Page 106 of Before We Fell

“That bad?”

“It’s not bad,” Brooke said.

“Liar.”

“They feel bad for you and Noah,” Kelly said. Her lips tugged down in a frown. “That’s what most people have said that I know, honey. They just think it sucks for you.”

“Have you talked to him?”

I shook my head at Brooke’s question. “No. I texted him. He hasn’t returned them. Who can blame him?”

“Maybe he just needs time.”

“Doubtful. I don’t need to cling to the hope.”

Kelly licked her lips. Her fingers ran up and down the stem of her wineglass. “He’s having a really hard time, you know. Ryan had to drive him home from the golf course last night he got so wasted at the bar. Jordan took his keys and called Ryan because he couldn’t leave.”

Was that supposed to make me feel better? That I’d made Noah miserable? That my brother had?

It only made the clenching pain in my chest worst. “It’s miserable for everyone involved, Kelly.”

“And I understand that, I do. I can’t even begin to understand what y’all are going through. This whole situation is batshit crazy, honey. I mean…your brother? St. Louis? It’s hours away from here. What are the odds?”

“Big enough that if someone bet on it in Vegas, they’re now billionaires,” Brooke said.

“You’re not helpful,” Kelly said, shooting her a glare.

“What?” She set down her drink and tossed her hands into the air. The gesture said she was fed up with all of this. I was beginning to think Brooke was crazier than I’d already suspected. “I mean, come on. This isn’t your fault. It’s not Noah’s. Riley can start healing now that she can find closure. His parents will heal. Noah will move past it. Y’all are sitting around, miserable, and he’s getting drunk at the golf club and whining about how much he likes you and can’t have you, when all you two have to do is get together and talk this out. This is workable, Lauren.”

He talked about me? About how he couldn’t have me? Didn’t he know all he had to do was reach for me and I’d do anything to make him, this, all of it, better?

“You didn’t see the way he looked at me, Brooke. Like I wasn’t even there.”

“Well, maybe he was in shock. Could you give the guy a minute to process everything?”

“It’s been a week.” And still radio silence.

Brooke was trying to be helpful and failing. I’d looked out my back yard every night for hours. At some point, the lights he’d strung on the path had gone out. Whether the bulb’s batteries died, or he turned them off, the darkness permeating my back yard was clear.

That path was now a no admittance zone, and I wasn’t going to be the first one to cross it.

“I think while Brooke’s over exaggerating the simplicity of this—”

“Thanks—”

Kelly shot her a look. “You’re welcome.” She turned back to me. “Like I said, while it might not be that simple, don’t you two think you owe it to each other to figure this out? He told Ryan he loved you, Lauren. That’s huge. And if he meant it, that doesn’t go away just because a hurdle landed in his path.”

I would do it in a heartbeat. I’d do anything to move past this. I also, beneath my pain and hurt, completely understood his need for space and time. He needed to be there for Riley. He needed to be there for his parents. I had no doubt they’d followed the arraignment hearing if they hadn’t been in St. Louis for it. He had other priorities in his life, and all of them involved his own family, dealing with their grief as Travis blew those doors wide open all over again.

Thirty-Three

Noah

I never quite fully understood theterm clusterfuck before. I imagined it similar to F.U.B.A.R.

Still, I had never experienced a situation so far out of my control and out of my depth of understanding until Travis Frazier stumbled into Lauren’s kitchen, threw our entire world into upheaval, and promptly passed out.

It was a small miracle I’d managed to withstand the staggering urge to slam my foot into his face while he drooled on Lauren’s entryway floor.

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