What I Should’ve Said
Chapter 43

Bennett

My head throbs and my hands shake as I wake up sharply, sitting up on the sofa in my studio. I don’t know when I came in here last night or why, but the stack of paintings piled in the center of the space and the box of spilled matches beside it give me a sense that I had some big plans for an actual bonfire.

Thank God I didn’t follow through.

Every muscle inside my body hurts as I get up, head out of the studio, and back into the house. But when I step inside, I’m overwhelmed by the silence. The morning birds chirp outside my window, but other than them, the world is painfully, soundlessly bleak.

There’s no noise from my sister in the kitchen, no giggles from Summer as she talks to Charlie in her room, and no soft sighs from a woman in my bed.

I’m alone for another day.

I sink my head into my hands and beg for a sign. A direction to go, a solution to carry out, a vision to follow. Practically, I know I can’t have Summer back, but every other part of me is hoping for some kind of miracle.

Something that makes me feel like I can breathe again. Something to let me know that Summer is all right.

Norah.

It’s a barely there whisper in the back of my mind and the smell of her perfume on my shirt, so faint that I have no trouble ignoring it.

Memories of her being in my studio last night start to flit around inside my head, but I can’t distinguish fantasy from reality.

Was she here last night? Or is it nothing more than another night of tortured dreams?

I head into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and choose the only real option I have—to stop thinking about it at all.

She’s better off without me.