Following Me(56)

Devon walked until the alcohol felt less potent. Why had she drunk so much? Who thought that was a good idea for a depressive? She would have giggled at her own self-realization, but it wasn’t funny.

When her feet started hurting, she stopped and looked around. She didn’t recognize anything, and that made her even more anxious. Where had her feet taken her? Her eyes traveled the buildings around the area as she tried to place her location.

She had been here before. Realizing where she was, she smiled and walked inside a building.

Standing in front of the door, she made the decision that her feet had already chosen for her. She knocked and waited. When nothing happened, she knocked again louder until she heard someone moving around inside. Her head was spinning, and she didn’t know if it was because she was still drunk or if she was nervous. It was fair to say it was likely both.

“Who is it?” a voice called.

She didn’t answer.

The door opened, and Brennan’s face peered out at her. He left the door ajar, still latched to the wall by a chain. “Devon?” Brennan asked, yawning.

“Hey,” she whispered. She suddenly felt self-conscious, like she shouldn’t have shown up.

“What are you doing here? It’s four in the morning.”

“Can I come in?” she asked, surprised by the time.

“It’s late, and I was sleeping. It’s been a long night. I really don’t have time to deal…” He trailed off when he finally looked at her.

“Please?” She tried to hold the tears in, but she didn’t succeed.

“Devon, can’t this wait until the morning?” he asked, doing a poor job of hiding his sympathies.

“It is the morning,” she muttered.

“A normal hour then?” he persisted.

Devon dropped her head and then looked up into his big eyes. They weren’t rimmed with red like they had been this afternoon. They weren’t dazed like they frequently were when he came into work high. They were just normal Brennan eyes, and she liked them the best.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said, feeling defeated.

Brennan sighed. He tipped his head side to side as if debating, and then he closed the door, pulled back the chain, and opened it for her. “Come on in,” he said. “I’ll make up the couch again.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, relieved.

Devon took a seat on the couch and remembered the last time she had been here. Her head pounded, and she tried not to think about it. This was Brennan. She could figure things out.

He returned with a pile of pillows and blankets, just like last time. But this time, she could tell that he was still pretty upset. She wasn’t sure if it was from earlier or what, but his body was rigid.

“Well, good night.” He turned and walked toward the bedroom.

At least, he wasn’t one to pry.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. Unlike him, she was one to pry.

Brennan stopped walking and sighed. He turned around to face her. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Too much,” she offered easily.

“That’s what I thought. Why don’t you just…sleep it off?” he said softly.

“Brennan,” she said when he turned away from her again, “can’t you just talk to me?”

She watched him clench and unclench his fists at his side. He turned back around and shook his head.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Can you sit down?” Devon asked, pulling her feet up on the couch.

“No,” he said stiffly.

“God, Brennan, what’s wrong?” she asked, the alcohol making her bolder than she would have normally been.

“You want to know what’s wrong?” he asked, crossing the room. He took a moment to try to compose himself, but he failed. “You’re what’s wrong. Everything about you!”

Devon swallowed, looking up at him in shock. Where was this coming from? “What? Me?” she croaked.

His hands shook. “You walk into my life when I won’t let anyone in. You walk right in without asking, without giving me an option. Then, you slam that door shut so hard, it could crack the windowpanes. Just when I think you’re gone and I can close up again,” he nearly shouted at her, “you crash back in all over again. And it’s worse now because I’m around you all the time.

“You have this barrier up, and I have no clue how to get through it. And it’s obvious that you don’t want to let it down, but I can’t help but try. When I think there’s no chance, none at all, after you leave my gig…when I wrote that song for you…” He trailed off, looking at her fiercely. “Then, you show up here, saying you have nowhere else to go…when the door is always wide open.”

Devon’s heart was beating so hard in her chest that she thought she might explode. This was what he had been carrying around all this time? She had suspected that he still liked her, but this…how could she even respond?

“I think I broke up with my boyfriend,” she said softly.

It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. She had left Reid. It was over in her heart.

“What?” Brennan asked, coming up short.

He hadn’t been expecting that.

“We’re over.”