“Are you hungry?” Sabine squeezes my arm. “We’ll find the guys and then go get something to eat. I’m sure you’re exhausted, too. I think I slept twenty-four hours straight when we first got here.”
I spot Sean first. He’s hard to miss. I’d forgotten how big he was. He and Gil and another guy bend beneath the open hood of a truck that doesn’t look like it’s started for the better part of the century. Sabine doesn’t call out, but it’s like he knows. His smoky-blue eyes lift up and lock on her. A slow smile spreads across his face. Then his gaze drifts, evidently catching the movement of me beside her. His hand stills, stops turning whatever it is he was rotating inside the engine.
His gaze scans me, head to toe, missing nothing, not the wounds on my neck or forehead. Even though we haven’t been apart so very long, it feels like forever since I felt his eyes on me. We’re different. Him. Me. I know it instantly. Even further apart than the last time we were together.
I appreciate him almost clinically. His dyed hair is longer, some of his blond already showing at the roots. He’s pulled it back into a short ponytail. The tat on his bicep dances with his movements as he hands off his wrench to the guy beside him and edges around the truck toward us.
He approaches me with his long-legged stride, and I start to hyperventilate. Not really, but it feels that way. As good as he looks coming toward me, there’s another face there, filling my mind. Maybe part of me thought that when I clapped eyes on Sean I wouldn’t think about Caden again. I wouldn’t compare his lean ranginess to Sean’s muscular bulk. That I would remember the way that Sean used to make my pulse stutter, and that’s what I would feel around him again. It would be all that mattered once more. But no. Nothing.
Nothing familiar stirs my blood. If anything, the ache in my chest that’s been there ever since I found that piece of paper in Caden’s desk, ever since I woke up from near death on that exam table, intensifies.
Sean reaches me and hauls me into his arms without a word. He wraps me up, engulfs me in the immenseness of his body, and . . . there’s nothing. His touch doesn’t bother me. It just doesn’t affect me, either.
I break down. Tears spring from my eyes, and noisy, angry sobs burst from my lips.
“Shhh,” he soothes, and I shudder at this first sound from him. His voice used to get beneath my skin. “You’re safe.” I cry harder. Because I don’t feel safe.
I don’t feel anything.
I thought the moment I saw him and Sabine and Gil everything would be right again. Or at least as right as anything could be. Certainly, I’d at least feel better than I did when I left the compound. Like I had finally arrived at the place I’m supposed to be—with the people I’m supposed to be with.
“You’re home. You’re home, Davy,” he assures me.
Home?
Caden’s face fills my mind, his eyes, his voice telling me that we’re a part of each other.
No. It can’t be. He can’t have been right about that. The tears come harder, faster, as I face the truth. I can’t have been wrong, but I know. The knowledge swims through my blood, settling into every particle of me.
This place is not my home.
The rooms are more comfortable than I expected. Behind the small houses and trailers stretches a clapboard building that sleeps eight. It’s reminiscent of military barracks I’ve seen on TV. No air-conditioning, but a fan whirs noisily on top of a table, stirring the warm air well enough. The showers are outside, enclosed by a tent. Sabine pointed them out to me after we grabbed a sandwich from the mess hall. She shares the cabin with three other females, leaving four empty beds. I’m grateful for the arrangement. There’s no picking up where I left off with sharing a room with Sean. I’d rather sleep among strangers than deal with that awkwardness.
Two of her roommates are in the cabin when we enter. She introduces me to them and then sits on the bed beside me, her legs swinging off the side. “We were so worried. Even after the message came through that you were okay, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. You still had to get across, after all.”
“Yeah.” I sink down on the bed across from her. “And I didn’t manage that the first time.”
She frowns and plucks at the blanket covering her bed. “I think the three of us took turns blaming ourselves for that.”
I look at her sharply. “Why? It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I was shot.”
She shrugs. “It’s not hard to come up with reasons to blame yourself. We each thought that we could have done something.”
“You couldn’t have.”
She shrugs again. “I don’t think anyone felt guiltier than Sean.”
And this makes me feel guilty. “How’s he . . . been?”
She looks somewhere over my shoulder. As though there’s something of interest on the wall behind me. “He likes it here. Likes working on the cars.”
I nod, glad that he’s found something to do here that he enjoys. “And you? What about you?”
She looks back at me. “I like it here. They let me work in the school with the children. I take a morning shift. I can probably get you on the same shift.”
Her eyes shine eagerly at me. I nod my agreement, feeling a little numb. I can’t even wrap my head around being here yet . . . seeing my friends. Working in the school seems like a big jump ahead. It feels so long ago since I last saw them, but I know it hasn’t been. Not so long that I should feel this yawning chasm between us.
