Page 74 of Every Heartbeat After

“Hit-and-run, on the interstate,” I echo, trying to make it make sense. It’s too specific to be a coincidence but too coincidental to be true. At least, that’s what my aching brain insists. “That wasGage?”

A sob breaks through the call, so loud even Tess must hear it. My father’s cry, a sound I haven’t heard in years. It fractures something in me. Or perhaps it finds a piece of me that was already splintered and splits me wide open. I can’t speak. Can’t breathe. My gaze meets Tess’s, but I find no solace there. Turns out, we’re both drowning, looking to one another for a life preserver that neither of us has.

“I just don’t understand. He’d been doing so well.” Dad’s voice shakes. “What on earth happened?”

My heart stutters to a stop, then drops like a stone into the chasm of my stomach. “Dad,” I rasp, clutching the phone to my ear. Tess’s hand moves to cover her lips. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

ChapterTwenty-Nine

Tess

I listenwith balled fists grinding against my thighs like aching mortar and pestles as Kit tells his Dad just how much he’s been shouldering for years.

I knew it was bad. But this is so much worse than I thought.

And even though every instinct in my body begs me to reach for Kit, to pull him against my chest and hold him through this, I am also frozen in shock. Images of that woman bloody and slumped against the airbag flash in my mind. Every time I blink, it’s my mother’s face I see in place of hers. Mine instead of that little boy’s. I grind my fists harder.

This is exactly why we cannot work, no matter how much Kit insists otherwise. In this moment where he needs me most, I can’t get past my own grief to be of any comfort. Hell, I can barely keep from collapsing in a heap of panic the way I did at the site of the accident. And while he is so certain he can be what I need, the problem is, I clearly can’t do the same.

After what feels like ages, he hangs up the phone. I missed their parting words. Surely his dad, the jovial man I met who absolutely adored his son, was understanding? But the look on Kit’s face would suggest otherwise.

The thunder has quieted to a soft rumble. I fold my arms around my middle when all I want to do is gather the broken man before me into an embrace. For a brief, shattering moment I wish desperately that my mom were here. She always knew what to do to stop my tears.

Kit leans forward to gingerly place his phone on the bedside table, staring at it the entire time like it’s a bomb that might obliterate us all. And didn’t it? Or were we already breaking before the call ever came in? I only had a heartbeat to consider that Kit’s confession might be everything I never knew I wanted, right before the universe reminded me why that would be impossible.

Too much brokenness, too much heartbreak to go around. It’s a wonder anyone makes it out of this existence unscathed.

Finally his eyes lift to mine. In our short time together, I’ve come to count on their color as a gauge to his mood. More golden-green when he’s being playful. A deep, rich umber when his gaze roves my bare skin. But this dappled camouflage, made even more pale by the soft moonlight, is foreign to me. I don’t know how to read it any more than I would Ancient Greek.

“I’m in love with you, Tess.”

All at once the room is both vastly too large and incredibly small. My ears ring like I’ve lost consciousness, though I never lose sight of Kit. My pulse pounds out a rapid staccato, fueled by each shallow breath I manage to drag in. I’m undeniably present, and yet I’ve spun off into my own world with no idea how to get back to him even if I tried.

“Say something.” His words are firm. There’s no desperation. Only a strong, electric current pulling them taut. It’s as close to a command as he’s ever given me. Even more so than,Get back in the car.“Good or bad; just talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Somewhere in the rubble of my thoughts, I find my voice. “Y-you’re confused. And emotional. Everything with your brother… The crash…”

He shakes his head. “Don’t discredit my feelings just because you don’t understand yours.”

My jaw goes slack. I hadn’t fully registered that he was still naked, but as he rises to walk over to his pile of clothes and yank on his shorts, my cheeks heat. I have to duck my head. It’s too much. All of it is too much.

“Kit, why are you doing this?” I whisper, gaze trained on my hands. They’ve gone white from blood loss as I continue grinding them into my aching thighs.

He crouches in front of me where I sit at the edge of the bed and gently places a hand over each of mine, stilling them. His brows are screwed up against the ravine of concern that crumples his forehead. He is everything earnest and beautiful, framed in nothing but bluish-white moonlight that bathes his skin in an ethereal glow. So breathtaking it hurts. And oh, do I hurt.

“Because I just spent half an hour explaining myself for all the years I spent keeping secrets simply because I thought it was what was best for everyone else. Spoiler: it wasn’t.” His mouth pinches into a firm line, bracketed by regret. “I’m in love with you whether I tell you or not. And there will never be a perfect moment to lay that on the table, not for so long as you keep being terrified that saying it aloud means it can be taken from you. I know you’re scared to let someone in again, but baby, that’s not living. That’s just being alive.”

The room is shaking. Or really, it’s my head that’s shaking and the room is my Etch A Sketch. I keep thinking if I try a little harder, it’ll all become something I recognize again.

Because this room, this place, even the pain that arises each time I step foot in the Carmen: it’s all predictable. Familiar. How I feel for Kit is anything but.

Hot, sticky tears spill over my cheeks as I meet his gaze, searching desperately for any solution to this hollow aching. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

His grasp on my hands tightens, pulling me imperceptibly closer. “Nothing issupposedto happen. Your parents weren’t supposed to die. My brother wasn’t supposed to be a shithead who only acts in his own self-interest. There was no reason for you and I to meet. But we did, and I’m so fucking glad. What matters is what we do with all that shit that just happens. So I’m telling you I love you. Telling you I choose you and I want you and I will do everything in my power not to die on you because I need a whole, long life with you. That’s my truth, Tess. What’s yours?”

Our own small eternity passes before he realizes that I won’t—can’t—answer. In that time I see it all play out. The life in which my parents never died. One where I grew up, graduated, and left my small town. Somehow found my way to Colorado at the exact same time as this man before me. Maybe I was still seeking Gary; perhaps in this other life my mother and I found him together. Kit and I would have met some other way, like at Zoey’s bar over a couple of drinks. We’d have fallen quick and heavy, with none of my ghosts around to hold us back.

He’d give me an uncomplicated confession at a nice dinner. I’d smile instead of cry. It would be a happy day.

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