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“But…need…toilet…leaflet…”
Actually that sounds like a really good idea.
“Is he going to be okay?” I ask the instant Zie climbs through my bedroom window. My stomach is in knots, desperate for news about Kaiden, but I can’t bring myself to look at Zie.
Guilt consumes me. I can’t believe what we did, what I did, while Kaiden was being rushed to hospital on Death’s door. I’m despicable. The worst friend ever.
And to make matters worse, all of the parents were home this time when Kaiden got hurt so we weren’t allowed to go to the hospital with the ambulance, nor were we allowed to visit.
I’ve been going out of my mind, constantly pacing my room for two days, waiting to hear something.
I didn’t even know he was alive until earlier tonight when Axel sent me a message.
“He is.” Zie hesitates.
Just forcing myself to look at Zie causes my stomach to plummet as though it’s made of lead. “But?” I prompt when he doesn’t continue. Doesn’t he know he’s killing me? Is he as horrified by what we did as I am?
And yet every time I close my eyes all I can see, all I can feel and taste and breathe, is the two of us in my shower, frantically kissing and tearing his saturated clothes off before he fingered me to an orgasm so intense I couldn’t hold myself up. I still feel him inside me. The way his fingers stretched me and prepared me for his cock. I can’t stop thinking about the way things would have gone once he carried me to my bed and laid me on the covers like I was something precious, before his phone rang.
Fuck.
Is Kaiden okay? He should be my only focus right now.
“This one was bad. The worst in fact. The doctors said he was gone for about twelve minutes.”
Gone.
Meaning dead.
Again. This is the third time. He died right in my arms, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to save him.
Tears stream down my face and Zie doesn’t even comfort me, which I’m glad about. I deserve this pain. It’s karma for not focusing on Kaiden the night it happened. I should have snuck out with Zie and gone to the hospital, not—
“I’m so glad we’re leaving in six weeks,” Zie says bitterly. “I don’t know how much more of this he can endure.”
My heart crumples and sinks right alongside my lead stomach.
I should feel glad they’re leaving, that Kaiden will at least get to escape his father’s wrath for the next three years, but all I can think about is him, them, leaving me.
“Why do you think he did it?” Peony asks when my father has finally gone away ‘on business’ and it’s safe for her to come over. I texted her as soon as he left with my mother. She didn’t give me a backwards glance. Unsurprising. Yet it still stings that her one and only son has died three times now, twice at the hands of her husband, and yet she still stands at his side and acts as though I don’t exist.
The doctors like to joke that I’m the kid with nine lives, but I’m starting to wonder if my parents – plural – actually do just want me dead.
“Who knows?” My shoulders twitch. “He’s one fucked up son of a bitch, you know that. C’mere.”
I hold my arms out wide for her. She doesn’t disappoint, flinging herself into my embrace hard enough to make me wince as I pull my stitches a little.
“Shit, sorry!” she cries, trying to pull away.
I don’t let her. “Don’t be sorry. I’d take a thousand knives to the chest just to be able to hold you again.”
“We lost you,” she whispers, snuggling closer and sending me to heaven.
I wouldn’t talk to the guys about what happened, I didn't want to relive it. Still don’t. But I do remember my last thought was of Peony. Her warmth. Her smile. Her lips.
Her beautiful full lips, turned down in a frown right now. Her beautiful green eyes shimmer with unshed tears and all I want is to make her feel better. To reassure her that I’m not going anywhere. To show her that I'll never leave her.
And the only way I know to express all that is by kissing her.
So I do.
