Until You (Fall Away, #1.5)(68)

Yanking the steering wheel to the right, I bottomed out as I hit the dip turning into the driveway. Tate grabbed hold of the handle on the roof to steady herself as I sped up my driveway.

“Why can Piper know, and I can’t?” she pressed, her tone more urgent and defensive.

She knew about Piper?

“Fuck, Tate,” I gritted out and hopped out of the car, briefly registering that my mom’s car was in the open garage. “I don’t want to talk about it.” And that was the truth. Not today, not ever. I wouldn’t even know where to start. If she really wanted to move on with me, then she’d let it go.

“You don’t want to talk about anything!” She followed me out and yelled over the hood. “What do you think’s going to happen?”

Happen? She might see me for who I really was. That’s what could happen.

“What I do with my free time is my business. Trust me or not.”


“Trust?” She scrunched up her eyes and looked at me with disdain. “You lost mine a long time ago. But if you try trusting me, then maybe we can be friends again.”

Friends? We would never be just friends again.

Push her down or push her away, I told myself.

“I think we’ve moved beyond friends, Tate,” I sneered with a sour smile, “but if you want to play that game, then fine. We can have a sleepover, but there will be f*cking involved.”

She inhaled a sharp breath, and her shoulders straightened. Her eyes stared at me with hurt and shock, and I’d f*cking done it again.

Why did I keep doing this shit? I could’ve just let her down easily and walked away.

But no. In the moment, I power on with anger and fight.

But either way, I still saw the same look in her sad, tear-filled blue eyes, and I wanted to grab her and kiss her eyes, her nose, and her lips like it would erase every horrible thing I’ve ever said and done.

“Tate…” I started rounding the car, but she stomped up to me and shoved something into my stomach.

I latched onto it and watched helplessly as she ran across our yards and into her house.

No.

Staring after her—at the now darkened porch and closed front door—it was a minute or two before I felt the paper in my hand.

As I looked down, my mouth went dry, and my heart started pounding painfully in my chest.

It was a picture.

Of me.

When I was fourteen.

I was bruised and bloodied from the visit with my father, and Tate had found it at the bottom of a box underneath my bed.

She hadn’t come to wish me “Happy Birthday” tonight.

I’d caught her snooping.

And I’d just pushed her away for not telling her what she already knew.





I barreled out of the driveway and drove hard. Down the street and to the edge of town where the lights didn’t reach.

Driving helped clear my head, and it was now a mess again because of Tate. I wasn’t running. I was detaching.

She wouldn’t understand, and she would sure as shit see me differently. Why didn’t she see that it wasn’t important?

I could’ve been gentler about it, I guess, but she kept prying into shit that wasn’t her business.

I strangled the shit out of the steering wheel, willing myself to stay on the gas and not turn around.

I couldn’t go back. She’d want to know it all, and the shame I felt for what I’d done to my brother outweighed the shame I felt for what I’d done to her.

Didn’t she see that some things were better left buried?

“Go. Help your brother,” my father tells me, too gently.

My hands are shaking, and I look back at him.

What’s going on? I ask myself.

“Don’t act like you have a choice.” He gestures me on with the bottle in his hand.

The wooden stairs creek with each step I take, and the small light below offers me no comfort.

It’s like the creepy light coming from an old furnace, but I can feel the air getting chillier the more I descend.

Where’s Jax?

I look back at my father, where he stands in the kitchen at the top of the stairs, and feel more and more like I’m being sucked into a black hole.

I’d never be seen again.

But he motions with his hand for me to keep going.

I don’t want to go. My bare feet are freezing, and splinters of wood from the stairs poke them.

But then I stop, and my heart jumps into my throat.

I see Jax.

I see them.

And then I see the blood.

I parked my car in the lot near the back entrance to the park. Eagle Point had two ways in. A drive-in front entrance and a rear one for walkers and bikers. But the back entrance offered a parking lot to leave your car and walk through. It was this gate I chose.

The one closest to the pond.

How I got here escaped me, but when I drove, I zoned out. Sooner or later, I always ended up where I wanted to be.

Sometimes, I wound up at Fairfax’s Garage to fiddle with my car. Other times, I ended up at Madoc’s house to party. And a few times I’d found myself at some girl’s house.

But tonight? The park? The fishpond?

The hairs on my arms shot up, and I felt acid burning a line up my throat. I wanted to be here about as much as I wanted to see my father tomorrow.