Redemptive (Combative, #2)(40)

I felt him approaching before I saw his bare feet stop a few inches in front of mine. “What’s up? You okay?” He placed his hand on my forehead. “You don’t have a temperature.”

“I’m fine,” I said, moving away from his touch.

Nate’s sigh was almost deafening compared to the silence I’d been so accustomed to. He slumped down next to me, his arm brushing mine. “What’s going on, Bailey?”

“Nothing,” I lied. It was pathetic. I was pathetic. “It’s dumb.”

“So tell me anyway,” he said, his arm around my waist, pulling me into him.

I cleared my throat, trying to focus on the safety of his touch. “Will there be girls at this party?”

He chuckled, and just like that, a rage built somewhere in the pit of my stomach. I turned to him and pushed on his shoulders until he was flat on his back. His yelp of surprise did nothing to stop me from climbing on top of him, straddling his waist and thumping my fists on his chest, which only made him laugh harder.

I narrowed my eyes, my lips pursed. “It’s not funny,” I said, my fist raised.

He grabbed my wrist as it came down on him, his laughter dying in the air. “Bailey,” he said, his tone stern.

I sat up a little and raised my chin. “What?”

His eyes seemed to soften as he looked up at me, slowly releasing his hold on my wrist. One of his hands landed on my thigh, the other reaching up and moving the hair away from my eyes. “There will be girls there,” he said, his voice soft and his eyes on mine. “But it doesn’t matter because none of them are you.”

*

His words should’ve been comforting. They weren’t. All I could think about was that he was out there, looking the way he did, and I was in here, feeling the way I did.

I went to the bathroom, like I’d done so many times before, sat on the floor and faced the corner of the room. The tiles (which I’m sure were once blue, now gray) were small, penny-sized hexagons, perfect for counting. And count them I did. Daily. For hours. Until my eyes felt like they were about to bleed or my stomach rumbled, and I’d take a break, eat, stare at a different wall, and come back to it. The most I’d counted was 2,684. The least, 2,463. But I’d never counted the same number twice, which I guess is good because it kept me going back for more. Crazy? Maybe. But to me—it was the only thing that kept me sane.

Tiny had been around more at night helping to make “my place” more livable. More comfortable. It didn’t really help, but I smiled. I pretended to care, and I did it for Nate because I could see the way he looked at me, hopeful, as if what he was doing was helping me heal, saving me. So I put up the front, and I smiled and nodded and picked out a bed I didn’t care about to go with the rug I didn’t care about and the lamps to match both the things I didn’t f*cking care about.

I huffed out a frustrated breath when I realized I’d lost count and started again.

Three times I started over before I gave in to the inevitable and accepted defeat. My mind was racing, filled with so many thoughts I couldn’t focus on one, let alone thousands of numbers.

When Nate had said that he didn’t know how long he’d be gone for, I almost told him that it didn’t matter. It’s not like I could tell if he’d been gone an hour or five. I didn’t say anything, though. I just nodded, told him to be safe, allowed him to kiss me on the forehead and then watched him climb the steps like I’d done too many times to count.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and grabbed his discarded shirt from the bathroom floor before climbing into bed with it. Pathetic, I know, but I couldn’t deny that I missed him. Every second he was gone felt like an eternity.

Tear after tear fell from my eyes.

Sob after sob fell silent from my lips.

Call it love. Call it longing. Call it plain old loneliness.

I may not know what it was—these deep dark feelings I had to keep secret—the only thing I knew was that I feared every single one of them.

Even love.





25




Bailey


I don’t know how I ended up back on the bathroom floor, curled in a ball, gripping Nate’s T-shirt like my life depended on it.

His breath was warm against my ear, hand shaking my shoulder as he whispered my name over and over, an urgent lilt in his tone that had my eyes snapping open and my body upright the second I came to. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, hand to his heart as he sat back on his heels.

I ignored the pounding in my head from getting up too fast and looked around, panic welling in my chest. “What’s wrong?”

“You scared the shit out of me, Bai.” His voice rose. “What the f*ck are you doing asleep on the bathroom floor?”

I shrugged, shrinking into myself. Stupidly, I pointed to the wall and murmured, “I must have passed out counting the tiles.”

His brow bunched, his gaze moving to where I was pointing. “The what?” he huffed.

“The tiles,” I whispered. “I count them when you’re not home. It helps…” I trailed off.

His features changed from confusion to understanding, and he looked over at the wall, his eyes moving quickly from side to side as if he was able to count in a few seconds what typically took me hours. Then his head dropped forward, a long sigh leaving him. “I’m sorry,” he said, blindly reaching for me.