace up my sneakers for a run. Brady tries to convince me to join them because it’s still fairly dreary out, but being able to explore the area by myself is more important to me than getting a little wet.

“What if you get sick?” Brady asks with a frown.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “You don’t get sick from being in the rain, Brady. That’s not how viruses work. Have you always worried so much or is that a new thing?”

He contemplates it for a second. “When it involves you, not new at all. I used to be better at playing it cool, though, so that’s a little concerning.”

Chase claps him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, man. I’ve never known you to play it cool once in the last six years. I think you’re in the clear.”

Brady glares daggers and absolutely calls Chase a dick, but the familiarity between them melts my heart. I’m so glad that Brady finally has someone he can lean on, especially with the hell I’ve put him through, not knowing if I was okay or not for years. He’s such a good brother, he doesn’t even resent me for the years he had to hold me together. To him, it’s just what was necessary. To me, it means the absolute world to have had a safe space; someone who loved me, dumping pixie sticks down my throat so that I wouldn’t get in trouble for my “laziness. ”

I can’t help but snort a laugh at their antics. They bicker like an old married couple, but I’ve noticed the way Chase only pretends to be annoyed with him. They’re so intertwined, it’s like having a sitcom going on around me at all times. One cracks a mildly insulting joke, one fakes insults like clockwork. One pokes, one barely hides a grin.

“Yeah, how drastically uncool of me to love my little brother,” he drawls with a pout.

“See? That’s your problem. We’re supposed to hate each other, it’s like the natural order or whatever.”

Chase nods in sage agreement but Brady frowns. “I never understood that. Aren’t your siblings supposed to be your best friends? Everyone always says shit like that and then you hear that they chased each other around with knives or something.”

Such a fucking marshmallow. I missed him so much. “Are you going to let me run in peace or were you hoping to distract me enough that I forget?”

He scoffs. “How dare you? Is it working?”

The laugh that bursts out is so unexpected and free, it doesn’t even sound like it’s mine. “Not even a little.”

With a sweet kiss left on my lips as a parting gift, Chase corrals my brother out the door. “We’ll be back,” he announces like the grumpy care bear that he is. As if I ever doubted that fact. It warms something buried deep in my chest that he reassures me so naturally. It’s like stepping back into the warmest memories of my childhood, my older brother soothing fears before they even have a chance to manifest.

I grab my headphones from the end table, find a playlist with the right vibe and take off with no real destination. I’ve been averaging about five miles, give or take, and I’m damn proud of myself. It’s embarrassing how much I let my body and mind deteriorate, but it feels incredible to be coming back to myself.

Some people say that you have to be able to love yourself before you have any business trying to love someone else, which on one hand, I get. But as my feet pound into the pavement, the neighborhood I’ve come to call my home passing me by, I can’t help but wonder if the people who say that ever needed a second chance. Someone who sees you better than you see yourself and believes in you.

Maybe I gave myself a second chance by actually leaving Aaron when I saw him in that fucking park and not looking back, but if that’s true, Chase has kept the flame alive and has given me the oxygen I needed so it could grow. I wouldn’t call it a raging burn yet, but it’s steady, reliable. No longer a flickering, barely there thing, likely to be doused by the smallest breeze.

Progress is progress.

As my speed picks up, I let the music drown it all out and just run. I ignore the burning in my lungs, searching for that magic place where it all fades into the background, and I can really push myself. I never got into the habit of distance running in Florida, sue me, but that I could be absolutely drenched in sweat within the first five minutes didn’t really appeal to me. I’d go for a jog a few times a week but that was about it. But here? I could get used to this. The summer heat has been positively mild and now that it’s beginning to wane, this isn’t half bad. Somewhere I could be for a really long time and be happy. Maybe longer than a long time.

Lost in my own world, I cross the street without looking. The black car doesn’t see me either, doesn’t even slow down. Time stretches out, making the seconds seem like hours, as my heartbeat pounds in my ears. Maybe I scream, maybe I’m hearing things, but thankfully, some survival instinct buried deep in my brain kicks in and my legs jump out of the way of danger before I can even process what happened. The brakes squeal as the car slams to a stop no more than an inch away from me.

Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic.

I dig the heel of my hand into my chest, trying to calm my racing heart. I’m not going to have a fucking panic attack right in the middle of the street. I’m fine. Just a near miss. Apologize and just keep running. It’s not a thing, don’t make it one.

Gritting my teeth, I wave my hand in apology to the driver without looking up. I don’t want to see their frustration with my carelessness. Who crosses the street in a busy neighborhood without looking? That was so fucking stupid.

