She lunges at him with teeth bared. He goes for her with poison dripping from his pores. And I am the only thing keeping them from each other because I know Matt won’t hurt me no matter how angry he may be. Nova is a different story, but she knows I won’t back down from her. Last time she thought to swing at me, I left her with a bloody nose and a black eye.
My head is pounding. This is too much. It’s emotional overload after emotional overload, and after the week I’ve had, I can’t handle anymore.
“Enough!” I yell because I’ve literally had enough. Enough yelling. Enough fighting. Enough of everything happening all at once and too fast. “Matt, we can’t make her leave. I don’t like it, but Mom and Dad didn’t have a will. That means everything is divided evenly between the three of us.”
“Told you so,” Nova mocks, sticking her tongue out like a five-year old, spoiled brat.
Nova has always been so defiant and rebellious. Instead of reprimanding her, my parents often caved. I suppose I get it. She was a handful that would throw temper tantrums for hours until they gave her what she wanted. When she got older, they had to bail her out of jail more than once for shoplifting, vandalism, and all sorts of other issues. I wasn’t sure what would happen to her now that our parents weren’t here to save her. I am inclined to believeifshe never suffers any consequences then she will never change, so maybe this will be her wake up call. I know I can’t come to her rescue when she falls again. Imust think of Tyler and Matt first.
“Grow up, Nova,” I hiss between my clenched teeth as I turn on my heels to face her. My finger jabs into her chest. “I’ve got news for you. If you think you are coming here to claim anything, then you are sadly mistaken. There’s nothing to claim. No insurance money, or savings, or anything.”
She gives me a smug smile. “But I own part of the diner and this house.”
I plaster on the widest, fakest smile I can onto my face. “You also own part of the debt that goes with it, so that means you are responsible for coming up with the money to keep us from losing it all.”
“What?” Matt asks. I wince, realizing I’ve said too much. “We’re going to lose the house?”
I turn back to him, placing my hands on his shoulders. “I am going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
His green eyes begin to fill with tears, making him look like the kid he was just a few years ago. It breaks my heart.
His anger morphs into a deep sadness that I want desperately to erase. “I’m going to check on Tyler.”
My eyes move to the kitchen window to find Tyler sitting on the patio with several toy cars, racing them on his racetrack. I know it’s probably too much to hope for now, but I really do pray he hasn’t heard all the commotion. Especially not the part about losing the house.
My eyes dart back to Matt. He’s going through a lot right now, but my brother is a beautiful soul. A little bent, but he’s not broken, and I will do everything in my power to make sure he never breaks.
“Thank you,” I whisper to him with a crack in my voice.
He walks out the back door. I watch as he drops to the ground with Tyler. Despite all his grief and anger at our situation, he is amazing with my son. He spends every spare minute he can with him. And Tyler worships him.
“So how much money are you talking?” Nova asks once Matt is outside.
“I’ve told you, there is no money.” I begin to walk away from her. I have too much on my plate to deal with her drama.
“No. How much to keep the house?” I hear her follow behind me.
“At least, twenty-five thousand. The attorney says the bank can demand payment in full though. Which is like a million times that much.” I tell her without stopping.
“How are you going to come up with that kind of money?” she scoffs.
When I reach my bedroom door, I spin around on her. “I will exhaust every avenue until I figure it out. If I can help it, Matt won’t lose his home on top of everything, but let me be very clear. I may not be able to kick you out right now, but once I take care of this debt, if you don’t have your share, I will make sure you don’t get anything. Don’t think I don’t know why Mom and Dad’s savings were wiped out. And their retirement.Andevery freaking insurance policy they ever had. They wouldn’t have had issues paying the medical bills or needed a second mortgageif not for you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sniffs.
I shake my head with a humorless laugh. “Of course, you don’t, Nova. You’ve never cared about anyone but yourself. If you had, then maybe you would’ve seen that Mom and Dad were struggling.”
I spin around into my room, slamming the door behind me. I lean against my door with a sigh. All the events of the last month weigh on me, but the things that should be at the forefront of my mind have been pushed to the wayside by one thing. Or rather, one person.
Seeing Ryder is why I avoided the city as much as possible. It may have seemed silly, in a city of over eight million people, to worry about a chance encounter, butthe other dayproved that I was right.
Seeing him in person again, even after all this time, hurt so much. It’s like everything happened yesterday, not nearly a decade ago. Like a hot knife ripping right through the center of me. It nearly crippled me. The only thing that kept me on my feet was knowing if I stayed, the pain would’ve been so much worse. Watching him on tv and the internet the last few years did nothing to lessen the blow.
He broke my heart. He was my first everything and my only love because he ruined me for all others. Not my body, but my soul.
I closed my eyes against the all-consuming sobs that wrack my body. Grief weighs down heavy, like lead sitting on my chest. Grief for the loss of him. Grief for those boys – men now - that snuck under my skin and into my heart. Grief for my parents who held my hand when my world fell apart.
When I left New York that night, I came straight back to Craryville. I was so afraid to tell them what happened though, that I hid at Delilah’s for over a month. It took me two weeks to cash the check his mother handed me and another two weeks to find a place to live that wasn’t with my parents. Once I was moved in, I told them.
