Light Unshaken (Unveiled #2)

by Crystal Walton

  “Later, okay?” he yelled once more.

  Always later. I hung up. The stress of everything going on weighed my phone to my side.

  Someone approached from the opposite corner. I flinched again. The same alarm from seeing him in the classroom fueled the heat already spreading through my body.

  He raised his palms. “It’s not what you think.” His accent lined up with the Puerto Rican flag tattooed on his left shoulder. He eased closer.

  My pulse thundered.

  I backed away, but he kept approaching. “T went too far. I’m not like . . . I just wanna—”

  I turned to run and fumbled straight into A. J.

  He steadied me by my wrists, moved me behind him, and pinned the kid against the wall with a forearm to his throat. “If you ever so much as think about touching her . . .”

  The corners of the kid’s eyes sagged the same way they had the night I first saw him.

  I grabbed A. J.’s heaving shoulders without understanding why. “Stop.”

  A. J. slackened his hold, an undeniable warning still radiating in every movement.

  The kid hunched over his knees until he regained his air supply. Straightening, he flicked a terse nod at A. J., like he respected his reaction or something.

  Trey appeared at the other end of the hall. “Dee,” he yelled.

  The kid looked between all three of us, then pounded through the side exit, head down.

  “Dee?” Trey called after him again, but he didn’t slow.

  A spray can fell out of his backpack onto the threshold. The door swung behind him and caught it in the jamb. Clashing metals clanked into each other. The bang shuddered down the hall with waves of a question that wouldn’t let me go. What was he doing here?

  chapter twelve

  Rewritten

  I bolted straight up in bed. Dampened sheets fell to my lap. Another nightmare. Same as the last two nights after running into Dee in that hallway.

  Vivid memories of the attack clung to the shadows in my room and stole the ease of falling asleep that I’d found in Riley’s arms all summer.

  A month apart confirmed the days would move forward, with or without my heart. I’d learned that much last year. But now, even dreams lost the solace they used to provide.

  My cell’s blue notification light blinked against the white ceiling. I tucked the phone under my pillow to block the glow. Not sure why I bothered. Jaycee had probably grown accustomed to seeing it as much as I had.

  Most mornings greeted me the same way. My phone by my side, waiting to relay another of Riley’s apologetic messages for returning my call after I’d already gone to sleep.

  I bundled my blankets and strained to find a hint of his faded scent left on them.

  Jaycee reached across her nightstand and tapped her halogen lamp to life. “Don’t worry, you guys will figure it out.”

  “Not if his schedule has anything to do with it.” How was he keeping up with these insane hours?

  Jaycee slipped her feet out of the covers and untwisted an eye mask from her hair. “It’s just gonna take a little time. Long distance relationships are hard.”

  People shouldn’t be able to wake up coherent enough to rattle off adages.

  “Thanks for pointing that out.” I trudged to my dresser.

  My phone buzzed. Jaycee pinched her lips together, probably biting back some loaded comment, and flitted out of the room to give me some privacy.

  “You’ll never guess who I met with,” Riley said the second I answered. He waited, suspense mounting. “Tim McGraw! Can you believe it?”

  Of course I could. “That’s awesome.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t take your call last night. Jess managed to get me an interview with Tim, and I only had a half hour to drain him of advice for an up and coming artist.”

  Giddiness would’ve overpowered his voice if shards of exhaustion weren’t splintering through. “This is crazy, right? Sometimes, I’ll be at the studio and think, this can’t be real. This can’t really be happening.”

  “It’s not crazy. You’re where you belong.” I slid into my desk chair and curled the corners of my textbook pages back and forth. If I could, I’d be there with him.

  “Em?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I asked how work was going?”

  I shifted in my seat. It killed me not to be able to talk to him about what happened. It was hard enough trying to keep it on the down low from people I barely knew. Hiding it from my best friend was pure torture. But I loved him too much. He needed to focus on his career, not me.

