Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

CHASE

“ D on’t fucking touch me,” I growl, and as I see my words land, I wish I had the capacity to regret them. But I don’t. Parker backs up, hands raised in the air like he got cornered by a wild animal.

He just wants to help, to comfort me in some way, but if they don’t stop acting like someone fucking died, I’m gonna fly off the handle.

My little brother runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. You need to get some sleep, though, Chase. It’s been weeks. You can’t keep going on like this, it’s not healthy.”

Why can’t they all fucking go home? I don’t want them here, in this damn twilight zone where time is irrelevant because he. Isn’t. Here.

Scanning the faces around the room, I find varying degrees of pity, none more so than my own mother. She really shouldn’t be here. She should be at home, resting in her own bed and grieving the loss of her baby. Not sitting at my dining room table, looking like her heart has been ripped from her chest .

That feeling, I can relate to. “Gee, Park. When you say it like that, it almost sounds easy.”

Dad sets the coffee mug he’s holding on the table with only a small clink, but from the glare in his eyes, it was an effort not to slam it. “Don’t be like that, Chase. Your brother is just worried about you.”

Not snatching the mug away from him because it’s Easton’s favorite is an exercise in patience. Patience that I am desperately trying to show, but there is one million people here from the time that I wake up to after I lay my head down at night. Not that there’s hope for rest because if it’s not their whispers of concern keeping me up, I’m turning over every little thing I might have missed in my head. Trying to find out how this happened.

He’d been a little more anxious in recent days, but he was also happy, so I don’t know how he’s just gone without so much as a goodbye note. Was it me? Was I overbearing? Did I make him feel scared? Unsupported?

It just doesn’t make sense. I need some fucking air, all these people in my space is choking the life out of me. “Sorry, Park,” I mumble automatically, knowing my dad wants to hear it. “I’m going to go for a walk or something.”

I don’t stick around long enough to see their disappointment in my inability to sit around in a campfire circle singing kumbaya when my boyfriend went missing for the second time. Sometimes, it almost slips my mind how different I feel from my family. We have a good moment, occasionally even a good week where it doesn’t feel like they’re draining my social battery like energy vampires.

Then, something bad happens and it occurs to me that I still don’t go to them when I’m in crisis. And, well, there’s nothing I’m willing to do about that right now so it is what it is. I know I’m being unfair, I also know I love them so much, it’s damn near stupid. But I’ve only ever had two people that can center me.

Brady looks like hell when I barge into his house, blood-red eyes with puffy dark circles under them, hair a mess, and I’m pretty sure he was wearing those clothes when I saw him two days ago. He was like this before, when we were in college. I used to have the wherewithal to pull him up and keep him functioning.

Now? I’m tempted to rot alongside him on that fucking couch.

He doesn’t acknowledge me, which is fine. I wasn’t expecting him to, but he’s gonna have to start talking soon, because I need someone to talk through this bullshit that’s not going to try and hold my hand—literally.

No, thank you. My most rational sibling is still in fucking Chicago, she’s got an exam she can’t miss which I totally get, but there’s no one to run interference for me without her or Brady, and I am struggling. Not like I have enough going on without them or anything.

It takes no less than a half hour of soaking up the silence for my brain to come back online and start firing again. Doesn’t do much for the headache that I’ve had so long, I lost track of when it flared up, but holy fuck. The static in my head is silent, and if I wasn’t dead inside, I’d weep in relief.

“Brady, we have to talk.” His head rolls over my way, still limp on the couch cushion he’s slumped against. “Tell me what happened again. Start at the beginning.” He eyes me doubtfully, so I add, “Please.” He told me when I came back, obviously, but I was in shock so the details are escaping me.

Brady sighs. “You’re really going to make me go through this again?” When I nod, he continues begrudgingly. “I woke up, went to pick him up, dropped him off at the testing center, he insisted he didn’t want me to drive him home. I asked him about it, obviously, but he said he wanted to get some fresh air, and we’d get dinner to celebrate later in the evening. He was nervous about passing, understandably, but his spirits were good. We hugged, I told him that he had it in the bag, and he got out of the car. That was the last time I saw him,” he croaks.

He’s so wrecked. Losing Easton once was debilitating, twice might do both of us in. “Did he walk into the building?”

Brady’s forehead creases as he considers it carefully. “Yeah. He definitely did. In fact, there were a shit ton of windows, and I saw him go into the classroom.”

Something is off about this. “Why would he go take the fucking GED only to disappear again before he even knew if he passed or not? It doesn’t make sense, dude.”

My friend cocks his head to the side. “What are you saying, Ace?” His voice is fragile, like he’s afraid of what I’m implying. We’ve alternated plenty of times since I got back from Chicago, one of us knows that something isn’t adding up and the other is convinced that he left of his own free will. But once again, he’s gone without a trace and we owe it to ourselves if nothing else to finally see if we can unravel this shit show.

