Page 85 of Challenge Me

“How about a code word? Will you remember to use it if you get overwhelmed?”

Her lips pushed outward as she thought about it. “Yes.”

“Okay. We’ll go with ‘raven’. And after you say it, you’re going to do one thing while I shove everyone away from you. You’re going to breathe. Just breathe.”

“Breathe,” she repeated. “Sounds stupid.”

“You think everything’s stupid.”

I pulled my headphones out of my backpack, then settled them over her ears and made sure the noise-canceling feature was on. I held out my hand, not expecting her to take it, but she surprised me. We walked through the crowd together, and I shot menacing looks at anyone who got too close. When we were in front of the Mustang, a smile split her face, and she released me to pose in front of it like the last one.

A flicker of doubt made my hands shake as I took the picture. When Oli met Dean’s family for the first time, he’d expressed a similar fear: What if I get used to this?

In his case, he’d never known what family was like. That sudden feeling of belonging had scared the shit out of him because it was entirely foreign to him, and the thought of it disappearing was unimaginable. I was sure that was the real reason he’d never had any desire to learn who his parents were or why he’d gone into foster care the moment he was born, despite his claim that the past didn’t matter to him. He had been afraid to belong for the first time because not a single person had ever wanted to keep him, despite how pure and perfect he was.

He believed that was better, and I’d never thought it important to tell him he was wrong. Sure, he didn’t have that baggage to carry around, that tangible loss, but I would never give up the too-brief period of time when I got to know the love of my parents. I didn’t let myself think of them if I could help it, but like I’d told Amir, it was the memory of the feeling rather than the memories themselves that stuck with us. And that I remembered vividly.

As I looked at this girl with her tie-dye shirt, some knots in her hair, and a car in her hand, I was overcome by the truth that was written in the stars of my fate. No amount of knowledge could alter it, just like nine days and nights on Yggdrasil couldn’t free Odin from the inevitable.

The truth was, I didn’t deserve these people. Not Amir, and especially not Mal. Maybe in another life, but not this one. Eventually, I broke everything I touched. Cole had reminded me of that often enough.

A month wasn’t enough for Amir to see who I really was. Despite all of my healing and the ways I’d remade myself, I was still the same nine-year-old boy beneath the surface: lost, broken, stripped of the light that burned inside a human soul.

It wasn’t that I was afraid this would slip away from me. I knew that it would, or more likely, it would be ripped away, leaving me digging, digging, digging, never able to find the bones that had left me hollow.

I painted on a bright smile as I pointed to a gorgeous car a couple rows down. “What about that one?”

She nodded and grabbed my hand, pulling me with her. I took out my phone to send a text to Amir so he wouldn’t worry. As long as she was enjoying herself, I didn’t want to rush her. This was how good memories were made, after all.

Chapter 23

Amir

It was getting late and Remi wasn’t back yet. It was hard not to worry, even though he sent me a text every thirty minutes. I hadn’t been prone to anxiety until I became a parent, but now my mind would come up with the dumbest things, like: What if he had sold Mal on the black market?

A couple of the guys shot looks at each other, and I wondered if I’d missed something. Jeffrey was face-first in his phone, and there was a grimace on his lips.

“Darya,” Shawn called.

I watched warily as he made his way over to me. Given his already pissy mood, I didn’t want to push him.

“What’s up?” I asked.

His frown only deepened. Turning his phone around, he showed me an article.

“Oh, great. What’d I supposedly do now?”

I shut my mouth when I read the title: Too Soon for Fatherhood? Red Sox Scandal Deepens With Loss of Child at Car Show.

Snatching the phone, I scrolled. There were pictures, which made my blood turn cold. In one, Remi was simply staring down at his phone. It was captioned: Remi Keane ignores his boyfriend’s daughter in a crowd of people. Another showed Mal running with her hands over her ears. There was a video, which was allegedly sent in by an anonymous source, that depicted Remi calling for her while he shoved his way through the crowd. He climbed onto a truck frantically, then the video ended.

“How recent is this?” I asked as I checked when he’d last texted me. Twenty-five minutes ago.

Fuck, was she still lost? How long had it taken Clara to get this article up? There wasn’t much in the body of it except that updates could be expected ‘as the situation unfolds’.

“Just now,” Shawn answered.

“I need to go.”