Fighting for Rain - BB Easton Page 0,17

was depressed … unemployed, paranoid, mean as a snake, addicted to everything he could get his hands on … but what about her?” The prickly heat of anger in my flushed face fades as my throat tightens with emotion. “She was so good, Wes.” I picture my mama’s beautiful, frazzled, selfless face, and I want to cry. She was the most productive member of society I’d ever met. There are so many things I want to say, so many feelings I haven’t expressed yet, but they’re all too damn painful, so I cover my mouth with the sleeves of my sweatshirt and hold them all in.

I stare at Wes’s lips, hoping the words coming out of his mouth will help take my mind off the ones lodged in my throat.

“I know. But we can’t change what happened. All we can do is say fuck ’em and survive anyway, right? So, how are we gonna survive today? Do you remember your list?”

I swallow down all the things left unsaid and force myself to answer him.

“I … I was supposed to find soap, water, and shelter.” I take a deep breath and straighten my back. “I already found soap, and Mrs. Renshaw said that Q has water barrels, so that only leaves shelter.”

The lips I’m staring at widen and part, revealing Wes’s dazzling smile. I don’t get to see it often, but when I do, it warms my skin like the sun, seeping into my pores and filling me with pride.

I feel my own lips curve upward, mirroring his. I did something right.

“That’s my girl,” Wes says with that grinning mouth, but the moment the words pass over his upturned lips, his smile deflates like a popped balloon. He didn’t like the way they tasted. This new, detached Wes didn’t like calling me his girl.

So my lips fall flat too.

We stand there for a minute—me staring at his serious mouth and him staring at mine—until Wes finally takes a step back and gestures with his hand toward the door. “Let’s go find you some shelter.”

You.

“Let’s go find you some shelter.”

I want to take his arm as I make the short trip across the store, but I’m afraid I’ll prick my finger on the barbed-wire fence he’s building between us.

I don’t know what’s going on with Wes, but he’s eerily quiet as we walk down the hallway. I yank on the metal gates and locked doors of every storefront we pass, but he just follows four feet behind me with his arms folded across his chest.

The distance between us feels like it’s doubling with every step I take.

I turn right at the fountain and head down the hallway, angry tears stinging my eyes.

Hope momentarily chases them away when I spot an old shoe store up ahead with the gate raised. I poke my head inside and peek over the empty chest-high shelves. The vinyl benches that were once used to try on shoes have been clustered together in the center of the store and arranged like living room furniture. Carter’s dad is sitting on one with his head bowed as Carter’s mom and sister stand with their backs to me, probably telling him all about the announcement.

“Never mind,” I whisper, slinking backward out of the store. “This one’s taken.”

When I turn to continue my walk, I find Wes waiting for me with his back against the graffiti-covered wall outside the shoe store. His Hawaiian shirt is open, revealing his bloodstained white tank top and the hint of a gun holster underneath. His head is tilted back, staring up at one of the skylights as if it were clear enough to actually see through, and his profile is the picture of perfection. The sight of him takes my breath away, replacing it with a hollow, empty ache in my chest.

He looks exactly like the man I fell in love with a few days ago. The one who rescued me from an angry mob, got shot for me, ran back into a burning building to find me, and buried my parents’ bodies just to help take away my pain. He looks like the man who refused to let me go when everybody else had left me behind.

But he did let me go. He must have.

Because this guy sure as hell ain’t him.

“You’re not even helping me look,” I snap, stomping past his cool exterior without stopping.

“You’re right.” Wes’s voice is infuriatingly calm as he pushes off the wall.

“Is this some kind of test?” I hiss,