The Worst Kind of Promise (Riverside Reapers Book 2)

KIT

Faye hasn’t come out of the room in days. She hasn’t talked to me. She’s rotting in bed, and I don’t know how to fix any of this. Hayes hasn’t come home, either. Aeris texted me that he’s staying with her while he works through whatever he’s feeling. I want to yell at him to get his ass back here and apologize, to act like the fucking adult he is, but I don’t know if I’d be doing more harm than good. Maybe space is what they both need right now.

The rest of the guys loosely know what’s going on. Not about Faye’s rape, but about me and Faye. The tension is palpably thick in the house. Nobody’s choosing sides. I think they’re all trying to be there for both me and Hayes in their own way. I appreciate them, I do. But their words don’t make me feel better.

I feel like shit for what Faye’s going through right now. For letting the argument get so out of hand. I didn’t do anything. I was trying to take the blame. I would’ve happily taken the blame if it meant Faye was dealing with half the pain she is now. But everything escalated so quickly that I couldn’t rein in the conversation.

I heard what Hayes said about me. And at the time, it hurt like a head bash to the ice. It wasn’t even necessarily the way he said it. It was more so the fact that deep down, I knew he was right. None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t pursued Faye. Her life would’ve been a lot simpler if I’d stayed away from her.

Tray between my hands, I lightly nudge the door to my room open with my shoulder, already knowing what will greet me on the other side. Faye lies in a cramped ball with all the sheets pulled up to her face, looking impossibly small in my king-sized bed. At first glance, I can barely even see her. The only indication that there’s any life underneath that stockpile of blankets is the strands of unwashed hair peeking out over the pillows.

I sit down on the edge of the mattress—doing my best not to rouse her—and I place the tray beside me. I made it my mission to get better at cooking for her, especially after she forced herself to eat my burnt pancakes. Today, I’ve made her a turkey and pesto sandwich since she needs the protein. She’s lost weight. I’ve been bringing her food every few hours, and each time, she only eats a small portion of it.

I set a box of miniature Junior Mints—from my extensive collection—on the nightstand, hoping that maybe it’ll tempt her to eat. Fuck. Seeing her like this destroys me. Not just breaks, not just crushes, but fully dismantles my entire world.

I rest my hand on her ankle. “Princess, you need to eat.”

She stirs to tell me she’s awake, but she doesn’t pull the covers down.

“Faye,” I try again, whittling my voice down to a soft whisper. “Please look at me.”

I don’t know how to describe it, but my heart doesn’t even feel like it’s mine. Every emotion I feel comes directly through Faye. Sadness, predominantly. So much sadness that no single person could possibly endure on their own.

She barely inches her head out of her cave, peering at me from beyond her security blanket. Sob-impaired words tumble out of her mouth, like she didn’t mean to say them in the first place. “I can’t.”

I squeeze her ankle in silent reassurance. “You can. Just for a second. Please.”

A long-winded sigh comes from the girl next to me, and slowly, she rolls the sheets down enough for me to get a glimpse of her beautiful face. Her skin has paled—a stark contrast from the tan she acquired over the summer—and her tangled hair falls into her red-rimmed eyes. Her cheeks look sunken in, the circles under her eyelids are purple, and dried blood crusts over her lower lip from where she’s been tearing the skin off. But in spite of everything, she’s still just as beautiful.

In that moment, love overhauls all the distress I’ve been feeling for the past few days. Much-needed love that has a smile emerging on my mouth and my heart pulsing with renewed energy. “My beautiful girl.”

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she says quietly.

“I’m not leaving you, Faye. I’m not leaving you alone to deal with this.”

I lean forward to push a lock of hair behind her ear, but instead, I catch a tear rolling down the hill of her cheek. I brush it away with my thumb before it can cover any more distance.

God, I missed being able to touch her. Being able to feel her.

“He just needs some time,” I tell her, wishing we could both escape this mess, that I could ensconce her away from all of this heartache. I wind my fingers around a chestnut ringlet of her hair, rubbing the follicle between my coarse pads.

She doesn’t inch away from me, but she doesn’t lean into me, either.

“He’ll never forgive me,” she cries through choppy breaths, looking at me through water-encrusted lashes.

