Tahoe
“You sure you don’t mind?” I asked Penna as we sat in front of her giant fireplace in her giant house with my giant broken heart. It had been two days since I walked out on Landon. The first night I’d spent at Leah’s—the most logical place to go, but I knew if I stayed with her, Paxton would find out and tell Landon.
So we came up to the one place the other Renegades would never look for me—Penna’s lake house in Tahoe.
“Not as long as you pass me one of those,” she said, motioning to the bag of marshmallows in my pajama-clad lap. Best part of no boys? No makeup, hair up in knots, pajamas and slippers all around.
Leah passed the bag to her, taking one for herself, and we all roasted our fluffy white treats over the fire. It toasted, turning brown the longer I held it over the flames. Its once soft exterior hardened, forming a protective shell around what was becoming an overly tender center.
I dipped it lower with my skewer until the flames caught, catching the marshmallow on fire, then brought it out to watch the flames consume it. That was what happened when you got too close to the fire. It didn’t matter that you’d already hardened—if you touched the flames, you got burned.
“Rachel?” Leah prompted.
I quickly blew out the marshmallow the way I wished someone could do for me—I still felt like my heart was on fucking fire. I spun my skewer, looking at the marshmallow from every angle. Sure, the flames were gone, but all that was left was a charred mess. The weight became too much for the blackened mess, and it slid down the skewer toward my hand, leaving its gooey insides a sloppy mess along the metal rod.
I wondered when I’d get to that stage—when I’d no longer be able to keep my emotions safely locked away.
“So, are you going to eat that, or…?” Penna asked.
I glanced over and saw both of them staring at me with faces like they expected a psychotic break at any moment.
“Nope,” I said, wiping the marshmallow off with a paper towel. “It’s ruined.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Leah asked softly. “You’ve been a locked box since you showed up at my door two days ago.”
“Nope,” I answered, reaching for another marshmallow.
“Oh, no, we’re not going to help you torture harmless tasty treats,” Leah said, snatching the bag away. “It’s comfort food only.”
I sighed and stretched my legs out to the side, close enough to the fire to feel the intense heat, but not close enough to burn myself.
That’s what I should have done with Landon. Kept him just far enough away to keep the singe off me.
“Are you sure?” Penna asked, licking her fingers clean. “I’m a really good listener.”
“I’m good,” I promised.
“And I’ll never tell them—the boys,” she added.
“Seriously, I’m fine,” I lied. “I don’t need to talk about it. I just want to forget it all happened.”
“The stuff with your dad? Or Landon?” Leah asked, knowing the barest basics of why I’d run.
“I don’t want to talk about them,” I reiterated.
“Okay,” she said slowly.
I didn’t even want to think about it. That just stirred up the feelings—the ones that felt like they were choking me in their need to be expressed, while my brain was shoving them back inside to stay sane. Sanity was good. It was safe.
“I mean, what good is talking about it going to do?” I asked, staring into the fire. “It’s not going to take us back two years. It’s not going to stop Landon from taking money from my dad to walk away from me. It’s not going to change the fact that no matter what I do, I will never compare to the Renegades. I’ll never be enough to be his number-one priority. Talking about it won’t change the way it feels—like my soul is being shredded by a cheese grater.”
“So you don’t want to talk?” Penna asked.
“No!” I snapped, feeling the tightly reined tethers of my control slipping. “He took money for me! And what’s worse—my father paid him. Is this the Middle Ages? Am I worth more than a cow and two pigs?”
“Technically, those went to the husband for taking you—” Penna said.
“He threw me away—us away—so that he could have his sponsorship, his dream. But he was my dream. He was all I wanted, and I’d given up everything for him. And Dad watched me cry. He held me together and helped me pack up what I’d unboxed in the apartment. He helped me take care of breaking the lease and getting into Dartmouth. He saw how heartbroken I was and said nothing. Nothing! Just assumed he knew what was best for me and then manipulated Landon out of my life.”
“So you’re more mad at your dad,” Leah said, scooting close enough that our hips and shoulders touched.
“Yes!” I shook my head. “No. Dad offered Landon everything he wanted, so yeah, that fucking sucks, but it was Landon who took it, who walked away without so much as a backward glance.”
“He looked backward,” Penna said softly.
My narrowed gaze snapped to hers. “You’re defending him?”
“What happened was shitty, and I can’t defend what he did to you, but I know the pressure he was under. Our parents…” She sighed. “Our parents aren’t all the Waltons. We are each other’s family. Landon chose to protect his family.”
“Just when I was starting to like you,” I grumbled.
“He’s my brother.”
