Authors: Rebecca Yarros
“Josh is in the army; well, the Guard.” It had been over two months, and this was the first I’d told Mom. “If he was getting out, then maybe, but he’s going commissioned after graduation. I can’t do it, Mom. I won’t do it.”
She quietly sipped her coffee before answering. “Do you love him?”
I swallowed, struggling for words. “Yes. More than I ever thought was possible. I can’t seem to get over him, but I will. Once he’s gone, I will.” It was more of a promise to myself than a statement to Mom. “Besides, he’s more than moved on.”
“You can’t work through this?” A fire came into her eyes that I hadn’t seen in months. She gave a damn about something. “Love isn’t something you throw away lightly.”
“I’m not living this life, Mom. I want stability, and roots, and one house for the next twenty years where my kids can mark the door frames as they grow. The army is a deal breaker.”
She slightly narrowed her eyes, as if judging whether or not the subject was closed. Wisely, she moved on. “You sacrifice too much, December.” Her eyes darted to the refrigerator, the counter, and the floor before she brought them up to mine. “I need—” Her voice sounded clogged, and she cleared her throat. “I need to say thank you. Thank you for what you did. Thank you for being here, for taking care of everything when I couldn’t.”
“No problem, Mom.” The answer was so easy now, automatic.
“It was a problem. You gave up your school, your life, your plans. Don’t you think I know what your plans mean to you? You gave up too much.”
“Yeah, and it sucked. But we’re family, and someone had to do it. So I did, end of story. Anyone else would have done the same.”
“No, they wouldn’t have!” I cringed as she raised her voice. “You carried this whole house. You carried me! No daughter should have to carry her mother.” She slammed her cup down on the counter.
This had to stop. “What do you want, Mom? Do you want me to tell you I was angry? That I regret leaving Boulder? What’s going to make you feel better?”
“Yes! I need to know how you felt. I never asked how you felt!” Color rose in her cheeks. “I want you as angry about it as I am!”
Something snapped, setting me free. “Fine!” My cup clanged into the sink, my forgotten latte draining. “Yes, I was angry! I was jealous that Chloe Rose held it together for her kids, but you couldn’t manage to get out of bed! I was lost, and confused, and everything went from ordered and perfect to this giant fucking mess of . . . shit!” My chest heaved, trying to keep up with my racing heartbeat. Oh God, I was going to be sick. “You lost your husband, but I lost my father
and
my mother. I lost my boyfriend, and my plans, and my home, and you couldn’t be bothered to show up for me, for any of us.”
“I know.” Her admission was soft, but I was too far gone to pause my reckless tirade.
“You know why I can’t be with Josh? Because I can’t do this again!” I circled my arms around my head. “I can’t be you! I can’t open that door and see them standing there, ready to end everything I ever knew. I can’t.” The tears I’d fought all night, no, the tears I’d fought since December, overflowed and streaked angry paths down my face.
Mom took a step toward me, but I fended her off with an outstretched hand. “No. You don’t see the worst part; that everything was to try and make up for what I did.”
“What could you have possibly done?” She stepped forward tentatively.
“God, Mom! I opened the damn door! You said not to because you knew! And I opened it and let them in. They destroyed our family, and I opened the damn door!”
She closed the distance between us, pulling me against her tighter than she had since I was a small child. “No, Ember. No. There’s nothing you could have done to stop this. Nothing. No part of this is your fault. I should have opened the door. I’m so sorry I wasn’t stronger. So sorry.”
I sobbed against my mother until there were no more tears to be had, not over Dad, Riley, the plans, the colleges, or even Josh. I cried myself clean.
Then I stopped.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I waited almost a week, until Saturday morning, before I decided the price of my integrity was hearing from my dad. I leaned forward in my computer chair, staring at the blinking cursor on the Gmail account. I typed slowly: [email protected].
Password. Right. This was going to be a bitch. I typed in his birthdate and the server spat it back at me. I tried my mom’s name. Declined. A little white box popped up in the center of the screen. “Would you like your hint?”
“Hell yes, I would,” I murmured, clicking on the “ok” button.
The page loaded, and the hint popped up.
