Chapter 16: Past

~ ZEV ~

Sasha led him to the stairs and up one flight. He pulled the door open for her and she glanced at him with a strange look on her face, but she darted through to her apartment, just two doors down the hall. Her eyes were too wide, but otherwise anyone watching them would have seen her tense, but normal.

Then she closed the door behind him and flipped the lock, tossed her keys and purse on the little table in the entryway and turned, stalking past him into the bedroom.

Walking into her apartment was heaven. It was bathed in her scent—vanilla and apples—and there were reminders of her everywhere—that soft, fake fur blanket thrown over the back of the couch made him smile. She'd always been very anti-fur, which used to make him laugh.

If only she knew.

Emotion hit him right in the chest and he had to swallow back a lump in his throat. He'd imagined coming in here so many times in the past two years… yearned for it. Ached for it. Almost snuck in just to be close to her, even if she didn't know it. But that would have been creepy. He'd given her privacy, but he'd wanted her. Wanted to be here. Needed to be close. Keeping his distance from her had been like chewing off his own foot. And now he didn't have to anymore. He couldn't quite believe it.

"Five years, Zev," she said, her voice trembling and high. "Five years and then… you just show up like nothing happened? You expect me to just… what? Where the hell have you been?"

"Working," he said, his voice a low growl as he prowled forward, making no sound at all, covering every inch of the room as they talked, checking corners and furniture, looking for anything that could be hiding a video feed.

"Working? Twenty-four hours a day? Seven days a week? Working so hard you couldn't even send me a note to tell me you were alive?!"

"It isn't the kind of work that has Saturdays off, Sash."

"Stop calling me that."

He pulled up hard at that, frowning at her. "I've always called you Sash."

"You haven't called me anything for five fucking years, Zev. What the hell is wrong with you?" She'd stalked into her bedroom that was just off the small living area and after checking behind the television he went after her, twisting sideways to fit between the blanket basket and the arm of the loveseat.

He felt too big in this place. Though the ceiling in the living area was vaulted, it was small. Thin gaps between couch and coffee table, table and television. He was suddenly too large, like he didn't fit the space.

Then he passed through the door into her room and memories hit him, one after another, pelting him like hail.

Directly across from the door was a large bed covered in a soft, cream quilt. There were nightstands on either side of it and a dresser to his left, a door off to the right that must have been the bathroom.

But the first thing that caught his eye was the photograph, half-curled on itself, stuck into the frame of her mirror. A picture, not just of them. It was one of those game night group shots with everyone screaming, their smiles and arms thrown high with peace signs or horn hands. They'd all been excited because their team won, which didn't usually happen, and half her friends were in the band, half of his in the football team.

"I don't know what you think is going to happen here, but you don't get to just walk back into my life and pull me out of my best friend's apartment and just… be here. That's not how life works!" she snapped.

"I just wanted to make sure you got home safe," he muttered, his attention on the picture.

They were on the righthand side of the group, bent forward towards the camera so their friends behind him could be seen—he'd been tall, even then. His arm was thrown over her shoulders, one of her hands was up to cup his jaw, the other extended with the peace sign.

They looked young and happy and… easy. It had been an act for him, back then. The whole high school student, golden boy thing. But not her. The way he was with her, that had never been pretend.

He plucked the picture out of the frame of the mirror and stared at it.

Behind him Sasha was opening a duffel bag on the bed. When she turned to slide open a drawer in the dresser where he stood, she saw him looking at the photo, and she stopped.

His head snapped up and she looked back and forth between him and the picture. "That's… not yours," she said, heat flooding into her cheeks as she snatched it out of his hand.

But he noticed that when she opened the drawer to pull out underwear and socks, she didn't put the picture back into the mirror, but pressed it into the pile of little items he was trying to ignore and shoved it into the bag.

There were other things in the room. Little memories—her tassel from her high school graduation dangling off a pin board, among other souvenirs—pictures of college graduation, ticket stubs, lanyards, things he hadn't been there to witness. There was a stuffed bear on a shelf in the corner that had always sat in front of her pillow on her bed back then.

Then, as he snuck around the room closing curtains, checking for devices, he saw the lamp on her bedside, and it jolted him to a stop.

The base of the lamp was a glass vase filled with rocks of widely varied colors, shapes, and even sizes, though even the largest would fit in her palm.

He knew those rocks. Almost all of them. Knew that on a good day he'd probably scent himself on them.

Holy shit. She'd kept them all this time?

It was sheer will not to turn and take her in his arms and kiss her silly. He wished he could pick the damn thing up, smash it, and put those rocks in the bag, too. But that was just stupid.

"You have no right to be here!" she said, and her voice shook with tears. He turned then, agape to find her shoving a thick jacket into the bag—good girl, she'd remembered. He hoped she had some woolen socks. But she was staring at him, her eyes lined in silver tears, her chin beginning to tremble.

His stomach plummeted.

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