AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 28
BECKETT
I could strangle her. I could literally wrap my hands around her throat and then…hell, but then I’d probably kiss the devil out of her if I ever put my hands on her again, which seemed like something that might never happen, because she’d fucking set it up so I wouldn’t see her anymore after tomorrow.
I might not touch her, smell her, sleep besides her—fuck—speak to her again. Unable to bare that idea, I inched opened the door to her brother’s room that I was supposed to be sleeping in, and I peered out into the dark hallway.
Her dad had put a lot of faith in me to let me stay here and sleep under his roof after the rape-story we’d told him. Dishonoring his trust by sneaking into his daughter’s room sounded like the worst thing I could do in return. But I had to talk to her.
With the next day being Thanksgiving and more family coming in, then her leaving in the afternoon, I wasn’t sure when a chance to get her alone would ever come around.
I held my breath, praying to God there were no creaking floorboards in front of the doorway as I took my first cautious step into the hall. When nothing groaned underfoot, I released a silent puff of air and took the next achingly slow step. The door to her room was ten feet away and closed. It might be locked. I wouldn’t know until I made it there, but one thing I did know with all certainly, I was going to see her before the night was over. I didn’t care how I made it, as long as I did.
Ten feet later, I reached for her door handle. She hadn’t locked me out, thank God. My heart pumped loudly through my ears as I eased inside. When I heard the bedsprings shift as I closed the door behind me, telling me she was probably still awake, I swallowed and hurried forward, no longer so worried about how much sound my feet made as they shuffled across the floor.
Her bed was closer than I thought it would be, though, and my shin met up with the frame, jostling her entire bed an inch or so across the floor and making it screech loudly.
A strangled laugh came from the mattress. “I sure hope you’re not trying to be stealthy and quiet, Bucket, because you suck at it.”
Smart-ass. I grinned and I yanked up the sheet before crawling in beside her and hissing, “Shh.”
She snickered.
Joy bloomed inside me, like it always did when I was with her. Instantly comforted because my curly-headed smartass was within touching distance again, I sighed out my relief, my restless nerves already settling just knowing she was near before I realized I was on my side, and she’d already been lying on hers. She hadn’t been hogging the middle of the bed. For some reason, that caused my chest to constrict and remind me all over again why I really wanted to strangle her.
We’d never sleep next to each other again.
“So, you’re leaving tomorrow,” I whispered, laying back on my spine to stare up at her dark ceiling, feeling the doom of that fact press heavily down on my heart.
A breath passed, then she quietly answered, “Yep.”
“And I’m staying here,” I added. I bit my lip
, trying to wrap my mind around that fact.
She had separated us. In another twenty-four hours, we’d live nearly two hours apart from each other. How could she do that? How could she tear the one person I needed most right now away from me?
Even if she did think it was for my own good, and in return, I knew it would be best for her too if I was out of her apartment.
How could she fucking kill me like this? My nerves began to twitch and my breathing picked up just thinking about it.
I blew out a long, steadying breath, tempted to reach out, and just touch her hair. Anything. My hands began to shake. “So how’re we going to do this?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I clenched my teeth, my desperation and frustration mounting. “You know what I mean, Bailey. I can’t fucking fall asleep if you’re not right there in bed with me. How the hell am I going to sleep here without you? And what if I have another panic attack/nervous breakdown thing? Who’s going to help me get past that? And…shit…” I sucked in a strange sound.
The one thing I absolutely had not wanted to happen, had fucking happened. I’d become dependent upon her.
“I can’t breathe,” I wheezed.
How was I going to breathe without Bailey?
She rolled toward me until I realized she was sitting up and hovering over me. My chest constricted and the panic mounted right before she cupped my face in her hands, paralyzing my oxygen even more because this was probably the last time she’d ever touch me.
“Yes, you can too breathe,” she demanded determinedly. “Now inhale.”
I tried, but it didn’t feel as if anything entered my lungs. I couldn’t lose her; didn’t she realize that? What the hell had my life become that I needed her so much?
