The Speed of Light: A Novel(67)

My shoulders sag now as anger gives way to pain. “Look, Connor, I really wanted to talk to you about something.”

He takes a step back at the change in my voice. “About what?”

“About the fact that maybe we rushed into all this.” His eyes widen again, but I don’t stop. “Maybe it’s time to take a break.”

His voice is barely a whisper. “Simone . . . I don’t want that.”

“I think our timing was just off. I never really had a chance to find my normal again after my diagnosis.” I swallow the lump in my throat, praying my voice doesn’t crack. “And maybe you never really had a chance to get back to normal after losing Cam.”

“But you are my normal.” His pained eyes bore into mine until I look away.

“Look, maybe you never had a chance to get over losing her, either.” I gesture back toward the bar, where she sits, waiting for him. I can’t say her name. She probably is a good person—a great one, even—but right now saying her name would break my heart more than it’s already broken. “Maybe you need someone like her.”

His frown deepens. “What does that mean?”

“It means you need someone who’s not a burden.”

He reels back like I’ve slapped him. “What? Simone, no—where is this coming from?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “It’s coming from the fact that I don’t know what my future holds, so it’ll be easier if this happens now. For both of us.”

Connor stares at me in pain and confusion, tears in his eyes, too. “But I love you.”

His words are desperate, defeated, and I can’t bear it. “I have to go,” I mumble before sprinting off toward my car. It’s still five blocks away, but I push myself forward as fast as my knee will let me—it’s throbbing now, as if it wants in on all this pain consuming the rest of me. I will my sobs to wait until I’m safely behind the wheel and driving away from downtown, away from him.

I don’t look back.





PART ELEVEN

DARKNESS





Monday, December 6, 10:20 a.m.

There’s no going back now. They know we’re here, and they’re coming for us.

There is nothing I can do to stop this.

Darkness washes over me like a blanket, warm and smothering, and suddenly I’m so indescribably tired. My body folds over Nikki like it’s sinking. Like I’m sinking.

Outside the closet, Chet’s and Stan’s footsteps rush toward us, but my body refuses to fight. So I close my eyes, and I wait. “I’m sorry.” I’m not even sure if I say the words out loud.

A hand squeezes my arm gently, and I open my eyes in surprise. Hayley says nothing, just gives a determined nod—I wish I could capture the moment our eyes meet, wish I could bottle it up, save it. But before I can even process what’s happening, she has a hand on the doorknob, the other still clutching the scissors.

Oh God, no.

But she’s out the door, pushing it shut behind her, screaming with a fury I’ve never heard before. For one heartbreaking moment, she is every woman who has ever stood up to an abusive man—and God dammit I wish I had given her a chance, looked past the exterior to see the woman inside, brave and true.

But it’s too late now.

I hear her catch them off guard, hear the yelling and cursing when she stabs one of the bastards. But within moments a gun blasts, a deafening boom that sucks all the air, all the life, out of this room.

And I know that Hayley is gone.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

August 20, four months before

The rest of the summer passes, cruel and unbearable, and then it is almost gone, leaving only the ghost of its presence, fleeting moments of sunshine that seep into shadow.

But I continue to run.

My training becomes my solace, my healing. There’s something about the rush of air through my lungs, the strain of my muscles, my body testing its limits. It’s the rhythm of it, the pattern. The swing of my arms, the scrape of my feet hitting the pavement. Left-right-left-right.

My mind clears and I hit the zone, that stride, about a half mile or so in—the runner’s high I always assumed was a myth—and suddenly I’m not straining so hard; suddenly I could go for miles. I could fly if I wanted to.

It’s what I do every evening when it’s finally cool, guided by the waning sunshine as summer finally breaks into autumn. I shut off my phone, stop counting the calls and texts from Connor I’ve been ignoring.

And I run.

Because if I don’t, the pain of missing him—the way his strong hand enveloped mine, the way his eyes focused so intently on me when I spoke, the way he’d scratch his stubbly chin when he was excited to tell a joke, the way his laugh, so deep and booming, filled up a room, filled up the empty places in my soul—might catch me.

But the combination of late nights and early mornings, the fatigue of it all, does catch up with me. I’m staring at my computer at work one late-summer day when Nikki is down the hall cleaning out the photo studio, a gentle breeze rustling the leaves outside, soft ballads crooning from my speakers, and my vision starts to blur.

Two sharp raps on my open doorway—I jolt up, blink, disoriented.

“Were you seriously just sleeping at your desk?” Raj’s nose is crinkled, as if he can’t decide whether to be amused or concerned.