“I know. Sometimes I just wish that he’d let me in that close, to put us on that same level, and I don’t think he ever will.” I sucked in a breath as my chest tightened and closed my eyes against the prickle of tears. I could not cry over Landon. Never again.
“I have to go home tomorrow,” Leah said after a few moments of silence. “It’s Christmas Eve, and my parents will kill me if I don’t show up.”
“Of course,” I told her, missing her already.
“Do you want to come with? There’s plenty of room. Or you, Penna?” Leah offered.
Penna shook her head. “My parents are with Brooke, and I’m honestly okay with it. She needs them more than I do, and I kind of like the silence. It’s perfect for not talking about the things you need to.” She shot me a pointed look.
“I’m not talking about it.”
She just nodded.
I looked at Leah’s pleading eyes and nearly gave in. “No. I’m staying here with Penna like we planned. I can’t see either of my parents right now. The phone call to tell them that I was safe was hard enough, let alone the dozen calls I’ve sent to voicemail from both of them. I mean, for fuck’s sake, does everyone lie and cheat? Do any of us have a shot at a normal relationship?”
Leah bit her lip, and I wished I could take the words back.
“I mean, other than you and Wilder.”
“No, totally. I knew what you meant. Just…you know, if you need to talk, you can call me at any point.”
I shifted my gaze back to the fire, watching the flames dance and crackle. “No. I don’t need to expose how fucking stupid I am—what an utter moron I must be to have fallen for him again.”
“Rachel,” Leah said softly.
I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them to hold myself together. “I let him in. I knew I shouldn’t, and I did anyway. Being with him felt so stupidly right, and I let myself get carried away by the trip, and the way he’s always been able to get me, and the sex…God, the sex. And I let everything fool me into believing that maybe we had a shot, that we could make it.”
“I still think you can,” Penna said, picking at her cast.
“Seriously?”
“I think he’s changed. Losing you…it altered him, and I think the Landon you love now wouldn’t make that same choice.”
“He hasn’t changed.” My voice broke, and the grief I’d tucked away reared its ugly head, consuming me in one swift wave. God, it hurt. Everything hurt.
“What do you mean?”
“Your contracts are up next month, so one call to my dad and there’s even more money on the table if he’ll just walk away again.”
“You’re shitting me,” Penna said, sitting up straight.
“Nope, it’s the truth. Dad outed him. The Renegades have been in negotiations for the sponsorship for months. What convenient timing, getting me to fall back in love with him just in time to play his trump card with my father.”
“I didn’t know,” she promised softly, reaching over Leah to rest her hand on my arm. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. I never would have let that happen.”
“Oh my God, is that…is that why Pax brought you—us—on board?” Leah whispered in horror.
“I don’t know. No matter what happens with Landon, I know that Wilder loves you, Leah. That is something I would bet my life on, so no matter what, you can’t let this affect what you have. One of us deserves a happy ending.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Penna seethed.
“Please…just…I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want you to talk about it with him. Can we just have a quiet couple of weeks before we have to go back?”
“I’m glad you’re still going,” Leah said.
“He’s taken everything from me…twice, and I can’t let him take any more. I want to finish the trip, and now with all the shit going on with my parents, going to Korea feels more important than ever. So I can deal with the ship as long as Landon stays the hell away from me.”
“We’ll help you,” Penna promised. “After I kill him. Sorry, I know you love him—”
“I don’t love Landon now,” I bristled. My heart screamed at the lie, and a sharp, physical pain ran through me. My eyes fluttered shut, and I leaned my forehead on my arms as I subtly rocked. How was I going to face him? “Losing him that first time nearly killed off my heart. I still don’t know how I was able to fall for him again… How am I going to get through this?”
Leah wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “Just like we did before.”
I rolled my head onto her shoulder as the first tears fell, streaking down my face to land on her shirt. “I need to hate him, and I do.”
“I know.” She rested her temple against the top of my head.
“It hurts so much more this time,” I admitted on a sob.
“I know.” She took my hand with hers. “It’s going to be okay. All of it.”
“Why can’t I be enough for him?” I cried.
“You are. You are always enough. Once this passes, you’ll see it, you just need to get through the worst of it, and there’s no timeline for heartbreak. You of all people know that.”
“This wasn’t what I pictured, or how I planned. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. Why did I let him in again?”
She tightened her arms around me. “Because love makes us do things we swear we’ll never do.”
I dragged another stuttered breath through my lungs, shaking my chest. “I don’t want to love him.”
“I know.”
We left the rest unspoken, because uttering the words would have made me even more of an idiot. No matter how he’d hurt me, how obvious it was that I could never trust him, it didn’t change the fact that even broken, bleeding, pretty damn pulverized, my heart still belonged to him. Traitorous bitch.
