Page 13 of After the Storm

“Okay, I can do that. Finally starting to find your place in those friendships again?” I test, grabbing the last few things off the counter.

“No, but I decided to take your advice. I have to give things the time to fall back into place and they never will if I keep avoiding my friends.”

“Have you told them?” I hear my voice echo in the empty shop I immediately regret asking. I know it isn’t my business and I know she doesn’t want to talk about it, but the question’s out of my mouth before I can hold it back.

Her head snaps in my direction. “No, why?”

Guilt forms like a ball in my chest over how panicked she sounds.

“I haven’t said anything,” I assure her, “and I won’t say anything. I just think it might help you feel closer to being back to normal if you aren’t keeping something from them. That’s all.”

“I just can’t,” she brokenly answers. I want to tell her she can and that she should. To assure her that she doesn’t have to be scared of Tyler anymore because I’ll break his arm before he touches her again. But I don’t. I’m not in a position to make her those promises. I leave it all unsaid because it’s none of my business, and we both know that.

“It’s none of my business, anyways.” I shake my head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

We sit, staring at each other as awkward silence creeps in. “Come on. Let’s get you home,” I call, holding the front door open for her. She brushes past me quickly and I sigh, pulling the door closed and locking it before following her out to my car.

The entire ride to her house is tense and silent. It’s made worse by the fact I know it’s on me and that I have to do something to fix it. I want to, more than anything, but I come up short on solutions and have to live with the tension I made when I opened my big mouth.

When I park in her driveway, Audra quickly unbuckles and throws open the passenger side door. She leaves as fast from the Jeep as she did from my shop, not pausing to say goodbye or wave to me from her door like she did three weeks ago.

There’s nothing that compares to the silence ringing in my Jeep as I drive home, nothing except maybe the absence of her in my passenger seat. Not one note of that favorite laugh of mine replaying in my ears like there should be.

Chapter5

Audra

For the firsttime in weeks, things feel normal when Ares picks me up. We’re laughing in the car as his favorite band, some obscure hair metal revival, plays in the background. I think briefly about Roman’s advice to give it time. Now, seeing the advice in practice, I feel like an asshole for being short with him when he was dropping me off at home.

I pull out my phone, opening my messages to shoot a text to Roman when Ares asks, “Ooo, who are you texting? Back on the rebound?” He accompanies his question with a shit-eating grin.

It’s like a bucket of cold water splashes over me when it hits me that Ares knows about none of it. Not about Tyler, not about Roman three weeks ago, and certainly not about Roman again last night and today.

Guilt pangs in me, something completely innocent quickly spiraling into some kind of dirty secret if I don’t come clean. Immediately, I know I have to tell Ares—at least about this—before it spins into something it isn’t.

“I spent the day with Roman,” I blurt.

Ares whips his head around to face me before looking back to the road. “Roman?”

“Yeah?”

“My brother, Roman?” he asks, surprise dripping from his words.

“Yeah. I—um—I went to The Surf Shop with him.”

“Okay…” he trails off, flashing me an expectant look.

“He was at my house and asked if I was okay to be alone all day and I—” He cuts me off before I can finish.

“I’m sorry. Did you say he was at yourhouse?” he exclaims, his eyebrows so high on his face they disappear under his unruly curls.

“Okay, yeah, he kind of spent the night last night.” I recognize immediately that also wasn’t the right thing to say as I watch Ares’ eyes bug out of his head.

“Spent the night?” he exclaims, snapping his head in my direction.

“This all sounds bad,” I huff, hiding my face in my hands. “When he took me home from the party, my mom was out of town, as usual. I didn’t want to be alone, so I asked him to sleep on the pull out bed,” I spew out as quickly as possible, stopping to catch my breath. “When we woke up, he was getting ready to leave and I didn’t want to be alone all day so he offered for me to go with him, and I did.”

“Wow.” Ares looks me up and down, and then turns his attention back to the road. “So. You and Ro, huh?” he questions.

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