I had to do. All I could do, really. I was just a kid back then too. Younger than you are now.”
His gaze unfocused, Cork kept talking like he hadn’t registered what I said. “Whenever the phone used to ring back then, she’d run to get it, expecting it to be you. The look on her face when it wasn’t killed her, and there was nothing me or my dad could do to make it better. Same thing with the mailbox and the computer. She did that for months after you left.”
“I didn’t know.” I shook my head sadly, my gut churning. “She’s shared some with me, but not that.”
“Then my accident.” Cork’s eyes refocused and narrowed. “You weren’t here then either. But she changed after that. She got quieter. Smiled less.”
“She blames herself,” I said, remembering her confession.
“That’s bullshit.” His hands clenched into fists.
“I told her it was.”
“It was my own fucking fault.” Cork’s gaze dropped to his lap. “I was showing off, not being careful like I should have been.”
“It could have happened to anyone,” I said softly, leaning forward more, wishing there was something I could do to comfort him.
“But it didn’t happen to anyone.” He lifted his gaze, his expression and his eyes solid stone. There were hard lessons in his gaze that a boy his age shouldn’t have to know. “Taking care of me, she takes on all the responsibility. She set her dreams aside. She never talks about college. I’m not even sure she does her poetry anymore, beyond the short little rhymes inside her cards.”
“Surely, she can still go to college if she wants to,” I said softly.
“There’s no extra money in the budget for college. Dad had a small life insurance policy. It paid for the funeral, but there wasn’t much left after that. Maybe Ash would help her, if she asked. But she won’t.” He ran a finger along his scar. “After Dad died, she lost something. Hope, I think. How can you dream without hope?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Growing up the way I did, I didn’t ever have much of that. I’d had some, but it wasn’t my own. It came from my best friend, who had enough hope in her bright heart to illuminate both my dreams and hers.
“Don’t tell her who you are,” Cork said abruptly, his features not just hard but sharp.
“It might not be up to me. Being here, surrounded by people who once knew me, who I really am won’t stay a secret indefinitely.”
“You planning on sticking around this time?” he asked, his gaze searching.
Have I made that decision?
I was in the band. I’d signed a contract with Outside. But even if I hadn’t done those things, I knew I didn’t have it in me to leave Lotus again. I was in from the moment I’d seen her at the concert. She was more beautiful, more everything than I could ever have imagined.
“If you’re in with her, go all the way in,” Cork said firmly. “But if you have any doubts, then I want you to end it with her now.”
Lotus
I OPENED THE door and walked into Journey’s apartment like I had the night before. Only now, unlike then, there was sunlight streaming in through the windows. When I entered the living room, I also noticed there was a beautiful photo of the Sunset Cliffs hanging on the wall above a leather couch that hadn’t been inside his empty apartment before.
“End what with who now?” I asked Cork. My stomach cinched tight. I was pretty sure he was recommending that Journey end things with me.
My brother didn’t answer me, but his lips flattened.
Getting out of my shower upstairs and finding him gone, I’d guessed he’d come downstairs to talk to Journey, but not to do this. He liked Journey, and he knew how I felt about OB Hardy’s new guitarist.
Cork avoided my gaze, condemning splotches of red on his cheeks.
I shifted my focus to Journey. He didn’t say anything. The continued silence to my question made my stomach churn.
“Cork is very protective of you,” Journey said.
His voice seemed overly loud after the protracted silence, but fixing my gaze on the warm brown and vibrant flecks of green within his eyes quieted the churn inside me. His gaze was steady, much like his presence. I didn’t question my decision or anything else when gazing into his eyes.
Journey frowned. “He doesn’t like the agreement between you and me. I don’t like it either. If—”
“But you agreed.” My hands curved