driving aimlessly, turning on and off of roads that meant nothing to him.
He didn’t want to go home. But he knew he couldn’t go back.
He needed to go somewhere. Anywhere.
His loyalty to Colin should have been enough to prevent this. All of it. His feelings for Andie, his constant thoughts of her, his undeniable need to be near her. It should have been enough to stop him from going to her tonight. It shouldn’t even be a question in his mind, he realized. It shouldn’t be something he had to fight with himself over.
But it was.
What did that say about him, that his feelings for his friend’s girlfriend were proving to be stronger than his loyalty to that friend?
He sped onto the highway, his subconscious taking the reins. He hadn’t even realized where he was going until he was almost there.
By the time he arrived, nearly an hour had passed since he had left Andie, although it could have been seconds or days; time ran together, an insignificant blur to him.
Chase pulled up to the darkened street and cut the engine, twirling the keys between his fingers before he took a deep breath and exited the car. He knew it was closed, that the gate would be locked, but he also knew that the stone wall around it was low and easy to climb on the left side.
He approached it quickly, his breath visible before him in the darkness, and he placed his hands on top of the wall; with a quick jump, he was up and over the side, walking briskly through the uncut grass, his hands thrust in his pockets. His eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness, barely making out the shapes of things as he passed, but he knew his way around this place better than he would have liked.
Finally he stopped, staring until his eyes could just distinguish its outline. He stood there for what seemed like forever, his eyes focused on the arch of it; the only sound was the rustling of the remaining leaves in the trees, and the low, distant hissing of cars on the wet asphalt.
Slowly Chase dropped to his knees, feeling the soil and the pebbles and the grass beneath his jeans. It had been too long since he’d been here.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around in a while,” he whispered, leaning forward and resting his forehead on the cold, rough stone; almost instantly, he felt the familiar quivering of his chin.
This time he wouldn’t even attempt to fight it; he’d had enough of trying to inhibit his emotions for one night. He felt his eyes begin to well, and at that moment, he welcomed it. He wanted it. He wanted to drain himself of every single emotion that fought for control in his chest until he felt empty.
There had only been two women in Chase’s life who truly meant something to him, who made him want to be a better man.
One of them lay beneath the headstone in front of him.
He exhaled heavily, his head still resting on her grave, and as he closed his eyes, he felt two trails of heat rush down his cheeks, a sharp contrast to the cold air.
Because as much as he wished it wasn’t true, he realized that the other was just as inaccessible.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Every thing in my life that once seemed so significant suddenly felt extremely trivial. It was as if every thought, every feeling, every experience I had before this was just practice for this moment. All at once, the world around me felt real. And for the first time, so did I,” Andie typed, stopping to take a sip of her iced tea before she put the glass down and continued.
In another chapter, she would be finished with the novel.
It had been two weeks since Chase came to her apartment, two weeks since they sat on the piano bench in each other’s arms. Ever since that night, it felt like she was overflowing. It was as if her fingers couldn’t move fast enough to record all the words in her head.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there after he left that night, and she honestly couldn’t remember a single thought that went through her mind. All she knew was that one minute she was sitting immobilized on the piano bench, and the next she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her laptop on her thighs and her fingers flying over the keys.
She wrote for three straight hours that night.
And