Page 23 of From the Ashes

“YAY!” Nevaeh screams. Then she pulls us both in for a hug, so my face is suddenly inches away from Zahir’s. “This is going to be SO FUN!” she shrieks.

It’s certainly going to be something.

CHAPTER 10

Zahir

“Bye! See you tomorrow!”Yara cries through her open car window. Lili waves back at us as she walks down her garden path toward her house. We already dropped Teddy off after our day at the beach, so now it’s just me and her left. Yara raises her window again to keep the cool air in, then pulls away from the curb, heading to my place.

There’s a very pregnant pause.

“Are you okay?” she eventually asks, her voice quiet and her eyes firmly on the road.

I sigh, not sure how to answer that. “It’s complicated,” I tell her.

She hums and focuses on the road for a minute. “He looked as shocked to see you as you were him.”

“Kind of,” I explain. “He said he was hoping I’d be there so we could talk. It was actually allyouguys that threw him off. He was worried about what you might think.”

“Because he’s in the closet?”

I watch the world go by through the window. The sun is setting and the palm trees that line the sidewalks wave merrily in the evening breeze. I would never out anyone no matter how they’ve treated me. But seeing as Yara’s already guessed thesituation, it seems pointless to deny it. Especially when I could really do with a sympathetic ear right about now.

“He is still very much in the closet,” I agree. “But I don’t think that’s what he was afraid of. I think he was concerned you guys might work out how much of a dick he was to me when we were kids and think he was trying to manipulate me into something now.”

“And was he?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I really don’t believe he was. He said he just wanted to apologize properly and take responsibility for everything he did. That genuinely meant a lot to me.”

I fall silent then, though. Because as nice as it was for him to take ownership of his past mistakes, somehow learning the full truth has left me even more hollowed out than ever.

How can I have gotten it so wrong? Maybe it was easier to think of what we shared as only a bisexual fling to him. A wild summer to let off steam before going off to college and living the rest of his real life. If that was the case, it made sense to me why I’d be so easy to leave behind and forget about. I convinced myself it hurt less because he hadn’t done it to purposefully shatter me.

There’s never been anyone else, Zahir.

At least Itrieddating after he left. But it sounds like his relationships have either been isolated, anonymous hook-ups with men or chaste, only-for show, short-term affairs with women.

“He knows how completely and utterly he broke my heart back then,” I murmur, not looking at my partner as I speak. For the first time in my life, I feel like I want to actually defend Colt and his actions, not simply explain them. I’ve always tried to have empathy for his situation, but thinking about the circumstances of his departure always left me feeling bitter and angry more than anything else.

Now?

I’m not so sure.

I saw the moment he slipped his lawyer mask on this afternoon. When it was just the two of us speaking, he was raw and remorseful. After years of assuming that he walked away from Redwood Bay—from me—and never looked back, I can’t help but feel like he’s regretted the way he treated me and missed me ever since.

Perhaps I did matter to him the way he mattered to me?

Does that make a difference now?

He seemed adamant he was going to remove himself from my life and leave me alone. I thought that’s what I wanted and before today, I would have welcomed it. But everything’s changed. He didn’t ride off into the sunset and get married to a woman. He’s been living half a life all this time, denying who he really is to appease his controlling parents.

It’s obvious he can see that’s kind of crazy. It’s not like they have any power over him now. He doesn’t live under their roof. He isn’t relying on them to pay his college tuition. It’s not like he’s desperate for an inheritance and doesn’t want to be written out of the will.

He just wants them to love him. And he knows that coming out as gay and disappointing them will jeopardize that.

I…I feel sorry for him. After hating and resenting him for so many years, it’s dawned on me today that he’s the one that’s been suffering while I’ve had my family and friends, free to pursue a fulfilling career of my choosing. His life has been dictated to him since birth.

Yet he was still determined to protect me from his presence earlier on the beach when Nevaeh was asking for surfing lessons. He tried to give me an out. Before I could weigh up the pros and cons, I took that option off the table.

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