All was fine back at Bella’s house.
“Things okay?” Alex asked from his spot next to Bella on the couch. The TV flickered, the volume low.
“Yep. Fine,” I said. “Car’s back out front.”
“Okay.”
I looked at Bella. “Okay if he stays here tonight with you and Jackson?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. You don’t wanna stay?”
“Not that,” I said. “I’m just going to need to take care of a few things tonight and tomorrow morning. But I wanna make sure you’re comfortable with everything.”
She glanced at Alex and gave a quick smile. “Yes. It’s fine.”
“You can call me on the cell you got me,” I said. “I’ll make sure I have it on.”
She nodded and I motioned for Alex to follow me outside.
“You can take the car if you want,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “I won’t need it.”
“Nah, I don’t want anyone seeing me in it,” I said. “I’ve already been it in too much and parking it in front of the house might make it an easy target.”
“You think this guy is coming?”
I nodded. “Yeah. He will at some point. And I think it’ll be for me, not Bella. That’s why I wanna separate from her. In case he does. I don’t want her or Jackson to be in the line of fire or see anything that goes down.”
“You can handle it?” Alex asked.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“You got any other backup?”
I shook my head.
Alex nodded. “Okay. I’ll stay here unless I hear differently from you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll call you guys in the morning and check in.”
He nodded again, started to say something, then stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, alright?” he said. He took a deep breath. “You need to let go of her, Noah.”
“I’m fine.”
“No. You aren’t,” he said. “I can tell. I don’t know you very well, but you’re screwed up. And I get why and I would be, too. But you can’t keep her with you forever. She’s gone. She’s not coming back.”
I swallowed hard. “I know that.”
“At some point, you’re going to have to deal with it. All of it,” he continued. “Liz. Keene. What happened. You can’t live like this forever. Nervous and anxious, always looking over your shoulder. You either need to go back to San Diego and face it or get the hell out of here, to somewhere you don’t have to worry about it.” The lines around his eyes tightened. “Because this is like purgatory for you. And I think it’s eating you up.”
I walked around him and grabbed my bike from against the garage. I wanted to say something, but all of the words were stuck in my throat.
“She wouldn’t want this for you, Noah,” Alex said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “She wouldn’t. She’d be pissed. You know how much she hated indecision.”
Tears stung my eyes. I did, indeed, know that.
“She wouldn’t accept you being stuck in this,” he said, walking over to me on the bike. “She’d kick you in the ass and tell you to figure it out and move on. And I don’t know exactly what that means for you, but I think she’d be right.”
I set my foot on the pedal, balanced on one leg, and let his words hit me like bullets.
“She loved you, Noah,” he said. “And right now, wherever she is, she’s mad at you. Not for what you did.” He paused and put a hand on my shoulder. “But for what it’s doing to you.”
I pushed down on the pedal and rolled slowly down the driveway, the evening breeze brushing the tears onto my cheeks, his words echoing in my ears.