Page 49 of Pillowtalk

Aaron

“Bro, get up,” Austin said, smacking the tip of Aaron’s boot off the arm of the couch, where he had it propped up for the last hour and a half—the only amount of sleep he got that night. “You’re starting to stink.”

Aaron ran a hand over the full, scraggly stubble that had grown in over the course of the week.Ugh, it’s only been a week.He turned himself on the couch, burying his face into one of the throw pillows and groaning. He’d be lying if he said he was at least trying to look like he was handling Kennedy’s departure well; everyone in town knew he wasn’t, whether they were aware of what had happened between them or not. There had been whispers that he deserved it, what goes around comes around and all that, but Aaron hadn’t given them a second thought. No one thought that more than he did anyway.

What was worse was that every time he passed the lake, he felt like driving right up to it and cursing out Jared. So far he’d defeated the impulse, but he wasn’t sure how much more self-control he had left. Every day was a fight to get up and move, to avoid drinking until the break of dawn, and to go through the motions like he hadn’t been turned inside out, had his newly healed heart stomped on and then thrust back into his chest. Kennedy’s note had given him exactly what she’d intended, he was sure—finality. In the same beat that she’d told him she loved him, she’d told him goodbye. He wasn’t sure what part was worse—just that she was leaving, or the fact that her falling in love with him waswhyshe left. Neither was an easy pill to swallow.

Aaron opened one eye when Austin let out an exasperated sigh and spotted Charlie sitting by his brother’s legs, his usual carefree spirit doused with the heartbreak that Aaron didn’t have the strength to hide. Even his dog was avoiding him, and he reluctantly pushed out of the couch and got to his feet.

“At least shower today, will ya?” Austin said, his patience wearing thin. His brother patted his thigh and Charlie followed him out the front door, tail between his legs.

Aaron wasn’t sure why the hell he was behaving like this over a woman who had only been in his life like a short blip, but as the visual of her came into his mind like a freight train, he knewexactlywhy he was so depressed and hopeless. She had not only the power to heal wounds; she had the power to create new, more devastating ones, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Sure, he’d thought about getting her number from Chelsea, or hopping on a train and going to her place. He’d thought of writing her a letter, sending her flowers, anything and everything in his romantic arsenal…but it was the love he felt for her that had stopped him in his tracks. Her last words to him in that note, besides a flurry of thank-yous for what he’d given and done for her that week, was that she needed to say goodbye. Her heart wasn’t his, and it never would be because she’d saved it for someone else.

Aaron understood, on the surface, maybe, but deep down was the horrid thought that if he’d been worthy of it, she’d at least let him have the part of her heart that wasn’t Jared’s. One day she might find a man who was worthy, and that ate at him like a ravenous beast all through his waking hours until he got a few moments of reprieve when he slept.

This was what Jared meant to happen,he thought bitterly. Somehow along the way he’d gotten Aaron to believe in an afterlife, in fate, in how he was in some way forgiving him for what he’d done by letting him believe that falling in love with Kennedy was not just okay, but therightthing. No, it was all a setup, a way to get his revenge on him even after he’d gone, and, boy, it had taken its toll.

Aaron pulled at the back of his head, trudged his way to the shower, and hoped the hot water would rinse away his thoughts.

—

Kennedy’s departure had kicked off a week of dry heat in Lyra, as if the clouds decided to go ahead and leave town as well. Aaron trudged through the long grass in his backyard, the spray from his sprinklers soaking into his T-shirt and spattering across his arms as the wind picked it up and moved it over him. He ran a hand over his freshly shaven face. The lack of wiry facial hair felt foreign, almost as if he was a different managain. He was a wheel, randomly spun and landing on a different version of himself. Before Lissa, after Lissa, before Jared’s death, after Jared’s death, before Kennedy…after Kennedy.

A fiery torment surged through his blood, heating his skin. Aaron didn’t know if letting it out would make him feel better, worse, or do nothing, but he was one hundred percent positive he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

His eyes flicked to the dock on his side of the lake, a few yards away, the lake splashing lightly up against the edge. Determination and anger filled his strides, pushing him toward that lake, the only place he was sure Jared would be if he were anywhere.

“Is this what you wanted?” he shouted, surprising even himself that he was speaking the words aloud. The wind blew spray from the lake across his face, the only answer he received as he set his foot on the cracking and damp wood of the dock. “Because you got it, man.” He threw his arms out. “I ruined our friendship, everything we’d had, and I never got your forgiveness. I don’t deserve that, I deservethis,right? I deserve to feel whatyoufelt that day, don’t I?Don’t I?”

