Path of Destruction (Broken Heartland, #2)(28)

“Been avoiding me, angel face?”

“No,” she hissed over her shoulder.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Look at me.” Hayden placed his hand firmly onto her waist. “You can’t avoid me forever. You know I’m right.”

Whirling on him, Ella Jane narrowed her eyes. “What do you want from me? Why can’t you just let it go?”

“Everything. I want you to tell me everything. Why you didn’t call me when your brother passed, why you didn’t speak for two weeks after the storm, why you’re so angry, and most of all…”

She stared at his mouth, captivated by the soft force behind his words. He really wanted to know all of these things. But why?

“Most of all what?” she whispered without meaning to.

“Why what happened this summer doesn’t seem to mean anything to you. It meant a hell of a lot to me,” he admitted. “So, if you’ve got a secret to how I can switch off actually giving a shit, well, I’d love to hear it.”

She swallowed and tried to process his confession. There was no secret switch. Taking a deep breath, she did her best to explain why she’d treated him the way she had.

“Hayden…I…” Another breath was needed for this. She looked up into his eyes, feeling in that moment as if they were alone in that locker room hallway instead of crammed between half the student body. “I do still care. I just… Compared to losing Kyle, losing you doesn’t hurt as much.” Her voice faltered on her brother’s name, but she knew she got her point across.

His eyes hardened, and she knew instantly that her words had wounded him. The one time she wasn’t trying to push him away and somehow she did.

“I get it,” he said after a teacher had passed, counting heads, making them truly seem like nameless cattle. “But I guess losing Pops was different for me. It made me realize that I should be honest when someone means something to me, that I shouldn’t waste time pushing them away because who knows how much time we have left.” He shrugged and glanced over her head at a group of girls nearby that EJ suspected might be listening or trying to listen in on their private conversation.

“Hayden…” She sighed, thinking briefly of how Cooper rode his bike a lot more recklessly—if at all—now, and how Cameron Nickelson was just trying to blow her off and pretend the summer had never even happened. “I guess we all handle grief differently.”

She looked around, pressing herself harder against the wall in hopes of just disappearing. His words were bringing feelings to the surface that she’d worked so hard to shove down into the deep recesses of her soul.

“Guess so,” he said evenly.

His shoulders lowered and his “Guess so” had the well, that’s that feel to it that made her stomach hurt. Was he done then? Done trying to push her to admit how much their summer had meant to her? If this was it, she felt like she had to be completely honest.

Reaching a hand to grasp the front of his black Henley, she tugged him toward her gently. When she had his full wide-eyed attention, she licked her lips and took one last healing breath.

“This summer…this summer meant everything to me. You meant everything to me. But it also caused me to act like an out-of-control crazy person, and the result was losing my brother. I don’t… I’m not blaming you or me anymore, because I’ll never be able to figure out exactly what I could have done differently to keep from losing him. But I do know that you’re not as into me as you think you are.”

His eyes held disbelief and a blatant challenge so she answered his unasked question.

“You might have been in love with that girl, the one I was this summer. But look at me. I’m not her anymore. And I never will be again.”

Unable to hide the way her hands trembled while holding onto him, she released his shirt.

“So please, please,” she begged, casting her eyes downward to the gray concrete floor, “stop bringing her up. She’s gone. Stop looking for her.”

Hayden remained quiet as the announcement was made that the drill was over and they could return to their classrooms now.

They walked back to class like a herd headed to the slaughterhouse, shuffling along slowly. As she reached the point where she’d have to turn the opposite way from Hayden, he leaned in and whispered in her ear.

“Never.”





The absolute last thing Cami felt like doing was laundry, but that was the price she had to pay when she convinced her parents that they didn’t need a full time replacement for Sophie. Sophie had worked for the Nickelsons since Cami was six. Eleven years, she had served as the maid, the nanny, Cami’s confidant, and a myriad of other titles. She was the closest thing to a mother that Cami had ever had, and now she was gone because she had her real child to take care of. Sophie’s son had been injured in the storm and was now a paraplegic. The storm hadn’t only ruined Cami’s life, it had greedily destroyed the lives of many.

Some stranger coming into her house and trying to fill Sophie’s shoes was out of the question. Sophie had called to check in on Cami a handful of times, but it wasn’t the same as having her there in person. She bit back the urge to beg her to come back, but the reality was that Sophie’s family needed her. Cami wouldn’t be the selfish teenager that she was before. She would grow up and let Sophie go.