Page 121 of All the Missing Pieces

Colt hesitated, so I shoved him in the direction of the house. “Go, or I’ll tell Trey you’re a lovesick fool.”

Colt shook his head but grinned and took off at a jog for the house.

I watched him go even after he disappeared inside. The fear was still there—the fact that part of my heart was beating outside my body. I felt a little sick at the thought. But I didn’t let it win. Because that thing between Colt and me, that love, would always be worth fighting for.

I slid my phone out of my pocket. My fingers itched to type out a text to my sister to tell her I loved her. It knocked me sideways. Because that was the urge every time something big happened. Sometimes I would type out a text just to pretend it would somehow get to her.

The wind picked up, and the leaves around me rustled, but something in the air shifted. It wasn’t even a sound, but a feeling. I turned, searching for the source. But I wasn’t fast enough.

Something punched into my side, and pain speared through me, a burning agony. I started to crumple to the ground, my vision going blurry, but something caught me. No, someone.

Strong arms jerked me up as they started dragging me back. “I should’ve known you weren’t special like your sister. Just a whore like all the rest of them.”

48

COLT

I steppedinside the house I’d grown up in. The scent of it had changed slightly over the years; there was lilac lacing it now, a scent Emerson favored. But the roots of it were the same. It wasn’t anything I could put a name to; all I knew was that it meanthome.

Walking through the kitchen, I steeled myself. The riot of emotions pulsing through me was almost more than I could bear. The pain of all Emerson had endured and the joy of all Ridley had given me melded together into something that only heightened both.

But that was life. There couldn’t be true happiness without grief, no pleasure without pain. Each one made us recognize the other in equal measure.

Rounding the corner, I found Emerson standing in the living room alone. Her arms were wrapped around her waist as if she were trying to hold herself together as she stared at a painting. I knew it was one of her own. A favorite.

It was a landscape of the lake my house was now on. One she’d painted from a combination of memory and photos. The canvas was cast mostly in dark purples, blues, and greens, with stars dotting the two upper corners. But the sun was justbeginning to come up over the horizon, giving a glow to the center of the piece.

Hope.

I saw it more clearly now, how all Emerson’s artwork had that quality—how she was painting it for herself, creating it when the world had stolen so much.

“Em,” I said, voice raw.

She turned, not fast but not stalling—in a measured way, almost as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her eyes were red and puffy.

“Where’s Trey?” I asked.

Emerson swallowed, her fingers digging into her sides. “I told him I needed a minute. He went out front to return a call.”

I nodded absently, feeling the emptiness of the room, the lack of distraction. “I’m sorry I lost it.”

Emerson shook her head, those blond strands shifting over her features. “I need you to believe in me.”

I felt the blood drain from my face as a pit took root in my stomach. “I do?—”

“You don’t.” Her words weren’t any louder than a moment before, but they had a bite to them. “I know not leaving this house might make me seem weak?—”

“It doesn’t,” I argued.

She held up a hand. “It makes you think I’m delicate, that I could break. So you step in and try to fix everything for me. But the more you do, the less I have totry. And I need to stretch myself, Colt. I need the challenge of trying to accomplish new things. That’s what this was.” Emerson gestured to all the recording gear.

“The urge to shield you is never going to stop,” I admitted. She opened her mouth to argue, but I kept going. “That’s partially because I have a lot of guilt around what happened.Guilt for being late. For not being there when you needed me most.”

“Colt—”

“But mostly because I love you and you’re never going to stop being one of the most important people in my life. You’re mysister. The only family I have left. The idea of anything else happening to youkillsme.”

Emerson’s eyes glittered with unshed tears again. “I love you too. You're the best big brother around.”

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