I shake it off and take off again before I can get yelled at by a stranger. One foot in front of the other, pounding against the pavement. The repetition calms the worst of my anxiety, it’s why I make myself do this. As far as coping mechanisms go, I’ve done a lot worse, after all.

Minutes go by, and I think I’ve managed to shake off the scare. When awareness prickles along the back of my neck, I know I’m being crazy. My fight-or-flight response has been stuck in overdrive and is simply glitching out. It can’t be trusted. I’ve been getting bad feelings out of nowhere left and right over the last few weeks. Being convinced someone is watching me, but no one is there. Random urges to flee for my life during a completely normal, mundane moment. Clearly, my mind can’t fully wrap itself around the fact that I’m safe now and is manufacturing problems I don’t need.

I just want to be happy. I am happy, brain malfunctions aside. Having Brady back, falling head over heels for a guy that changes my world view with his kindness and care for me, it’s all so insanely wonderful. It’s just this one thing making me shaky. So I run. I hate it, and it helps a metric ton with the lingering tendrils of anxiety that won’t seem to let me go.

After the third time I scratch my neck still trying to get rid of that pesky awareness, I take a quick peek over my shoulder. Apparently, I need to see it to believe I’m okay. When I see a black car creeping behind me, my steps stumble. Staying upright is a near thing, I’ve grown so accustomed to not finding anything when I’m feeling like this that actually being right is alarming.

It’s the same one that almost hit me, I think, not that I can see very well when I’m trying to be discreet and not stop moving at the same time. If this guy is mad enough to follow me, if I slow down, I’m probably gonna be in big trouble.

That’s not happening, so I pick up the pace. Maybe he’s just driving around looking for the right house or something. Sometimes food delivery drivers can’t find up from down and end up looking like creeps with enough soggy tacos to feed a family of four. It’s a thing. That’s probably what’s going on, it would explain how he almost hit me. Doesn’t know the neighborhood very well.

I pause the music playing in my ears so I can hear the tires crunching on gravel behind me. Hear the way it speeds up incrementally as I do. Panic seizes my chest, but I don’t stop. I’m probably being dramatic, right?

God, how I want this to be me being dramatic.

My feet move faster and faster, relying solely on my familiarity with these streets as tears blur my vision. Just don’t stop, I beg my aching lungs and burning calves. The car continues to trail me, but I don’t dare look back. With my luck, that’ll send me over the edge into a full-blown state and I can’t get away like that. I can’t slow down to call Chase or my brother, can’t do anything but hope this maniac gets bored and gives up. I’m sprinting, but it feels like I’m moving with cinder blocks tied to my ankles .

Each breath saws painfully through me, threatening to tear me in half with every step I take. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, drowning out the noise I desperately need to hear. Last second, an idea strikes, and I veer left, cutting through an alleyway too narrow for a car to follow. First one, then as many shortcuts as I can find. Instinct tells me not to look back, so I don’t. Escapes are made by looking forward, otherwise you’ll trip and they’ll catch you.

When I see the black front door with the front porch light that stays on no matter the time of day, relief floods my system so suddenly, I could sob. Dashing up the stairs and throwing the door open is more muscle memory than anything, but as the lock slides home, I whisper to the empty room, “You’re safe. It’s all okay now. It wasn’t even like that.”

Maybe it wasn’t. But nothing is allowed to touch me when I’m here. This is my home now too, and no one is going to make me feel scared in these four walls. Chase built this place full to the brim with love and laughter and friendship. Nothing is going to tear that away, especially some creep with a road rage vendetta.

Slowly, I force the anxiety from my bones, breathing deep. In through my nose, hold it for five seconds, then out through my mouth, just like Chase taught me. The garage door vibrates the floorboards, and I rush to meet them in the kitchen.

They’re arguing, color me shocked, and a smile takes over my face as Chase rounds the car waving a reusable grocery bag like a weapon. “Put me out of my fucking misery and get a girlfriend! Divorce me for a younger woman! I can’t make this marriage work anymore.”

My shoulders shake with laughter as Brady follows in his wake as Chase ducks down for a toe-curling kiss. “Hi, sweetheart. I missed you. We should get a leash for our dog.”

“Uncalled for! ”

I lock my arms around his neck and steal another kiss. “Did he chew up another pair of shoes? What are we going to do with him?”

Brady ruffles my hair as he walks past, winking at me playfully. “Et tu, Easton? I thought for sure I could count on my baby brother to have my back.”

He starts unpacking groceries, and Chase hands me the bag he was holding before going to help. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be having your back about. No one has passed along the memo yet.”

