Page 16 of Chaos

“I’m trying to make sure you know that you leaving wasn’t nothing. She didn’t just move on. She—” Jackson clears his throat. “Wewish you didn’t feel like you had to leave. Like that was your only option. I think about that last conversation we had a lot, and I wish I’d handled it better. I regret it so much, kid. I want you to know that. And I want you to know we missed you.”

Hugging my knees to my chest, I prop my chin on top of them. “Why does that matter?”

A mirthful smile curls his mouth. “Figure it might make it harder to run again.”

It would be a moot point, telling him that if I’d known any of that two years ago, I never would’ve run in the first place, so I don’t bother. “Can’t run. Got a busted ankle, didn’t you hear?”

With the most hesitation of touches, my brother palms the back of my head. “Like that would stop you.”

Briefly, my eyes flutter shut. Like the clingy, needy little sister I once was, I fuckingrelishthe feel of my big brother, my goddamn childhood hero for the longest time, stroking the length of my loose braid, all the way down to where the scarlet tip reaches the middle of my back.

“We’re gonna have rules, Lottie, okay? You stay sober. No more criminal offenses. No drugs. You wanna go anywhere, you ask. You work hard. That’s all I’m asking.”

It’s not worth clarifying that I don’t do drugs. That alcohol is my one and only vice. Or that unless I’m working a late shift, I’m in bed by nine most nights and up by six most mornings, a habit ingrained in me after years of ranch life. And bar work isn’t ranch work, but it’s hard. I’m not the lazy waster my brother apparently thinks I am, and it makes me… sad. That he thinks that. That he’ll probably always think that, no matter what I do.

“We got a deal, kid?”

I nod because I don’t really have a choice. Not because it makes Jackson pat my back like a child who’s pleased theirparent, not because he kisses the top of my head like he used to when I actually was a child either.

The simple touch doesn’t make me want to cry. It doesn’t. I’m just exhausted, that’s why my vision is suddenly so bleary, why Jackson is a little hazy as he squeezes my shoulder before jogging down the porch steps, heading for the truck parked nearby.

He leaves the beer behind—a test, I think, one I only don’t fail because I’m thinking about something else instead, I’m plagued by a different kind of thirst, an unrelenting curiosity.

“What’s his name?” I ask the question that hasn’t left my mind since I saw the tiny mirror image of my brother. “Your kid.”

The purest smile lights up my brother’s face. “Isaac. We call him Izzy.”

“He looks just like you.”

The fond smile splitting his face makes my chest hurt. It fades and he sighs once more, staring at the stars like he’s searching for an answer, looking like he might say something. Getting into his truck, he waits until the engine roars to life before rolling down the window.

“Luna was looking through some photos albums a couple of months ago,” he admits, though I’m not really sure what he’s admitting to until he continues, “Found a picture of you when you were a baby and thought it was Izzy at first.”

I drop my stinging gaze. “Sure it wasn’t Grace?”

A labored sigh permeates the air. “He looks likeyou, Lottie.”

Fuck. I swipe at my eyes and hope he doesn’t notice. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

Jackson laughs. He doesn’t say anything else. He just drives off into the night, leaving me alone to think about a little boy named Isaac who apparently looks just like me.

5

He knew there was a fine line between love and hate.

He didn’t know it was about as thick as the distance between the waistband of her jeans and her tank top, and adorned with a pair of dainty butterfly wings.

It’s comical,how the group sleepily trodding into the kitchen knock into one another like dominos as the person leading the pack screeches to a sudden halt at the sight of me.

“Oh.” Big, brown eyes widen with poorly-veiled surprise. “You’re still here.”

I’m tempted to tell the only other woman in the house that I woke up this morning sharing the exact same sentiment—with an additional few expletives. Although, I guess you can’t reallywake upwhen you never fell asleep in the first place. Which I didn’t. I spent the night staring at the sloped ceilings of my little attic room as my brain whirred relentlessly, hence the third cup of coffee working its way into my bloodstream.

Over the rim of my mug, I ogle the foursome already ogling me. “Sleeping in?”

One of the guys, the blond one, snorts. Evidently the bravest of the bunch, he dares to come closer, nudging me aside so he can refill the coffee pot I already drained. “You’re really working here?”

I bare my teeth in some semblance of a smile. “What? I don’t look the part?”

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