WITH NO TIME TO shower before I was due at the airport, I cleaned up as best I could, knowing I had a ten-hour journey ahead of me. It seemed Walker had gone to do the same because when I re-entered the living area, he was nowhere to be found. I used that time to go back to my room, grab my bag, write what I wanted to say on a sticky note, and return to the kitchen, where I placed the same note inside the cupboard. I heard Walker’s footsteps down the hall as I closed it, so I made my way over to my luggage, only for him to reach it first. It seemed he’d changed into clean sweats.
“I got it, brat.”
I smiled, hiking my bag up onto my shoulder. “You know, I might even miss you calling me that.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up in response, but it wasn’t quite a smile. “You got everything?” he murmured. There was still a slight blush on his sharp cheekbones, a reminder of what happened between us not so many minutes ago.
“I have everything I came with,” I said. Only it felt like I was leaving with a lot less, because everything I came here to do, I didn’t. And everything I wanted didn’t quite work out the way I’d planned.
He nodded, but he worked that jaw of his hard. I wondered what he was thinking, but this time, I refused to press. I was leaving, and he wasn’t stopping me, despite chance after chance.
We entered the elevator and rode downstairs in silence. Over my shoulder, I glanced at him, but he refused to look at me. He was shutting down and closing me out. Whether it was to make it easier on me, or easier on him, I wasn’t entirely sure. He had to know as well as I did neither would work.
The elevator lights highlighted the sharp features of his face, the glimmer of his unique eyes, and the tick in his jaw that continued to work overtime. And still… nothing.
I guess we’d already said everything we needed to say.
We walked through the lobby, the same girl on the desk as the day I arrived. Only this time, he didn’t bother to greet her. It wasn’t just me suffering in his silence; he’d put up a wall. The atmosphere in the lobby was awkward, if not calm. At least until we stepped through the doors and out into the city. The Saturday sun, despite the cold, shone down on us, and I pulled my sunglasses from my bag to place them over my eyes.
Now it seemed, we were both hiding.
It wasn’t just us in the world.
It was us and everybody else.
Finley rolled the car closer when he spotted us. When he stepped out of the car to help Walker with my luggage, Walker held out a hand to halt him. “I got this,” he said dryly.
Finley nodded, popping the lid on the trunk, and then returned to the car as Walker loaded my suitcases inside the vehicle.
“You know,” he said, pulling on the lobe of his ear. “Finley told me you were a pearl.”
My lips pulled into an awkward smile as he rounded the car and met me beside the car door.
I glanced between him and Finley in the front seat. “Finley said that? A pearl?”
He nodded. “He said if I break you, there’d be no way to repair the damage. Because that’s the thing about pearls… once they’re broke–”
I frowned. “Stop it, Walker.”
His eyes narrowed, focused hard on me. “I just need to know before you go, Blue. Back then… Did I break you?” He barricaded me against the car, his fists on either side of me. “Am I the reason you thought of yourself as broken? Because of what I took away?”
I looked down between us to reflect, forcing air into my lungs through my nose. I didn’t want to talk about that night, but it seemed he did. At the most inconvenient time to bring it up again, why did he choose now?
“I couldn’t save her. If I could, don’t you think I would’ve?” he said quietly, his tone pleading.
When I looked back up, I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head and gave him as much eye contact as I could muster. “You did break me,” I admitted. “But that was before I knew it wasn’t all your fault. Growing up, remembering the tragedy in parts, I couldn’t comprehend why I couldn’t just be like everybody else. Why I couldn’t be normal like everybody else.”
I placed my hand against his heart, and though my words felt hoarse, I forced them from my throat. “You didn’t break me, Nate. Meeting you like this, I think it may have even fixed me a little bit.” I shook my head. “I’m not a pearl.”
He dropped his forehead to mine, aiming his head down, his breath fanning over my face. Then he straightened, dropping one last kiss on my temple before stepping back and opening the car door for me with the movement.
He said one last thing to me in a quiet whisper. So quiet it barely touched my ears.
“You could never be like everybody else.”
My heart beat harder with every step he took further away, and then, as quick as my car door closed behind me, he was gone, and the car was already in motion.