  “We’re still in the red, but I’m hoping we have a potential grant lead.” As long as those creeps didn’t find a way to sabotage this one too.

  “Well, if you and Trey have anything to do with it, it’ll work out.”

  His words weaved a knot in my throat. If I failed these kids, I’d—

  “Listen, I gotta run. Jess just pulled up. We have a breakfast date.”

  My heel slipped off the seat. “A date?”

  “With some bigwigs. Business stuff.”

  Stuff that was bonding them. The knot swelled and expanded down my chest.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Where was my voice? I clamped my hand over my knee to stop my foot from tapping a hole in the carpet. Useless. I pushed off the chair and paced instead. “It’s just . . . how closely do you and Jess work together exactly?”

  In spite of my gritted teeth attempting to hold it back, the question and its implications sputtered out with all the pent-up emotions tangled around them.

  “Emma.” Audible disappointment raked over the sound of my name. “Do you honestly think Jessica—or anyone else for that matter—could hold a candle next to you?”

  A candle only burned for so long.

  Someone slammed on a car horn in the background. He heaved a sigh. “I gotta go.”

  And I had to stay.

  Phone on my desk, I kept pacing. I trusted him. It wasn’t that. As hard as it was to be apart, he was where he needed to be. He deserved to pursue his dreams, deserved to thrive in them. But what if those dreams ended up distancing him from an old life he’s outgrowing?

  If Trey’s marriage fell apart after decades, was it naive to think our relationship would make it through a separation this early on? It’d made sense to stay, but was my time at the center really making a difference anyway?

  Pacing didn’t silence the unanswered questions. Grasping for distraction, I grabbed the lonely guitar stashed in the corner of the room and sat on my bed.

  It used to bring me comfort. Now, it felt out of place no matter how I positioned it across my lap. Its ease, lost. My fingers screeched against the strings and dragged down the face of the wood. Maybe music wasn’t the best diversion either.

  I resorted to the unemotional companion of studying instead. Only a half hour into prepping for a statistics exam, I shut my notes inside my textbook along with more reminders of how indifferent odds could be.

  A soft patter on the window multiplied into a steady flow of raindrops tap-dancing down the pane. I stared at the reflection trapped in the glass. The same emptiness from last year bordered dangerously close to reclaiming a hold over my eyes. What was wrong with me?

  The bedroom door creaked open. I jumped in my seat.

  Jaycee pranced in. “Enough with the books. It’s Friday.” She peeked at her cell. “Okay, I guess you can study a little longer, but we’re going out tonight.” She shook her finger at me before I could spout off my scripted objection. “And no buts.”

  At this point, I’d try anything. I clambered up from my chair. “Where are we going?”

  In front of the mirror, she fluffed out her hair. “Nuts and Jolts.”

  The place Riley and I first met. Fabulous.

  She fanned through her closet. “A night out with your friends is exactly what you need.”

  “An extra-large chai won’t hurt either.” Surely, those delectable Indian spices
could pass for some sort of therapy.

  She tied a glittery scarf over her plain jean jacket and turned with a brown ankle boot in either hand. “It’ll be fun.”

  Fun. I mulled over the word and waited for it to settle into a place of familiarity. As long as I was with my friends, I could have fun. Even at Nuts and Jolts, right?

  As usual, Jaycee seemed to interpret the expression on my face. She crossed the room, wrapped her arms around me from behind, and sank her chin onto my shoulder. “No one expected this to be easy for either of you.”

  The deep, compassionate eyes looking at me in the mirror didn’t hold a hint of chastisement. “Just don’t lose sight of the things you know to be true.”

  I stared past her, temporarily transported to the front of the airport. “That’s what he told me the day he left. Made me promise to trust his love no matter what. I never thought that’d be a hard promise to keep.” I pulled a teal sweater over my head and tried to tame my hair and my voice. “What if he doesn’t come back, Jae?”

  She rubbed my arm. “I know things have changed, but not the ones that matter.”

