Sarah’s voice filtered through the phone, high-pitched, frantic.

“She did what? We’re coming.” Chris ended the call. “We gotta go to Tee’s.”

It didn’t occur to me to argue. Not with the look on Chris’s face. “What’s going on?”

“She just left with her brother-in-law.”

“It’s after midnight. Where the hell would they go?”

I pushed away from the counter, grabbed my phone, and dialed Tenley, but it went to voice mail. I tried again as we left the condo and bolted down the stairs. We rushed across the street to her apartment. The anger over the belated disclosure evaporated as Sarah came into view, standing in Tenley’s doorway. Her eyes were red, she was sniffling, and TK was curled up in her arms. The kitten let out a forlorn meow and struggled out of Sarah’s hold, bounding toward me. As I picked her up, the heavy feeling in my chest expanded.

“Where is she?” I looked into Tenley’s apartment.

“She went home.”

“What?” I moved past Sarah, inside. My brain refused to process the words. This was her home. The bathroom door was open, the light still on. Her shoes were gone, and so was her jacket.

“She’s going back to Arden Hills. She left with Trey just before I called,” Sarah replied shakily. “I tried to get her to stay, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She wasn’t making much sense. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Her car’s still out back.”

“He drove. She had a suitcase with her. She asked me to look after TK until she came back,” Sarah said. Her pity felt like sandpaper on my already raw emotions.

Unwilling to accept she was gone, I strode through her apartment. Her living room was the same mess it had been before she told me to leave. When I reached the bathroom, I stopped short. Her medicine cabinet was wide open, the entire collection of pill bottles missing. In her bedroom the closet door was open, hangers missing from the middle. One of the dresser drawers was lying on the floor, half the contents strewn all over the place.

“She left me?” That choked feeling got worse, making it hard to breathe.

“She said she needed to take care of things,” Sarah said from the doorway.

“She’s running again.” I put the drawer back in the dresser and gathered up the discarded clothes, trying to create order for the chaos in my head.

“She has to deal with her estate.”

“So she left with that dickface? Couldn’t she have done that here?”

I wished I knew more. It made sense that Tenley had an estate; she was the sole survivor in her family. There must have been things left to her; a house maybe, money. And somehow that dick Trey played a role in things.

“Why didn’t she just tell me the truth in the first place?” I picked up the tank top lying on her bed. She’d worn it last night; I’d folded it and left it there this morning.

“Maybe she wanted to protect herself.”

“From what? Me?”

“She’s petrified of losing you, Hayden. Don’t you get it? All the important people in her life are gone. You gave her a reason to feel something good again. She wasn’t going to risk that.”

“So she left?”

Sarah looked at me with such empathy that it made me want to scream. “She’s in love with you. If she hadn’t lost all of those people, she never would have met you. I think it’s reasonable for her to be a little fucked up over it.”

I hated the look on Sarah’s face, like she needed to treat me with kid gloves so I wouldn’t lose my shit. I was pretty fucking close to the breaking point. I was angry at Tenley for leaving, at Sarah for letting her go, and at myself for walking out the door in the first place.

“She has to come back though, right? She wouldn’t just leave TK and not come back.” I was reaching for a lifeboat in a sea of hopelessness.

“Of course she’ll come back,” Sarah said.

But when Tenley returned, would she be back for me, too?

“I’m gonna go home,” I said. I couldn’t be in Tenley’s space without her.

“You want me to come with?” Chris asked, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Nah, man. Thanks. I just want to be alone right now.”

When I got home, I headed for the bedroom. It was exactly how we left it; sheets a twisted mess, pillows tossed on the floor. Tenley’s half-empty wineglass sat on the nightstand, lip print marking the rim. I couldn’t believe how quickly my life had been turned upside down. It was like coming home to death all over again, except this loss was so different. Tenley still existed, but she was gone. I didn’t know when or if she would be back, and whether she would want me anymore.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and ran my hand over the sheets. Being with her here had felt right. It had changed things.

My body numbed out, and the shaking started. The dissociated feeling settled in, like when I used to have panic attacks so many years ago. It felt like I was watching events from outside myself. Which was better. It hurt less that way.

Tenley hadn’t been gone more than ninety minutes and I missed her more than I could bear. In the weeks since I first met her she’d managed to break through my armor, getting under my skin. I’d let my guard down.

And I’d fallen in love with her.

That was the deadly ache in the center of my chest.

Chris was right; I wasn’t ready to walk away. If she felt the same way about me, that could explain why she ran.

I pushed up off the mattress and grabbed my keys and wallet, heading for the door.

She could run all she wanted, but I was coming after her. I wouldn’t let her go. Not without a fight.