Wherever It Leads(88)

My best friend’s face falls and so do my spirits. Although I didn’t think it was possible for them to sink any further, the depths at which they now sit is remarkable.

I feel like shit. It’s not Presley’s fault I’m in this state of despair and I’m making her pay the piper. So not fair.

“I get it,” Presley says. “You’re lashing out at me because I’m the closest person to you. But I’m done with taking it lying down. This entire thing needs to be dealt with.”

“How?” I sigh. “That’s the problem. I don’t know how to deal with it. There isn’t an acceptable answer.”

“Being acceptable is a matter of perspective. There is no right or wrong answer, Brynnie.”

“No, there is,” I groan, heading back to the sofa. I hear her steps behind me. I step over the empty carton and curl back up on the cushions. “The right answer is that he lied to me.” I watch her unfold in a chair. “You know, the first time I had dinner with him, he offered me money to go away with him. I wonder now—did he know who I was then? Was that some kind of weird way of making it up to my family?”

“You’re really stretching this.”

“Am I? Maybe him finding my phone was an odd coincidence, but then luring me away, offering me money, making me fall in love with him?”

“Ah,” Presley breathes, leaning back in her chair. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“No, we aren’t.”

“No, we are.”

“What does it even matter?” I sigh. “He betrayed me.”

She bites her bottom lip and gives me her best pensive face. “I disagree.”

“Of course you do.”

“Think about it. What if he was just too scared to tell you who he was? What if he felt so strongly about you that he knew you’d walk away and he was too scared of that?”

“So that makes it okay?”

“I’m not saying what he did is okay. He should’ve told you, Brynne. There’s no two ways about that. But he messed up. We all do it. And maybe he did it for the very best, romantic reasons.”

I groan, sitting upright. “You’re still forgetting the fact that he’s behind Brady being missing! Let’s not forget that, all right? My brother is in the middle of Africa, in the hands of a bunch of complete barbarians, and it’s Fenton that hasn’t gotten him back!”

Presley takes a deep breath and folds her hands on her lap. I know this look. She’s getting ready to say something she thinks is going to make me fly off the handle, and she’s trying to get in her best diplomatic form.

I brace myself for what comes next.

“Why is this his fault?” she asks, her voice low.

“Because he owns the company!” I nearly shout.

“And maybe Fenton has done everything he can, Brynne. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to not care, not after everything you’ve told me about him and what I’ve seen out of him before all this happened.”

My phone rings on the table in front of me and I glare at her as I pick it up, not so much because I’m mad at her but more so she stops talking. I don’t want to discuss this with her anymore. I want her to just let me be pissed, let me blame Fenton, and not try to make things foggier. That makes them hurt worse and each time the pain goes up a bit, I think that’s the top.

“Hello?” I say without looking at the screen.

“Hi, Brynne,” my mother says.

“Mom? How are you?” I watch Presley get up and disappear down the hall. My heart aches that we argued, but I know she won’t hold it against me. I’ll still apologize later, but I shouldn’t have lashed out at her.

“Senator Hyland’s office called a little bit ago and talked to your father,” she says, her voice trembling just a touch. “He told us to brace ourselves.”

“Why?” I gulp, my stomach bottoming out.

“Nekuti has made demands. Money, a prisoner exchange, and a bunch of crazy foreign policy requests. And . . .” her voice breaks at the idea and I hear her crying softly. “You know they won’t be met.” The sounds are muffled, like she has a tissue over her face and the image smashes any semblance of emotional control I’ve managed to attain.

“Oh, Mom” I say, trying to sound strong but failing miserably. There’s no strength left in me at all.

“What will I do? How can I live without my son?”

My lips tremble and I wish desperately for a set of arms around my shoulders. I feel so unbelievably alone, so stripped naked, and there’s nothing I can do to comfort myself or my mother.

She sobs on the other end, a hushed racking of emotion. I hear my father’s whispers and it relieves me a little to know he’s there with her.

“I can’t live without him,” she cries. “He’s my baby boy, my first born, the one that taught me to be a mother. I just want him home.”

“Me too, Mom,” I say through my own tears. “Me too.”

The line jostles and my father’s deep timbre comes through. “You okay, Brynne Girl?”

“No.”

He laughs somberly. “Me either. Just keep praying. Keep holding on.”

“I will. Do you want me to come home, Daddy?”