  What if you’re wrong?

  chapter thirteen

  Open Arms

  A baseline of chatter rumbled over the floorboards and echoed off the café’s cobblestone walls. The absence of music hollowed the raw ache in my chest as much as the spotlight that first introduced me to Riley now hollowed the empty stage.

  I wound my tea bag string around my mug handle a third time.

  Jaycee angled toward me, away from the rest of our friends. “You all right?”

  My tea bag string unraveled. “Yeah.”

  Her question jarred me back to our table where our friends sat, each with a spark of life I was missing out on.

  Trevor slapped five wooden tiles onto the Scrabble board covering most of the tabletop. “Fifteen points, baby.” He threw his hands up in a gangster pose. “Booyah.”

  Jaycee chucked a balled-up napkin at him. Becky giggled. But I couldn’t latch on to their energy. Their conversation dissolved into background noise as the vacant wooden stage swept into focus again from the corner of the room.

  Images of Riley with his guitar and microphone flashed in and out like a candle flickering in the wind—his light constantly on the verge of disappearing altogether.

  I stared at my sapphire engagement ring and traced the sides of the stone. I shouldn’t have felt this way. It wasn’t like last year when I thought he left because he didn’t want me. But the helplessness of watching him fade slowly . . .

  A shriek exploded in front of me. My head shot up from my lap.

  “Aah! Trevor!” Becky lunged from the table to dodge the stream of water gushing over the side.

  Trevor snagged every napkin within reach and compressed them over the expanding pool. “Sorry, Becky,” he said between chuckles. “Little too much caffeine in that last espresso. Didn’t mean to bump the table.”

  Jaycee raised her empty mug to her lips to shield her laughter. Following her lead, I reached for my own laugh suppressor but stopped midstream when A. J. caught my gaze.

  All humor drained away with the rest of Becky’s drink dripping onto the floor. A scrutinizing stare trapped me in a moment of connection I couldn’t explain or escape.

  With one labored blink, a careful display of indifference confiscated his eyes again. He diverted his attention to Becky and the commotion still bouncing around us.

  No one else seemed to have noticed, but I saw it. Felt it. And worse, I didn’t know what else to do except pretend I hadn’t.

  The drone of my friends’ conversation lulled me back to my thoughts until a series of screeching chair legs cued me it was time to leave.

  The day’s earlier drizzling had progressed into steady beads of oversized raindrops. Everyone congregated in a huddle at the door. Trevor hooked an arm around Jaycee’s waist and made a run for it to the back row of cars. Squeals followed Becky and Ashlea’s trail. I lagged behind, not giving the rain the satisfaction of penetrating beyond the surface.

  “Well, this seems oddly familiar.” A. J. strode up alongside me with his hands in his pockets and eyes sharper than the ragged gravel under our feet.

  “Blank stare, shoulders hunched, detached from the world. You should really stop letting him do this to you. It’s not healthy.” The edge that’d stormed the look he shot me across the table earlier seared into the bite of his sarcasm now.

  Rain beat onto my hot cheeks. “Riley isn’t doing anything to me.” If I’d asked him to stay, he would have. What made A. J. presume he had a clue about what was going on between Riley and me, anyway?

  “Right,” he said. “You just think depression’s an admirable trademark. Is that it?”

  I swallowed the sting. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  He caught my elbow and drew us both to a standstill in the middle of the parking lot. “And why is that? ‘Cause I’m not capable of the kind of love you two share?”

  “You know that’s not what—”

  “Forget it.” He let go of my arm and blew past me. Gravel churned.

  He braked several feet away, something unspoken suspending him in place. “I’m more compassionate than you think.” He turned. “I know where this path leads you, Em. I watched you walk down it before, remember?” An undertone of sadness bled into the frustration darkening his face. “Not this time.”

  Each stride away from me pushed the impact of his words deeper into my heart.

  It wasn’t just about Riley leaving. Trey’s divorce, the attack, Dee, the rejections, this constant tension between us. It was too much. Couldn’t he see that?

