“We would have paid for you. Mom and Dad would have got you the ticket. You know that.” I drop to the ground, crossing my legs under me.
“They’d just lost their son. I wasn’t about to ask them to do that for me.” He sits down next to me, crossing his own legs and hooking his arms around them. The same way Cam used to sit.
I look at the grass. “I would have driven to get you. I would have driven through the night if that’s what it took.”
“Roxy, you can barely drive to Portland without breaking a sweat.”
“I would have driven there for Cam,” I say quietly. “He would have wanted you there.”
Kyle lets out a long breath, dropping his head. “Shit, I know. I shoulda been there. I bet he’s haunting me now and cursing my ass for not being here for you.”
I laugh sadly. “You didn’t need to be here for me.” I wanted you to be. “You needed to be here for you. I know you’ll never forgive yourself.” I pick at the grass, snapping off blades and letting them drop back to the ground. Causing death in a place full of it.
“I’ll never forgive myself for not convincing him to come to Berkeley with me. If he had, that never would have happened.”
“I’ll never forgive myself for letting him get in that car with Stu. We all knew he’d had a few to drink. If he’d got in with me and Selena, it never would have happened.”
“Jesus, Rox! It ain’t your fault. Cam was as stubborn as a goddamn mule. He never did anything unless his Royal Ass wanted to.”
I look at him properly for the first time. There are slight shadows under his brown eyes and there’s a sadness lingering in them I’ve never seen. Other than that he’s the same Kyle I’ve always known. His skin is tanned from living in California, and his body is just as lean as it’s always been.
“Then how could it possibly be your fault?” I question.
His eyes meet mine fully, and his lips twitch up at one side. “Touché, Roxanne. Touché.”
“Don’t call me Roxanne.” I elbow him. “You know I hate it.”
“I know. That’s why I do it.” He laughs quietly. “You know what worries me about Cam being gone?”
“Who’ll cause trouble with you now?”
“Partly… But mostly it’s who’ll keep your ass in check.”
“My ass doesn’t need keeping anywhere, thank you very much.”
“No, it does. It needs keeping in your pants.”
My eyes trace Cam’s name. “I believe the location of my ass is none of your business.”
He snorts. “It is if I’m the one keeping it in check.”
That sounds way more appealing than it should.
“Cam didn’t keep my ass in check. He kept everyone else’s in it.”
“Then I’ll keep their asses in check,” Kyle says nonchalantly.
I shake my head, a bitter laugh in my throat, and get up. “You’re not my brother, Kyle. I only have one of those.” I kiss my fingers and press them to the top of the gravestone, letting my hand fall away slowly before turning away.
“No, but I promised him I’d look after you if anything happened to him.”
I pause. “I don’t need looking after. I’m not a kid anymore.”
He laughs. “I know that, Rox. Believe me, girl, I know you’re not a kid. I’ll argue your other point, though.”
“There is no argument.” I turn back to him, my arms folded across my chest.
“That’s not what I’ve heard.” His eyes pierce mine. “There’s quite a few people who think you need an awful lot of looking after.”
“Unreal. This place is f**king unreal. You’ve been back, what? Twelve hours? And people are already talking about me.” I let that bitter laugh leave as my head shakes yet again. “I’ll say it again; I don’t need looking after, regardless of what the people here may think. You weren’t here for me when I needed you, Kyle, whatever your reason for that is, so there’s no need for you to be here for me when I don’t need you!”
“No one’s talking about you.” He gets up and walks toward me, stopping half a foot away. “It might surprise you that while I was at college and you were here transforming yourself into the resident bad girl, I was talking to your parents every weekend.” His eyes flick over my body. “You tell me I wasn’t there for you, but I was there for your mom when you weren’t.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“What? Tell you the truth?” He raises his eyebrows. “No one else does, do they?”
I say nothing.
“I didn’t think so. You might think I wasn’t there for you, Rox, but I was. Every day. I didn’t have to be here to care.” His voice softens and he tucks my hair behind my ear. “You just never looked for it.”
My arms drop, and I swallow, my chest tightening. A lump rises in my throat, and I fight against the tears burning my eyes. “That doesn’t matter.” I step back and point at the ground. “You weren’t here. You weren’t in the place that mattered when it mattered!”
“Go home.” Kyle looks at me steadily. “Go home and sleep off that killer hangover, and I’ll see you later when you’ve calmed down.”
I spin on my heel, my fists clenching at my sides. “Remember, you’re not my brother!” I throw back at him over my shoulder.
“I know. But I’m the closest damn thing you have.”
That’s the problem. And it always will be.
I don’t know what I’m more angry about – whether it’s the fact he’s come back and said all that shit, or because he still sees me as Cam’s kid sister. A part of me, a tiny part of me, hoped he’d come back and I’d be more than that. That he’d look at me in a way different to the brotherly way he always has.
A stupid, stupid goddamn part of me that needs shooting.
I swipe hot, angry tears from my eyes and turn into the woods. Kyle might be back for the summer but that doesn’t give him the right to act all protective of me. It doesn’t give him the right to do anything at all.
Fuck him.
Chapter Two – Kyle
She isn’t the girl I left here at the beginning of the year.
No. Roxy Hughes has definitely changed. Gone is the sweet, soft-spoken girl I knew, and she’s been replaced with someone completely different. Someone alien.