Page 61 of Always a Roommate
Maybe I couldn’t help him.
Needing some air, I pushed out the front door. The door didn’t slam shut behind me like I’d planned, and I turned to find Rae in the doorway. She shut the door softly and approached me.
“Hey.”
I couldn’t help myself. I went to her, needing her to tell me we could make a difference, that we could actually change someone’s life.
She let me bury my face in her shoulder and refrained from telling me everything would be okay.
If Trevor was coming to school and no one knew of his troubles at home, they didn’t know he’d run away. Which meant his father either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared to look for him.
I sighed against Rae once I got ahold of myself. “His father isn’t even searching for him.” I knew it with such certainty. If he was, he’d only have to call the school.
“He’s an addict, Shane.” At first, Rae’s soft voice soothed me. “He might not even realize his son isn’t there.”
Then, slowly, I pulled back, looking her in the face. “How did you know?”
“What?” She swallowed, her eyes darting away from mine.
“About his father. How?”
She shrank away from me, and I hated that I scared her, but I had to know. Her voice was small when she answered, much smaller than Rae. “He told me. Trevor… I knew because he told me.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
I issued a dozen curses, many of which were nothing more than unintelligible sounds. “Is that all you’re keeping from me, Rae?”
Her eyes widened. “Yes, of course.”
I clenched my jaw. “So, you and Tanner… what? Do you want me to pretend you weren’t whispering about keeping things from the family?”
Anger flashed in her eyes, bringing out the fiery Rae I’d known was in there but hadn’t seen in a while. This was the girl who fought with me every chance she got, the one I’d loathed, been annoyed by, and then something else. Something bigger I hadn’t been able to put a name on. I still couldn’t.
“That… was nothing.”
“I’m sure.” I turned, not knowing where I wanted to go. Certainly not back inside with my family, who was probably staring at us by now if they’d heard our raised voices.
Rae’s eyes narrowed. “It was nothing to do with me. Tanner’s business is his own, and he only owes you the truth when he wants to tell you. As for me,” her voice lowered to a whisper, “I don’t care if for some small blip in time we had delusions that whatever this was between us was something other than hate. I don’t owe you a thing.”
“No.” I took a step away from her. “You’re right. You don’t.” And with that, I walked away, knowing that our blip in time—as she’d called it—had come to an end. The clocks started ticking once again, bringing back the rest of the world we’d forgotten about, the world that knew the truth of who we were to each other.
Nothing.
25
RAE
I shouldn’t have said it. The moment the words tumbled past my lips, I knew they were wrong. Shane and I were more than a blip in time. If we weren’t, I wouldn’t have this sudden, gut-wrenching pain like I’d never felt before.
I realized then the love I’d held on to most of my life for this man wasn’t real. It had been a girl’s infatuation. Frustrating and cruel, yes, but not so cruel as this.
It never caused tears to sting my eyes or pain to ripple through my abdomen.
I’d never wanted to chase him before.
Tearing myself away from the instinct to go after him, to tell him not to leave, I re-entered the house to find the entire family staring at me.