Glowing dim as an ember
Things my heart used to know
Chills raced down my arms and legs, as though he was standing right behind me, singing to me again. “Daddy,” I whispered. I clicked on the sign-in again.
Password: OnceUponADecember
His e-mail opened and relief rushed through me, tingling every nerve in my body. I had more of him. The letter wasn’t the last piece anymore. These e-mails weren’t enough, but they would do. Here were his letters, his words. A primal need to claw through the screen gripped me, crying to bury myself in what was left of him, snuggle down among the typed words and find my father.
I looked through his inbox, only glancing on the unopened ones. I didn’t care what other people said, only Dad. There was Grams, Mom, Gus, April . . . me. I clicked on my last e-mail to him, a few days before they came to the door.
Hey, Daddy,
Everything’s great, stop worrying about me. I’m headed down to the Springs tomorrow to spend Christmas with Mom, April, and Gus. No worries, I remember where you hid Mom’s special present, and I won’t let her fall asleep before it’s Santa time. I really wish you could be here. It’s not the same without you.
I love you,
December
My last words to him had been of love and our family. I was good with that. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would. He’d been concerned about me giving away all my dreams for Riley, especially the second year when I dropped my English/History double major pairing and picked up education instead.
But it’s not like I could tell him he’d been right.
I scanned his sent box, my breath catching. Josh Walker.
My finger clicked it open before my conscience could stop it.
Hey Josh,
I’m glad you got the files. I’m sorry I had to scan them in, but I know how fast you needed them, and I didn’t know how long they would take if I used snail mail. I’m glad you’re playing again; you’ve always been a sight out there on the ice. I’m so proud of what you’ve accomplished, and you should be, too. Checking our return dates, I’ll be flirting with the timing, but I might be able to make it back to commission and pin you. I’m so honored that you asked, and I would like nothing more than to see a man like you become an officer. Oh, and thank you so much for uploading the video of the game. Gus is growing too damn fast.
VR,
Justin Howard
I sat in stunned silence. He hadn’t just known Josh, they’d been friends. I knew they’d chatted during hockey practices and such, but never imagined he’d corresponded with him. No wonder Josh had looked so shaken up at the funeral.
I glanced through the e-mail again, my eyes catching on the word “file.” What had Dad sent him from Afghanistan that he couldn’t get back here? I dropped my scruples—hell, I’d already checked them at the door—and opened Dad’s “sent” file, and filtered it to Josh’s e-mail.
Dozens of e-mails popped up, spanning . . . almost two years? They’d been writing each other for two years? The oldest one was simple, asking Josh to consider coaching Gus’s team, Dad saying how great it would be for his injury to get back on the ice when he was ready. Something dropped in my stomach and then clawed up my throat, leaving a sickly sweet taste in my mouth. There was more to this, something deeper.
My breath shuddered as I scanned the right-hand side, looking for the paperclip that signaled an e-mail attachment. There were more than a few, mostly clips of Gus playing hockey. Josh kept Dad connected in a way none of us could, through the sport he and Gus loved and shared. Gratitude overwhelmed me.
I opened the e-mail with the subject “found the records,” from this August, and clicked.
Hey Josh,
Here are the records I found in our system. Tell the Guard to get their act together and do a backup every once in a while, eh? Better yet, come active and forget about it. I’m thrilled to help get you back on a team where you belong. Things here are the same: long hours and tough calls. Do me a favor, run by the house and force June to let you cut the grass? That woman takes on too much. Ember’s back at school now with her jerk-faced boyfriend. You know, if you’d ever like to show up and steal her away for a bit, that’d be fine with me. Hint. Hint. But really, let me know what else you need, UCCS is lucky to have a player like you.
VR,
Justin Howard
He’d tried to set me up with Josh? He had to have been kidding. Dad loved Riley, didn’t he? Had he just faked it because he thought I was happy? I pushed the question aside and clicked on the document. Josh’s medical records popped onto the screen. It wasn’t his full records, just a collection of pages that began in early July two years ago.
Why would Josh ask my dad for his records if the Guard lost them?