I don’t even know what I’m saying exactly. I’m so tired, it hurts to blink. But I’d like to think I know Easton a little better than to believe he’d just take off like this without saying anything to me, or Brady at the very least. And there’s no one better to add reason to my thoughts quite like my best friend.

He sits up a little straighter. “Tell me what you’re saying, Ace.”

“I’m saying it doesn’t make sense that he’d disappear again. I just don’t believe it.”

Speaking it aloud feels almost taboo. He left a note, after all, and he’s more than capable of deciding to walk away. But the more I think about it, the less I can justify it. “So, what happened then? How do you explain his clothes and sketchbook being gone?” Brady asks.

Forcing my bottom lip from between my teeth, I tell him the only other thing that it could be. “That piece of shit he was with before. Easton told me that he kept him pretty isolated, so I can’t imagine he’d take it well if Easton took off on him and got to start over. Maybe he forced him to leave.”

Brady’s nose scrunches up, making my heart pang with the similarity to his brother. “So, what? He tracked him down here and manipulated him to get back together? He was abusive, Ace, and Easton was over it. In fact, didn’t he mention once that the reason he finally left him was because he saw him propose to someone else?”

I bite back a groan as I scrub my hands over my face. “Yeah, he was, and yeah, he did. But it’s the only thing we have to go on.”

“Well, let’s see what we can find out about this jackass.”

Couldn’t agree more.

~~~

Easton

It’s a bit mind-boggling how quickly my brain made me forget the way it hurts. Bone-deep, getting stabbed by a knife when you move wrong kind of pain. It never really eases up, you just have to live with it.

All of my aches had healed in the weeks I was free. I could move around without wincing, nothing felt weird when I’d scrub my body with a washcloth in the shower. It was too simple getting used to, and I got spoiled fast. Now, I’m paying for it in the worst way.

Aaron sits casually at the small dining room table, ankle balanced on his knee as he flips through the newspaper. A physical one, since there doesn’t seem to be anything with internet access allowed in this house. He’s old-fashioned like that. My head throbs with each wobbly step I take. Shoving me so hard that I fell and hit my skull on the bathtub is a distant memory for him. He’s a different person than he was twenty minutes ago when I took too long in the shower.

It’s always my fault. I just wish he’d give me a break from the head injuries. They’re keeping my thoughts scrambled. It hurts to think too hard about anything, so I’m just not. It is what it is, I guess. That’s not to mention the aches in my ribs or the possible sprain in my wrist, of course. And definitely not to mention where else he’s hurt me. I don’t like to think about that.

“Get me another cup before you start breakfast, wouldn’t you, doll?” he asks without looking up. Well, more like demands but with a deceiving tone so I know that if he lashes out again, it’s because I wasn’t willing to move on and make nice.

Maybe I can lay down and slip quietly into a coma after I make his meal. The thought gives me the strength to do as he asks before starting to chop vegetables. It’s slow going, considering my double vision, but he is usually willing to give me a bit of grace after a head injury, and doesn’t mention it.

I miss Chase so fiercely, it hurts worse than my head. If I’m lucky, he saw the note and took it at face value. Aaron is dangerous, and I have no doubts that he’d follow through on his threats if Chase starts looking for me or I try to run. A sob builds in my throat thinking about how much this is hurting him. He must be so confused. We had been on the verge of saying something, the something, right before he left, and then he came home to me gone with no more than a quick note left on the side table.

He might hate me, and that threatens to turn my stomach. Although, if he hates me, he might just let me go without a fight.

Something shatters above my head, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut as fragments ricochet back at me, stinging my face and neck where it strikes. “You see what you make me do?” Aaron roars. I instinctively grab the edge of the countertop to brace for whatever is coming next. “Why do you do this to me, Easton? You think I don’t know what you’re thinking about over there? Or should I say who? You just insist on disrespecting me when I have provided you with everything you could ever possibly need!” He’s closer now, close enough I can feel the spit flying from his mouth and landing on the back of my neck, but I don’t dare move a muscle. “And what do I have to show for it? Nothing but an ungrateful little brat who turns his nose up at the life I built for us!”

Breathe, in and out. In and out. Don’t react, don’t… “Where does your fiancé fit into the life you’ve built for us?”

Oh, fuck. He yanks me backwards by my hair so that I have no choice but to look at him. The fury in his eyes is staggering, not an ounce of love or affection. Just contempt. “Ahhh. He’s got a mouth on him now? Who taught you to talk back like that?”

“Don’t talk about him,” someone who sounds like me says.

Aaron sneers. “You think he gives a shit about you? I’m sure he’s already balls deep in some twink who doesn’t mouth off and completely forgot your name. You know how I know, doll? Because I know you. You’re nothing but a high school dropout who lures them in with a warm hole, and then by the time they see what a fucking mess you are, you’ve already moved in. Just like you did to me. You’re no victim, Easton. Stop kidding yourself. And clean this fucking mess up.”

He storms off to the bedroom and slams the door, locking it behind him to do god knows what while I’m left looking over the shattered remains of his breakfast plate, wondering if he has a point.