Page 81 of The Way Back Home

“Then why won’t you say something?”

“What am I supposed to say?” he shoots back, equally as angry, and I’m stunned for a second, because it’s he who walked away, it’s he who’s been avoiding me, and he who seems to be perfectly fine, while I’m the one feeling like I just handed him my heart and he stomped all over it.

“What do you want to say?” I snap. “Obviously, you’re angry with me. You can’t even look at me. You haven’t looked at me since—”

“I can’t stop looking at you,” he hisses. “It’s all I’ve done since you got here, seen you and nothing else.”

“Then what?” I plead. “What aren’t you saying?”

“I’m terrified, okay?” he shouts, standing up and slamming his fist down on the table. I flinch. Zora sits up and growls. “I’m absolutely fucking terrified.”

“Of what?”

“Of you, of this.” He rakes a hand through his hair. Zora barks and August tells her to be quiet, but she takes off toward the front door, snapping and snarling. I stare at August with a confused expression as I get to my feet. A beat later there’s a thudding from the door, like someone has fallen against it, and we both hurry towards the hall.

“Stay here,” he commands as he walks through the entryway. Of course, I don’t listen. Instead, I run after him, breezing past and reaching the door first when he stops to flip on the light. I blink against the blinding brightness. From the porch comes a faint cry.

“Olivia,” August warns, but I pull the door open to reveal a kid who resembles a bloody pulp rather than a seventeen-year-old boy.

“Josiah.”

He falls against me. He might be half my age, but I’m half his size, and I almost topple under the weight as he collapses. August helps me keep the boy upright. He’s passed out. His young face, once so beautiful, is a complete mess. Josiah’s covered in blood.

“He needs a hospital,” I say to August in a panicked voice, but he’s already two steps ahead of me, scooping up the teen as if he didn’t weigh 170 pounds and carrying him through the open door. I don’t know how he navigates the stairs with his prosthetic, but he does.

“Liv, get the door,” he says, once we’re standing beside his truck. I grasp the handle and yank it open, and he lays Josiah’s prone body out on the seat. I run back inside for the keys, but August snatches them from my hand. “I need you to stay with Bett.”

“But . . .”

“I got him. I’m better in emergencies than you are. Just stay with Bett.”

“Wait, what about insurance?”

“I’ll deal with it,” he says, pointedly, staring at my hand on the doorframe. “Olivia, let go of the door. I’m not gonna let anything happen to him.”

I let go like he asks and step away from the vehicle. The taillights fade into the darkness, and I stand there shivering in the early Alabama morning with Zora waiting at my side.

***

ISTARTLE AWAKE WHENthe truck pulls in the drive. The TV is on, playing through its third run ofFrozen. I glance at the eager four-year-old quietly singing along on the couch beside me. “You felled asleep, Wivvie.”

I yawn. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“That’s okay. You missded Owaf’s song, but we can just weewind it if you want?”

“Why don’t you just keep watching?” I rise, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My nightgown had been covered in Josiah’s blood, so after August had taken him to the hospital I’d run upstairs and tried to scrub it clean. I’d showered under the blistering-hot spray and then I’d about scoured every inch of the house clean before Bett woke and insisted I watch her favorite Disney film. Over and over again.

I race over to the entryway and pull back the door. August is coming up the stairs, followed by a broken but thankfully no longer bleeding Josiah. I run out onto the porch and wrap him up in a huge hug.

“Ow,” he whispers, and I pull back to stare at him.

“Sorry, I’m just . . . are you okay?” I turn to August. “He’s okay, right?”

“I’m okay,” Josiah says with a small smile that quickly turns to a wince. His face is a mess, swollen with several nasty cuts, a couple large enough for sutures.

August folds his arms over his chest. He’s wearing a T-shirt that’s two sizes too small for him, and I’m assuming it’s one given to him by the hospital. “Docs say he has a fractured arm, a couple of busted up ribs, and his cheek and eye socket are badly bruised, but not broken. He has a couple stitches here and there, too, but he’ll live.”

“What happened?” I ask Josiah.

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