AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In her other hand, she’s holding her father’s pocket watch.
“What the hell is this?” she whispers, dropping the brown paper bag.
It almost blows away in the wind, but then she steps on it, leans down, and picks it up. Even now, she doesn’t want to litter and spoil this quiet, deserted place. She’s just so damn perfect.
“Kai?” she snaps.
“It’s your dad’s—”
“I mean, why?” she almost yells. “Is this the package?Don’tget mad at me for snooping, okay? I just… I don’t know. I panicked from the guilt and all that crap. I just wanted to know if we could turn back or how important this trip really was. The stuff about Dad… Is it enough to justify what we’re doing? Okay, so he lied, he lied, and…”
She starts crying, breaking down, but when I move toward her, she raises her hands and shakes her head. She doesn’t want me anywhere near her. I know why. I know it’s the same reason gnawing through me, the guilt and the pain of what we’ve done, of what I want to keep doing.
“Whythis?”
“I promised Ryan I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Youhaveto,” she yells. “This was Dad’s. It’s an heirloom.”
I groan, squeezing my cell phone tightly and making a fist. There’s only so much lying I can do. I’m sorry, Ryan, for everything.
“Ryan was able to get a good trade for a different item. That watch sells at around a third of the price of the item he’s trading it for, but the buyer is so keen on gettingthisexact watch that he’s willing to do it. Ryan would be a fool to pass it up.”
This makes it worse. Her cheeks are soaked with tears now.
“He’ssellingit because it’s a gooddeal?What’s he getting? A new bike? What, Kai?”
“A first edition of Poems by Emily Dickinson. I think that’s her name. It’s for you. He said…” This next part hurts me. “He wanted to give you something as a sign to start anew, the next chapter in your life. You can keep the book. Sell it. Whatever you want. He said he wanted some light to come from the darkness of your dad’s death.”
“He said that? Really?”
“Word for word.”
She slowly puts the pocket watch on the bike seat, sealed in its wrapping. Her hands tremble as she brushes her hair down and then looks at me for a long time. It’s like she’s trying to kill the part of herself that wants me.
“You were right before,” she says after a long pause, her expression changed now, distant. “We need to pretend this never happened. Let’s go home. It’ll be easier like that. I’ll tell Ryan I forgive him for the fight. Hell, it’s not like I can be angry with him now.”
I shake my head. “I told him I’d deliver the package. That’s what I’m doing.”
“You can take me home first.”
Gritting my teeth, I shake my head again. She’s right. It would be easier this way, with far less risk of us completely losing it. It would mean we could behave ourselves. Maybe—I don’t believe this for a second—we’d be able to forget how good it felt. Howrightit felt, being together.
“No,” I say. “We’re going to Illinois. Together.”
“Youknowit would be better to take me home first.” She glares. “Otherwise, we might…”
“We’ll just have to try harder. You’re coming with me.”
She opens her mouth as if to argue but then closes it. She stares at me like she suspects something.
Then she turns and walks toward the lake. I groan and follow her, my heart thudding hard when I think about her being alone. Anytime I think of her without me to back her up, I can’t take it. Ithurts, honestly, trying to fit that into my head. To think there might be a day when Ryan asks me to handle business out of state or country again, and I’ll have to leave her.
No damn way. She’s not going anywhere without me. Maybe that makes me possessive as fuck. Do I care? Not right now. As she gets farther and farther away from me, I don’t. Breaking into a jog, I catch up to her and touch her shoulder.
“What, Kai?” she snaps, her eyes glistening like she could break down into sobs at any moment.
“Don’twhatme,” I snarl. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