  My chest heaved with every pent-up word I wanted to say. I didn’t care if everyone was staring at me or that it was pouring down rain. Nothing mattered except someone who was supposed to be my friend stalking off.

  Layers of tangled emotions burned hot in my throat. “You want to walk away? You want to avoid me? Fine. As if that would be any different from the entire summer.”

  If anger was what it took to break through his shield of apathy, then let him be angry. Let him be furious. At least that was something real.

  He advanced straight toward me.

  Fight draining, my voice depleted to a hoarse whisper by the time he reached me. “You promised, A. J. You promised we’d still be friends.” Rain dripped from my hair and blended into tears I didn’t bother to wipe away.

  Less than a foot across from me, he hesitated for the slightest moment and then drew me close. Despite my resistance, he held on until I finally gave in and clung to his shoulders to keep from falling apart.

  “I’m trying,” he whispered.

  Minutes passed. Neither of us spoke. Raindrops played percussion against the hoods of the cars around us. Our friends must’ve left in Trevor’s Outlander. When I withdrew from A. J.’s arms, we were the only ones left in the parking lot.

  The reality of what had just taken place set in. Perfect. I’d let A. J., of all people, witness my meltdown.

  He pitched a tent with his hands above his head, a slow grin hiking his cheek to the left. “Mind if we get out of this rain now, or were you intentionally going for the wet cat look?”

  If he were anyone else, it wouldn’t have made sense for a single comment to override everything leading up to it. Yet one genuine smile, and all slivers of self-consciousness vanished under the ease of a friendship I’d thought I’d lost for good.

  “We wouldn’t want to mess up your hair or anything.” I flicked the top of the perfectly molded sculpture. “Wow. Go a little overboard with the hair gel this morning?”

  “Hey, hey, hey.” He ducked out from under my reach and patted his hair to assess the damage. “It takes a lot of hard work to compete with Jareth the Goblin King.”

  My grin turned into outright laughter. “Only you would bust out a Labyrinth joke while we’re standing in the rain, after I just bawled my eyes out.”

  Smiling, he drooped his
arm over my shoulder and steered me toward his car through an obstacle course of puddles. “Hey, I can’t help it if you have a thing for David Bowie.”

  Pellets of rain torpedoed down, stealing my chance to make some clever comeback. I dove into his car’s cozy leather seat the second he hit the unlock button.

  He cranked up the heat to full blast to dry us off. As much as I’d teased him for being a college student with an Acura ZDX, this was one time I was thankful his parents could afford luxury. God bless the inventor of seat warmers.

  We were a good ten minutes into the drive before he turned off the heat. Without the noise, soft music from the stereo became audible. Open Arms?

  I looked from the player to A. J. and tipped the psychedelic colored CD cover out from behind the cup holders. “Since when did you start listening to Journey?”

  He snatched the case and tossed it back into its secluded compartment. “Since when did you start nosing around people’s stuff?”

  “Touchy.” I held my hands high in the air.

  He turned up the volume to drown out my laughter.

  Nice try. I belted out the lyrics and flung an air microphone at him to join me.

  He batted my hand away and scrambled to turn off the stereo. “Okay, okay. Laugh it up.”

  “At least your taste in music is improving. Jae and I might even let you into our eighties fan club now.”

  His dimples curved around a half smile. “Might, huh?”

  “I don’t know. It’s pretty exclusive,” I joked. “We don’t let just any ole riff raff in.”

  “Harsh as ever. One album isn’t enough to prove myself, huh? I see how it is.” He rolled down my window. “Better be careful. I might toss you back out in the rain. You’re getting my leather seat soaked.”

  I threatened to wring out my shirt right there.

  He rolled up the window. “Easy, Rosy.”

  I’d forgotten how much I’d missed that smile.

  Our laughter tapered off into a silence that seemed louder than any previous noise. He lined up my car door with the walkway in front of my apartment. Slouching in his seat, he dragged his hand over various points on the steering wheel.