I pushed back from my desk. There were too many questions, and I was done feeling confused and lost. I deserved answers.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I was walking for the door.
“Where are you going dressed like that?” Sam laughed from the couch, lounged out in her pajamas.
My hair was pulled on top of my head in a messy knot, the result of no effort. I waved my hand to her and headed out the door in my jean shorts and layered ribbed tank. I didn’t bother with shoes. I told myself I didn’t care what he thought I looked like anyway as I knocked on his door.
“Hold up!” Jagger’s yell was muffled by the door, the loud television, and giggles. For the barest second, I thought about running, but it wasn’t an option, not if I wanted to figure this out. The door swung open and Jagger appeared, his eyebrows shooting up at the sight of me. “Hey?”
My smile was tight and close-lipped. “Is, um, is Josh here?” I could barely get the words out of my mouth. Saying his name was still torturous, even almost three months later.
Jagger smiled through his shock. “Yeah, yeah, come on in.”
I followed him down the hallway and made the turn that mirrored the floor plan of our own apartment into the living room. “Walker, you’re not going to believe who’s—”
“Holy shit.” Josh cut him off, immediately standing, which was unfortunate for the co-ed who had been perched on the arm of the couch next to him. He caught her just before she hit the floor, and then set her aside. “Ember?” His eyes raked up and down my frame, and I didn’t miss the stab of desire that raced through them. Glad I could stoke the fire he had for . . . oh, yes it was. Tweedledee and Tweedledum both glared at me.
Jagger hit the mute button on the TV, and whatever slapstick comedy they were watching fell silent. For a moment, I couldn’t speak; I was too lost in looking at him. For the last few months, I hadn’t let myself meet his eyes. I’d sat next to him in class, smiled in his general direction when he said something amusing to our professor, but I’d avoided looking at him like the plague. Losing myself here was the reason.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Neither was Jagger, but nothing affected me like Josh’s bare chest. He was still cut like a dream. If anything, his muscles were larger, more defined, especially the lines that ran into his black basketball shorts. And his tribal tattoo wasn’t just black anymore; it had ice and flames dancing through it and around it, all originating from the area over his heart. I tried not to swallow my tongue, or think about how badly I ached to kiss him. “New ink?”
Ten feet separated us, but we may as well have been naked together, or ten thousand miles apart, it was the same difference, really. “Yeah.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Tweedledum glared at me, crossing her arms under her breasts to shove them up through her neckline.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb your, eh”—I gestured to the room—“date. I just need to ask Josh a quick question.”
“You came all the way over here to ask him a question?” the girl fired back.
I looked to Josh, but he looked too awestruck to answer, refusing to take his eyes from me. My cheeks flamed. “I’m his next-door neighbor, and—”
“And she’s done explaining herself to you,” Josh interjected, finally coming to life. “Ember, what’s up?”
The way he said it, his voice curving around the words, made me want to ask him for more than information. Then I thought about the way his bed had pounded against my wall. He’d moved on. I steadied myself with a deep breath and hugged my waist. “You didn’t tell me how close you were to my dad.”
His jaw flexed, and his face paled. “That’s not really a question if you already know the answer.” His hand raked over his head, through his short hair, a style I now knew he kept for the Guard. “But yeah, we were friends.”
“What’s with the records? Why would you ask my dad for them? Why not go to Evans Hospital here?”
He swallowed. “Did you read them?”
I shook my head. “No, they’re yours. I saw the date and stopped.”
He walked in through his bedroom door and motioned me inside, but I wasn’t sure I could walk into that room. “Come on, Ember. I won’t take advantage of you.” The smile he gave me was small and didn’t reach his eyes. It was gone almost as quickly as it came.
“You can take advantage of me!” Tweedledum sang after him. Then she leaned in close to whisper so only I could hear. “The body on that man is just.. . . .”
I shook her off and walked toward him before she could finish. If I had to choose between the lion’s lair and the snake pit? Well, at least I knew the lion. I glanced around, noting that nothing had changed. He’d even put the picture from state back on the wall. I thought twice about sitting on the bed and instead chose to stand while he rummaged in his closet. Finally, he came out with a gray handled filing case.