Page 73 of Hooked on Trouble

“You always have a choice.”

Our voices have dropped, anger bleeding into resignation. There’s finality to his tone that saps my energy. I love you, I want to say. Us against the world. I cross the widening rift and place my hand over his heart. “I know how important justice and integrity are to you, but this is about family. Saving mine is more important to me than telling the truth. If you’d chosen to break the law for Josh, I would have stood by you. Why can’t you stand by me?”

He winces, like I’ve slapped him. His heart thuds harder, so strong and fast I could almost touch it. “Because you’re right. This is about family. I don’t trust yours. Not by a mile. You put Nikki in jeopardy, and you don’t even care.”

I want nothing but to taste his candy lips again, but he’s blinking like he doesn’t recognize me. And God, I’m so tired of his righteousness. Of him being so hard-nosed about everything. “I do care about Nikki, but Rose promised she’s not involved. You’re freaking out over nothing.”

He steps back, out of reach, and my arm falls to my side. Gone is his anger, all emotion wiped clean. His focused stare is unnerving. “If I were you, I’d keep the hell away from Rose. The only person she’s looking out for is herself. And us”—he motions from my chest to his—“I need some space. A break. The fact that Nikki was here, near Rose, isn’t okay. You may believe your sister, but I don’t. And asking me to lie for you, even by omission, cuts. Deep. I don’t know you as well as I thought, and you definitely don’t know me.”

Bile rises up my throat. No. Fuck, no. No, no, no. That’s not how things were supposed to go. I expected him to push back, give me hell. Not walk away because he needs a break. We’ve shared so much—at the motel, last night, and every day in between. He asked for more, and I gave him everything.

He strides toward the door before I find my voice. “You can’t leave,” I croak. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me again.”

I’m grasping at straws, trying to figure out how things spiraled so wrong so fast. Maybe he doesn’t love me after all, doesn’t feel as strongly as I do. He never did say the words.

He spins and pins me with his gaze. “I’m not the one who did the hurting this time.”

Then he leaves.

Gone.

Shock and loss and incredulity consume me. My beige walls have never looked so stark, the tiny room massive with him gone. My hands shake. My breath trembles. Nico’s sternness just now was the same as it was with Tim, telling the kid if he blew his shot, he wouldn’t be welcome at the rec center. This wasn’t him needing a break. This was him ending things.

I walk into my room, put on the loudest, angriest music I have, and let it blare, hoping a neighbor complains. Send the cops, I think. Send back my sexy cop. But his words and tone and posture were unmistakable. He’s not returning.

Finally, the tears come.

Twenty-three

Raven

Ignorance is bliss. At least that’s how my life was before. Aspen was my emotional ground zero. The start of my downfall. The straw that broke this camel’s back. I don’t even understand that saying. Like how much straw, exactly, can a camel carry? And why straw? Why not something useful like apples or goats or bags of rice? But nope. I’m buried under cereal crops, chaffed and flattened and dried out. Goddamn Nico.

The past four weeks my hurt has morphed into anger, the emotion thick enough to chew. This is why I never offered up my heart, why I kept men at a distance. The hollow left in Nico’s wake is as deep as the chasm Rose chiseled. She’s in jail, refusing to speak with me, and Nico, the man who’d promised he’d be my rock, has shut me out.

As a teacher, I gave my classes the same art history assignment each year: Choose a famous work of art—painting, sculpture, or building—and describe how it’s a reflection of you. It was an exercise in expression, pushing the kids to look deeper, see art as more than lines and shades. For the most part, it worked. The only kid who thumbed the experience was Eric Trembley. His memorable one line: Michelangelo’s David wishes his package was as big as mine. He did not get an A.

If I had to write my five hundred words today, I’d ace the project. I’d be the Leaning Tower of Pisa: crooked, birthed with inadequate foundation, one earthquake from crumbling.

Somehow I’ve held my ground.

I sift through my closet, looking for my Nikon SLR camera. The thing’s a dinosaur, but there’s something about working with film that’s exciting. Sasha and I have been discussing my portfolio, and if I round out the images with hopeful shots of life after living on the street, she thinks she can get me a show. My photos in a real, live gallery.

Yesterday I returned to the slums I visited with Nico. I shouldn’t have gone by myself, but it was my personal fuck you to him. Childish and dangerous, but empowering. I brought blankets and nonperishable food and snapped a pile of photos. I didn’t see Joe or his nutsack, but there was a couple huddled together, kissing like they were by a fire at the Ritz, not in a rat-infested slum. Their love cracked my thin veneer, and I choked on a sob. Still, the hours I’ve poured into photography have been my salvation.

Unable to find my camera, I study my room—for the third time—as though I can conjure it. Then I remember the boxes in the hall closet. My phone buzzes on the way, Shay sending me a text: If we have Sawyer kidnapped by pirates until the wedding, do you think Lily will mind?

As annoying as he’s been, he and this wedding are the only other things keeping me sane, but they don’t keep me busy at night. That’s when the anger I direct at Nico slips. He hasn’t messaged me, and I haven’t messaged him. Stubbornness seems to be our motto. Instead I listen to music. I watch TV. But the second I close my eyes, I see him, crave him. If I open my eyes, I picture Rose behind bars. Loneliness is my constant companion.

Sawyer’s overinvolvement in the wedding is the perfect distraction.

I reply: If we tell him the secret to magic is found at the North Pole, he’ll probably go.

Shay: He’s driving me crazy. Now he wants to drop from the ceiling and do the vows suspended. The man will ruin our business.

Not on my watch. The first Sawyer hurdle was when he suggested getting married on those water hovercrafts. Then he wanted to have the wedding two weeks after Lily put on the ring, refusing all rehearsals, claiming it ruins the beauty of the moment. We settled on two months. The nuptials are four weeks away, the December date fast approaching, and he keeps throwing us curve balls.

Say yes to everything and then do the opposite. I grin at my reply.