The hot wind picked up, sending the lake up to his boots, echoing the tide rolling in his chest, his heart crashing against his rib cage and breaking into more pieces each time it thumped. His hands flew to his hair, pulling at the strands, yanking them from the roots, anger rolling off him in waves that rivaled the ones at his feet.

“YouknewI’d fall for her!” he shouted back at the lake, knowing it was irrational and made not a lick of sense. “Youwere the one to make me feel like life wasn’t enough in L.A.Youbrought me back here, knowing she’d be in Lyra, knowing that she was too beautiful, too sweet, too…everything.This was a test youknewI’d fail, and then you ripped her away. You took her back just like I took Lissa from you. I get it. Lesson learned. Youwin.”

Aaron’s pulse pounded in his head, his words hitting him so hard he fell to his knees at the edge of the dock. Beads of sweat tumbled from the ends of his hair and soaked into the wood.

“You win,” he repeated, his body wiped, his soul drained. He pushed a hand over his face, his anger evaporating into the immense grief that he’d tried so hard to push away and hide. It consumed and crippled him, prickling at the backs of his eyes and eating away in his chest. It wasn’t just losing love so quickly after finding it; it was the years of loss he’d felt before his best friend was truly gone. How he’d never made it right, how he never could, how he didn’t know where to go from here. He wanted a break, no matter how undeserving he was of one.

His forehead touched the dry and cracked dock. He’d had one brief moment when he hadn’t felt so empty, when he’d felt completely opposite. Kennedy’s body next to his, curled up in him…It was his only reprieve from the guilt and sense of loss that came despite his fight to fill it.

She was his only cure, the only person in years to make him into the man he wanted to be. Chelsea had said it was okay….Austin even encouraged Aaron to go for it, but as Aaron crumpled in the dry summer air, he realized he needed only one person to tell him it was okay to fall in love when he didn’t deserve to ever have that feeling.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice barely heard in the cocoon he’d created for himself. “I miss you. And damn it, I’ll do anything,anything,to make it right.”

He sat huddled at the edge of the dock, letting the heat, his grief, and his guilt all drown him, the love he still had for Kennedy his only life support. Even if it was brief, only a speck on his lifeline, he was grateful for it, grateful that he had the chance to feel something that strong for someone. He’d hold on to it for as long as he could, no matter how undeserving he was.

A soft plink of water fell onto his hand, and his eyes shot open, rain sprinkling down and covering his back. The sun was still as bright as ever through the summer rain, not unusual in Lyra, but unexpected all the same. A calm ran under Aaron’s skin, resting on his shoulders, replacing years and years of guilt. He blew out a steadying breath, blinking against the small amount of precipitation that liked to come out of nowhere. Aaron felt a laugh slip out, his brow furrowing as he gazed up at the sky. If this was Jared’s way of telling him to stop being so damn dramatic, he was starting to get the message.

His phone vibrated against his thigh, and he let it ring as he had all week, never really wanting to talk with anyone. But now…he just wanted a few minutes in the quiet solace he suddenly found himself in. He internally chuckled to himself, recalling a conversation he’d had with Jared when they were fresh into high school.

“If it’s meant to be, there will be a clear-cut sign,” Jared had told him as they passed Chelsea in the hallway and Aaron got more than a little tongue-tied. “The universe speaks in billboards, not Post-its.”

Aaron had secretly agreed with him, always using it as an excuse never to make a move on Chelsea until he got that giant sign. When Austin asked him to pose as her boyfriend, he’d thought that had been it. Obviously, it wasn’t, and it wasn’t meant to be, either.

For a while after that, Aaron had argued Jared’s point, telling him that not everything was going to be slammed in your face. And he thought of that now as he leaned back on his knees and reveled in the sudden, soft rain. It might not be the loudest sign in the world, but Aaron got the quiet message, his heart pounding as he realized that maybe Kennedy wasn’t a punishment. She wasn’t a temptation or someone sent to torture and test him. She was the love of his life, and maybe…well, maybe he was one of the only people who could understand how she needed to love Jared, too. If only she’d come back, he’d tell her all of that and more.

A solitarybingechoed around him, and he sighed, ripping his eyes away from the sky and pulling out his phone to read the text he’d gotten from Chelsea.

Kennedy’s on a train. She’ll be here at 7:35. I suggest you get your lovesick butt down there.

Aaron’s heart stuttered, and he pushed to his feet, tripping over himself just to get back to his. Jared just had to make it a billboard, didn’t he?

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