Page 1 of When I Come Back
Prologue
Carrington
Present
(31 Years Old)
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I ignore it since I wouldn’t be able to hear anything over the raucous bar sounds anyway. Whoever is calling me at quarter to ten can go ahead and fuck off. Everyone I know is here celebrating with me.
With one hand I loosen my tie and use the other to reach around Seth and grab a fresh drink from my bartender, feeling my phone vibrate again. Whoever it is, they’re persistent. I pull the device out of my pocket as I take a sip of the new top-shelf bourbon we just started carrying and almost spit it out on the back of Seth’s neck when I see the caller ID.
Indigo Hill Diner.
My stomach bottoms out, and the only thing I can focus on is questioning why I still have this number programmed in my phone. It’s been thirteen years since I used the number—I was certain I had lost it. Not that you can really lose something thathas been burned into your memory since the day you learned how to use a phone.
It stops ringing in my hand, and I stare at the blank screen for a few more heartbeats. I faintly register Seth calling my name behind me, but my feet are already moving me around the busy tables and toward the front door when it starts to ring again. My breathing picks up as does my pace. The chilly, damp Seattle air settles on me as the door quietly closes, shutting all of the restaurant sounds behind it. I hit the green button and lift the phone to my ear, lungs full.
Silence.
“C–Cary?”
My body, my breath, my mind—all frozen. With those two syllables I’m hit with an intense wave of déjà vu of a night just like this. A phone calljustlike this. Eight years ago almost to the day. One I’ll never forget regardless of how much time passes. Seconds tick by, and I still can’t seem to breathe. I hear a few cars pass at my back as I stare unseeing at the restaurant window in front of me.
“Are you there?” Timid. The tinny voice breaking through the silence as I grip the phone like it's the only thing keeping me attached to this Earth istimid. There’s something very wrong about that. She’s never timid.
“Can you please say something? I–I need to know I called the right number.”
My body’s need for oxygen takes over, and I exhale sharply, turning around to look at the traffic. My brain’s still not online with what’s happening, so the best I can get out is, “This is Carrington.”
There’s a long pause. So long I’m almost hoping she’s hung up. I watch a couple cross the street hand-in-hand.
“I’m so sorry.”What?“I don’t even know how to do this. I was hoping Brooks would…” she trails off. Her voice is sofamiliar yet so strange at the same time. A few more seconds pass, and I hear what I think is a heavy, resigned sigh on the other end. “I’m so sorry to be the one to do this, but I’m—I’m calling with bad news.” She hiccups as if holding back a sob. “It’s Owen and Hazel. There was an accident last night, it was a drunk driver, and the car...” Another long pause. A man across the street raises his hand to hail a cab. “They didn’t make it, Cary. I’m so, so sorry.”
There are tears in her voice. I can clearly picture her watery, chocolate-colored eyes as if she were standing right in front of me. The tear that would escape and slowly streak down her left cheek. Somehow the tears always spilled down her left cheek first. I never let them fall though. I always caught them, swiped them up with my thumb, kissed them away with my lips.
“Please say something,” she whispers. The connection between my brain and my mouth has been severed. My lips can’t form words of any significance.
“Thank you.” It’s all I can get out.
I hang up, turn around, and gaze at all of my friends through the window. Standing around, laughing, drinking, celebrating another successful year of Carina Cove. I don’t hear the sounds of the street behind me anymore, just the buzzing in my ears, and all I can think is…
Why didn’t I block that number years ago?
Chapter One
Thea
9 Years Ago
(22 Years Old)
“Can you just stop for one fucking second?” Cary calls at my back as I make my way toward our bedroom door.
“Why?” I breathe out with my hand on the door knob, allowing it to brace me when all I want to do is fall apart. “So you can tell me again how I’m wrong? How I just need to ‘give it some time?’ Or maybe you want to tell me that I should loosen up a bit again?”
I haven’t turned back around to face him. I can’t. All I can do is stare at the floor and hope he finally hears me this time. That maybe, just maybe, he realizes how lost I am in this city, this life. The silence drags on, and my heartbeat is the only sound echoing off the walls. It’s so suffocating I contemplate turning around to finally look at him, but just as the thought crosses my mind, his even footsteps sound behind me.
His arms wrap gently around my shoulders from behind, his chest right up against my back, chin resting on the top of my head, his large frame enveloping me. I hear his breathing, the air escaping his lungs in steady breaths.
