Page 44 of Broken Strings
Less than a minute later, I hear him swim by, humming the song he’d penned for Layla at the beginning of the summer. I don’t let out my breath until I’m sure he’s out of sight, and then I flop over onto my back, exhaling a sob as my adrenaline crashes with a bang.
Tears track down my face, pooling in my ears as I stare at the beautiful blue sky above me. My heart pounds so hard beneath my breastbone I fear it might just explode as I grip my locket in my fist, praying for it to help centre me.
I focus on inhaling and then exhaling.
Slowly.
Evenly.
And before I know it, my eyes flicker shut as I fall into a deep, trance-like sleep.
CHAPTER11
CADEN
“When I came around,I trudged back upriver through the daisy meadow opposite the old Mill and into the field of wildflowers. You were there, surrounded by emergency responders. Layla and Noah too, but Archer…”
I swallow roughly, finding the lump in my throat impossible to swallow around.
“He was nowhere to be seen until…until he was found not too far from where I’d hidden. I would have saved him if I hadn’t zoned out—I swear to you, Caden…I swear…”
Summer drops her hands from my face, tearing her tear-filled eyes from mine. She tries to step backwards, but I hold fast to her upper arms.
“Caden, please. Let me go.”
She refuses to meet my eyes, so I gently shake her, making her look up. When she does, the pain in her expression forces the air from my body in the space of a heartbeat.
“Summer, just wait—”
“No!” Her cry fills the night around us, echoing across the lake and beyond. “Don’t yousee? It was my fault he was in that river. I hit his head. He was disoriented, and he drowned as a result. It wasmyfault. Ikilledyour brother.”
Her breath catches on a sob, and that opens the floodgates so that all I can do is gather her in my embrace, waiting until she’s ready to hear what I have to say.
To say her story has floored me doesn’t even come close. The idea that Archer, the brother I have spent half my damn life hero-worshipping, had not only concocted butenacteda plot so vile, it makes my skin crawl.
Hedruggedme.
I almost fuckingdrowned.
HeattackedSummer…
A shudder ripples through my body when I think of how she must have felt. How she’s lived with this for so long, alone and so far from those who love her.
Anger follows rapidly on the heels of my distress. Anger that Archer had gotten what he wanted. He’d taken her from me; the life that we should have lived together had been stolen out from under us.
I want to scream and shout. I want to drag him back from the beyond to ask him what the fuck he was playing at. The fact that I’ll never get the answers I so desperately need frustrates me even further as I seethe over his most brutal betrayal.
Once Summer’s soft cries have eased, and I’ve reined in my own heightened emotions, I bring us further onto the dock towards the cushioned space.
“Let’s sit, Bambi.”
She allows me to ease her to the ground, where I settle in at her back, holding her close against my chest. Her breathing has calmed slightly, though she’s trembling like a leaf.
“Summer…I’m sorry that all of this happened to you. I—I’m sorry you’ve had to live under such guilt forsofucking long. But I need you to hear me when I say this, okay?”
She nods as she turns her face to rest her forehead against my cheek, her gentle breath ghosting across my neck.
“It’snotyour fault my brother is dead. It was a tragic accident. There’s no room for blame here.”