My brother lights up at the opportunity to clue me in and potentially have an ally in whatever disagreement they’re having. “So, get this, right, we’re in Target, minding our business as people do.” God, this is already so dramatic, I love him so much. “We’re debating on tacos or stuffed chicken. I’m obviously on team tacos, and I’m winning. I almost have him convinced that tacos four times in two weeks is the best idea I’ve ever had, and then this raggedly old lady?—”

“I’d like to plead my innocence here. Just for the record,” Chase interjects.

Brady rolls his eyes. “So, she walks by us in the aisle and eyes us up and down real good. You can just fucking tell what she was thinking, but I wasn’t paying any attention until she bumped into Ace—on purpose, how rude can you be—and called him disgusting. Can you believe that? Obviously, I wasn’t going to stand for that, and it’s frowned upon to fight someone four times your age, even if she is a stark-raving lunatic, so Chase became my situational boyfriend and I made it my mission to make her uncomfortable.”

I try not to laugh at the phrase situational boyfriend, and ask my not-situational boyfriend instead, “Are you okay?”

He scoffs “I’m fine. It was so minor, it barely registered. One day, your brother is going to instigate with the wrong homophobe and I’m going to have to bail him out of jail, though. Not that he seems to care.”

Brady happily supplies, “I don’t. And for the record, I’m not discriminatory. I aim to make all bigots uncomfortable. Not just homophobes.”

Chase sighs, affectionately, but this is clearly something they’ve argued about before. How did I ever believe those awful things about him? Aaron’s claws were in deep so quickly, it scares me to think about.

For the millionth time, a spark of resentment flares to life in my chest. Maybe if I didn’t grow up thinking relationships with massive power imbalances were normal, this wouldn’t have happened to me. Maybe I would have seen that he was manipulating me from the very start.

“How was your run, Chaos?” Chase asks.

My brain scrambles. Their banter and teasing makes me feel so warm and happy; the last thing I want to do is bring the mood down and tell them about the weird incident. It’s over now anyway, so what’s the point of worrying them? “It was good.”

That’s the first lie I’ve told him, it makes my stomach flip-flop and sweat bead on the back of my neck. Because I’ve never given him a real reason to doubt me, Chase doesn’t even blink. Just kisses me again as he moves around the kitchen, still bickering with my brother. I almost correct it, tell him how scared I was and let him soothe all my troubles away in that way that only he can do.

Instead, I peek into the bag he handed me on his way in, worried I’m holding something they’re about to need to make dinner. “What is this?” I murmur, running my hand over the fabric.

Chase looks up from assembling a salad. “Oh yeah. I saw them in the store and thought they looked like you. I couldn’t pick between a few so I got them all. We can take back what you don’t like.”

One by one, I take out a half dozen black band T-shirts, just like I used to wear before someone else dictated my wardrobe. My throat burns and my hands shake as I lay them out on the counter. How can one person be so thoughtful?

“Don’t get me wrong,” Chase begins. “I love seeing you in my clothes, but you came here with barely anything, so I thought it might be nice for you to have some things of your own.”

My head bobs in a nod while I try to get words out. The helplessness and absence of identity I felt when I had to watch as all of my clothes burned still hurts like it was yesterday. On the bigger list of issues, it was one of low on the priority list of things I was trying to undo. But now that it’s staring me in the face, I can’t help but wonder how I let this be taken from me. For most people, it’s a pile of inexpensive T-shirts, but to me, it’s so much more than that. When Chase met me, I wore clothes like this. I had to fight with my mother tooth and nail, convincing her that it wouldn’t make me a devil worshiper.

Him not only remembering that minor detail about me, but handing back that little piece of myself that was missing like it’s no big deal, is so agonizingly, perfectly Chase. Thoughtfulness is engrained so deeply in his heart, he doesn’t realize the effect it has on someone who has never been valued. Love always looked a lot like hurt, and changing gears and seeing what it should be is so refreshing, also a huge mind-fuck.

“Chaos?” Chase asks, clearly not for the first time. I shake myself loose from the unexpected feelings and give him a genuine smile.

Visible relief washes over his face. “Seriously. Thank you. These are amazing. ”

The corner of his mouth quirks up in an adorable smirk. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Brady with a weird look on his face. “What?”

“Nothing, it just kind of hit me how much I missed you. It’s kind of amazing seeing you here, like, being happy.”

Damn. Now I’m fucking blinking back tears again. “I missed you too. So much,” I murmur.

I did it. I broke away. I started over, didn’t let my insecurities win, and found happiness. He doesn’t get to win. He can’t take this from me anymore.