“He will, Faye. You didn’t do anything wrong.” It doesn’t matter what I say. I think it’s impossible for her to believe me, and not for my lack of trying. Faye’s always been hardest on herself. She’s the kind of person who’ll break her own bones to fit someone else’s mold of her—one they created from a single, surface-level interaction. The complete opposite of who I used to be. And it’s not just some random person she thinks she’s disappointing. It’s her brother.

She fully sits up, pressing her back to the headboard, the sheets trickling down to her waist. “He thinks I’m…I’m…”

She doesn’t want to say it. And she doesn’t need to. I know what word she’s going to use, because this whole summer, she’s brought it up multiple times to me. The worst part? She’s only ever associated it with a negative connotation. She uses it as a way to devalue herself.

I cut her off. “He doesn’t.”

She begins to bawl, her shoulders racking from the chest-deep emotion, and the helpless whine in her voice throws ice water down my back. It chills me to the core, slows the tempo of my heart, and usurps the confidence I had coming into this conversation.

“…broken!”

I can tell she’s close to pulling away, to hiding back underneath the covers, but I don’t let her.

“We’re all broken, Princess,” I confess, reaching out to grab her hand, silently rejoicing when she allows me to thread my fingers through hers. “And out of all of us, you’re the least broken one there is.”

Sadness splays across her features, puckering her forehead and widening those doe eyes of hers. “B-but you’re not broken,” she sniffles.

I chuff out a laugh. “I was—I still am—but you fixed that part of me. You showed me what it means to be loved. You patched those empty holes inside of me with your compassion, your selflessness, your generosity. You’ve given my heart a reason to beat. Nothing can compare to being loved by someone as incredible as you. People wait decades to find their other half, and some go their whole life without ever meeting them. But by some miracle, which I definitely never deserved, you found your way to me.”

Apparently, I’m worse at cheering her up than I thought, because Faye’s wails dial up in volume, bouncing off the walls like we’re in an echo chamber. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the guys could hear what’s going on in here.

“Oh, God. Why would you say that?” Rivers of tears now decorate her pink cheeks, mangling the clarity of her words.

I—what?

“What? What did I say?”

She weakly thwaps me on the arm. “You’re being too…nice…to me!”

I wag my head, unable to help the chuckle rumbling in my chest. “Just for the record, I’m always nice to you.”

A small smile toys with the corner of her lips, and although she doesn’t give me a laugh, that’s a fucking win in my book. Her tears seem to be falling a little less frequently now, getting wiped away left and right by her forearm.

“What if he s-sees me differently?” she asks shakily.

“He will see you differently,” I say with candor, love corkscrewing into the very depths of my heart, implanting itself there for all eternity. “He’ll see how much stronger you’ve become.”

Faye catches me off guard—and a little off balance—when she wraps her arms around me, nestling her nose into my neck. Faye’s hugs are some of my favorite things in the universe, but this one feels different. Better than all the ones in the past, if that’s even possible.

If she wasn’t directly by my ear, I may not have heard her.

“Thank you for always being there, Kit.”

I squeeze her back in my arms, careful to mind the fragile state of her body. “Nothing in this world could keep me away from you, Princess.”

I’m in her embrace for so long that I’d know the feel of her arms out of hundreds of blind hugs, that I could successfully pick out that peach scent of hers in a large, faceless crowd. When we eventually disentangle ourselves, I push the tray toward her.

“Sit back. Let me feed you,” I coax.

She does as I say, just with an additional eyebrow raise. “It’s a sandwich.”

“Uh-huh. Very perceptive.”

“You can’t feed someone a sandwich.”

I do my best to tear the sandwich evenly down the middle, dollops of pesto oozing out from the sides and a slab of turkey skewing slightly beneath the top piece of sourdough bread.

“Jesus, woman. Just let me take care of you,” I grumble, realizing just how messy of a decision I made. But it’s too late to turn back, and I’m not giving her the satisfaction of being right.

I finally get the long-awaited laugh I was searching for, and it’s as delicate and sweet as spun sugar, serenading my ears.

It hasn’t completely dawned on me that this is how incredible the rest of my life is going to be. I’m going to marry this girl one day. I don’t know when, I don’t know where, but it’s going to happen. I want my forever promised, and I want it promised with her. If I have to fight tooth and nail to get it, I gladly will. I can’t imagine not waking up beside her in the morning, not kissing her as many times a day as possible, not seeing her rooting for me in the stands at my games, not ending the night with her in my arms as we fall asleep together. A future without her just doesn’t exist.

And the only thing that would make this future better is having Hayes in it too.