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I’m very quietly walking to the door of our cottage when I see a flash of black in my peripheral vision.
I dash to the window and open an inch of the drapes. Someone’s walking across the yard. More stumbling than walking. It’s a drunk walk.
And it’s Zach.
Oh my God, what are the chances?
What is he doing here?
As I press my palm on the window, he turns and looks directly at my cottage. I’m not sure if he can see me peeking at him through the drapes, but he’s frowning at the window, like he’s mad.
Frantically, I look around at the other cottages. They are dark and sleepy. But what if someone wakes up and finds him here?
What is he thinking?
A second later, he falls to the ground and all my thoughts vanish. I’m running out the door before I can stop myself. I practically fall beside his sprawled form.
“Zach? You okay?”
Turns out, I shouldn’t have bothered. Because he opens his eyes and they look clear and alert. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I sit back on my heels. “Because you just fell. Just like that. Under my window.”
He shrugs. And then frowns as he takes me in. “What are you wearing?”
I look down at myself, my black hoodie and my shorts. “What?”
“Were you planning on breaking the law again?”
I swallow and fist my hands on my knees. “No.”
Yes.
His lopsided smile is slow to come and that’s how I know he’s a little drunk. That and his boozy, musky smell.
Zach looks away from me and toward the sky.
A few seconds pass in silence and I stare at him like a lovesick fool.
I am a fool, in any case. Because I was going to break the law just so I could talk to him. The guy who’s made me cry countless times. The guy who’s repeatedly insulted me, hurt me and tormented me.
My bully.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Watching the stars.”
I look at the cottages again. They’re still dark, without a hint of movement. “Why are you watching them from practically under my window?”
He shrugs again.
Now that I’m close to him, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to go away but I don’t know how to stay, either.
“Watch them from your room up in tower two, okay? Get up.”
Finally, he focuses on me, his eyes both shadowed and bright from the moonlight. Which kind of looks buttery and yellow when it touches his skin.
“Do I look like I can get up?”
He goes back to staring at the sky. His breaths are unhurried, lazy almost, like he’s soaking up the night one puff of air at a time.
Even sprawled like this, he looks powerful. As if he’s the only guy in this whole wide world. The rest of us are inconsequential.
Or maybe it’s not power. It’s the loneliness.
Has he always been lonely? I can’t remember. My hatred for him was so strong that I never paid attention to anything below the surface.
Sighing, I get up and offer him my hand. “Come on. Let’s get you away from here.”
Zach carefully observes my hand for at least ten seconds before taking it in sluggish movements. Our hands clasp, mine clammy with all the nervous sweat and his hot and dry.
And scratchy.
Swallowing, I tighten my fingers around his and pull him with all my strength. He doesn’t even budge. He lies there, staring up at me, as if he couldn’t care less about the whole thing.
Staring back at him, I pull again.
Not even a twitch.
But then, I feel him curling his fingers around mine tightly. And before I can even gasp, he yanks me down.
My breath is knocked out as soon as I make contact with his hard body.
“What the…” I squeak in shock.
Zach grunts, his head bumping against the ground. “Fuck, you’re heavy, Blue.”
I try to scramble off. “Jerk.”
It only makes him laugh and tighten his hold around me. “Relax. I could carry you in my sleep with one hand.”
I stiffen over him. “Are you kidding?”
A small smile is still playing on his lips as he shakes his head once. “Cross my heart.”
Then, he goes and does it.
He makes a little cross on the left side of his chest with his long finger, and I feel it on my chest. The rough pad of his finger dragging lines like I’m making a promise too. Only I don’t know what I’m promising.
“And hope to die?” I breathe out.
One slow nod. “Yeah.”
His whispers are deadly. They are.
And so are his eyes.
I’m finding out that I don’t care though. I’m relieved they’re on me after such a long time.
“You never look at me anymore,” I blurt out.
“Because it hurts.”
His words make me flinch, even though there wasn’t any meanness in them. They held a kind of emotion I’ve never gotten from him before.
It resembles a weird mixture of torture and desperation.