I spot Sean first. He’s hard to miss. I’d forgotten how big he was. He and Gil and another guy bend beneath the open hood of a truck that doesn’t look like it’s started for the better part of the century. Sabine doesn’t call out, but it’s like he knows. His smoky-blue eyes lift up and lock on her. A slow smile spreads across his face. Then his gaze drifts, evidently catching the movement of me beside her. His hand stills, stops turning whatever it is he was rotating inside the engine.
His gaze scans me, head to toe, missing nothing, not the wounds on my neck or forehead. Even though we haven’t been apart so very long, it feels like forever since I felt his eyes on me. We’re different. Him. Me. I know it instantly. Even further apart than the last time we were together.
I appreciate him almost clinically. His dyed hair is longer, some of his blond already showing at the roots. He’s pulled it back into a short ponytail. The tat on his bicep dances with his movements as he hands off his wrench to the guy beside him and edges around the truck toward us.
He approaches me with his long-legged stride, and I start to hyperventilate. Not really, but it feels that way. As good as he looks coming toward me, there’s another face there, filling my mind. Maybe part of me thought that when I clapped eyes on Sean I wouldn’t think about Caden again. I wouldn’t compare his lean ranginess to Sean’s muscular bulk. That I would remember the way that Sean used to make my pulse stutter, and that’s what I would feel around him again. It would be all that mattered once more. But no. Nothing.
Nothing familiar stirs my blood. If anything, the ache in my chest that’s been there ever since I found that piece of paper in Caden’s desk, ever since I woke up from near death on that exam table, intensifies.
Sean reaches me and hauls me into his arms without a word. He wraps me up, engulfs me in the immenseness of his body, and . . . there’s nothing. His touch doesn’t bother me. It just doesn’t affect me, either.
I break down. Tears spring from my eyes, and noisy, angry sobs burst from my lips.
“Shhh,” he soothes, and I shudder at this first sound from him. His voice used to get beneath my skin. “You’re safe.” I cry harder. Because I don’t feel safe.
I don’t feel anything.
I thought the moment I saw him and Sabine and Gil everything would be right again. Or at least as right as anything could be. Certainly, I’d at least feel better than I did when I left the compound. Like I had finally arrived at the place I’m supposed to be—with the people I’m supposed to be with.
“You’re home. You’re home, Davy,” he assures me.
Home?
Caden’s face fills my mind, his eyes, his voice telling me that we’re a part of each other.
No. It can’t be. He can’t have been right about that. The tears come harder, faster, as I face the truth. I can’t have been wrong, but I know. The knowledge swims through my blood, settling into every particle of me.
This place is not my home.
The rooms are more comfortable than I expected. Behind the small houses and trailers stretches a clapboard building that sleeps eight. It’s reminiscent of military barracks I’ve seen on TV. No air-conditioning, but a fan whirs noisily on top of a table, stirring the warm air well enough. The showers are outside, enclosed by a tent. Sabine pointed them out to me after we grabbed a sandwich from the mess hall. She shares the cabin with three other females, leaving four empty beds. I’m grateful for the arrangement. There’s no picking up where I left off with sharing a room with Sean. I’d rather sleep among strangers than deal with that awkwardness.
Two of her roommates are in the cabin when we enter. She introduces me to them and then sits on the bed beside me, her legs swinging off the side. “We were so worried. Even after the message came through that you were okay, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. You still had to get across, after all.”
“Yeah.” I sink down on the bed across from her. “And I didn’t manage that the first time.”
She frowns and plucks at the blanket covering her bed. “I think the three of us took turns blaming ourselves for that.”
I look at her sharply. “Why? It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I was shot.”
She shrugs. “It’s not hard to come up with reasons to blame yourself. We each thought that we could have done something.”
“You couldn’t have.”
She shrugs again. “I don’t think anyone felt guiltier than Sean.”
And this makes me feel guilty. “How’s he . . . been?”
She looks somewhere over my shoulder. As though there’s something of interest on the wall behind me. “He likes it here. Likes working on the cars.”
I nod, glad that he’s found something to do here that he enjoys. “And you? What about you?”
She looks back at me. “I like it here. They let me work in the school with the children. I take a morning shift. I can probably get you on the same shift.”
Her eyes shine eagerly at me. I nod my agreement, feeling a little numb. I can’t even wrap my head around being here yet . . . seeing my friends. Working in the school seems like a big jump ahead. It feels so long ago since I last saw them, but I know it hasn’t been. Not so long that I should feel this yawning chasm between us.
