Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(24)

The stair just below the landing creaked as I put my foot on it. Sprinting to my new room, I locked myself inside and sat on the bed, watching my hands shake.

I said to myself, what are you doing, Alex?

This was bigger than me. Tom was creepy. There was something behind Hawk's disappearance that didn't add up and now this. Possibilities throbbed in my head. Tom was some kind of criminal, he was laundering money, crazy ideas coming at me: Tom is a hit man, Tom runs a secret criminal empire. I was probably reading too much into it, or I misread the paper, I decided. I paced my room wondering what I should do, if I should talk to someone.

The question became, who? My mom? She'd never listen to me and if she did, she'd take his side. May couldn't help me, Hawk was gone, Lance was a creep. I paced and paced and by the time I was done I decided that I was going to do absolutely nothing about it. I would go back to school, stay there, and quietly start looking for a way to stay the summer away from her. Leaving May behind made me feel sick, but if I signed up for some summer program or something and found a job, I could stay in the dormitories and drive up on weekends to keep an eye on her. We could Skype and talk on the phone and if May was having any trouble, I'd know it.

Sleep came late and left early and I rose on that Friday, unsure of what I meant to do with myself. The weather had swung around radically overnight, leaving my sinuses aching. I dug out a coat and decided I'd go for a walk. When I passed the office, the door was closed. No matter, I decided; Tom rose early that day to get to work and locked himself in. Nothing amiss there, nothing out of the ordinary.

The air outside was crisp. It was a clear day, edging from coat weather into jacket weather, and the leaves were all down, swirling around the street in little dust devils. I set out with no destination in mind and ended up walking over to Commerce Street to the shoe store. I stood out front for a while, looking up at the narrow windows of our old living room. A year ago, if I was standing here, Hawk would show up. He wouldn't have to call me or text me. He'd just know I was here. That was always how it was. We could predict each other's moves that way.

For some reason I stood there as if he might show. He didn't. I started walking.

Up Commerce and then to the park. I circled the big walking track inside, trying to organize my thoughts, silently quiz myself for my intro to biology exam the next week. The material was child's play for me, but I kept going over and over it. When I was thinking about mitochondria and cell division I wasn't thinking about Hawk.

He crept into my thoughts anyway. Everything I saw reminded me of him. That bench over there was where we sat the day a wasp stung his eyelid. That tree over there was where we found a toad. That grove of ash was where we smoked our first and only joint Todd gave Hawk in exchange for writing an English paper for him. It just gave me a headache, but Hawk liked it. It didn't matter, though, he never smoked again that I knew of because I wasn't into it. No conversation, that's just how it went.

I swear, every spot, every tree in that park had some memory attached to it. Silly things like catching fireflies, or once I thought he would kiss me but he didn't. I don't even know if he looked at me that way then. By the time I made the walking track circuit and came around to standing in front of the war memorial at the gates, I felt like I was a million years old. How could I be only eighteen-going-on-nineteen if all this shit happened to me? Losing him aged me the most. I wasn't alive anymore, I was mourning my life.

I started home and ended up walking back to the shoe store. I forgot I didn't live there anymore. That was the last straw. I broke down and sobbed right there in the street, stood there crying softly to myself, hands thrust in my pockets.

"Are you okay?"

Startled, I jumped back. A tall woman on a bicycle stopped right next to me, looking confused. She was bundled up for the weather and a long auburn braid hung over her shoulder, from under a battered, scuffed helmet.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"You don't look fine. Do I know you?"

I blinked a few times.

"I don't think so… wait, are you a teacher?"

She nodded. "Yes. I teach at No. 2."

"You were new when I graduated. I remember."

"I thought you looked familiar, but I don't remember you from class."

She stuck out her hand. I took it and shook it.

"Alexis."

"Jennifer. Are you sure you're okay? You look upset."

I looked up at the apartment. "I am upset."

She let out a long sigh, and her breath puffed in the chill air.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not today," I started to say, but I changed my mind. "Wait. Sure."

She swung down from her bike and walked it alongside me, down the block to the I Bean Missing You, the coffee shop. She locked up her bike outside and we went in. She took hers black; I ordered a pumpkin spice latte and we sat down in the corner.

"You just graduated," she said.

"Yeah."

"I remember you from the senior trip. Is it your boyfriend?"

"He's not…" I started to say, reflexively.

Every time somebody joked about Hawk being my boyfriend flooded back into my head and it landed on me like a ton of bricks: They weren't joking, and they were right.

I held my cup in my hands and looked down, trying to look like I was staring into it, and not starting to cry again.