Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 111038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
I frowned. “What happened?”
He snorted, a sound of disgust. “What always fucking happens with me. I mouthed off and kept going, purposefully pushing him until he wanted to flatten me. When we first came here, I thought I had everything handled. Then I found out about the dad situation, and now I’m just a walking asshole. The shit I said to Cross…” He shook his head, nipping my skin lightly before he sat up. “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t bring this shit to you. You and me, we’re moving too fast. I’m sorry.”
He started to get off the bed.
My heart spiked in panic.
He was going. He truly was going to leave.
He paused, his hand on the doorknob, and looked back. “We shouldn’t be friends even. I’ll just fuck up your life.”
“Stop!”
My heart splintered.
My stomach dropped to my feet.
That was enough. My voice unscrambled my head, and I darted off the bed. But I didn’t go to him. He wanted to leave, and I wasn’t going to physically stop him. That was beneath me, but when I saw he was waiting, I opened my mouth.
I didn’t know what I was going to say until it all came spilling out.
“I need you. Okay?” Oh my God. Did I actually say that?
I blinked. I had. And there was more.
My chest ached. I didn’t like to think about this stuff, but here it was. I balled my hands into fists. I’d never said any of this out loud.
“I barely know my brother. He’s been so mad at our parents that he mostly stays away. He’s almost a stranger, so then it was just Owen and me until…”
I couldn’t.
I heard the car screeching. The red lights flashing.
The taste of blood.
Then nothing.
It was the feeling after the nothing that gave me nightmares, when I let myself remember.
I wasn’t letting myself remember.
“Hey.” Blaise stepped in front of me. “Hey.” He wrapped me in his arms. “I get it,” he whispered. “You don’t have to say anything more. Trust me. I get it.” He pulled back, looking down.
I wasn’t at the edge anymore. He’d pulled me back.
“I am fucked up, and I’m guessing I’m contagious—making you think you’re all messed up, but you aren’t. You’re good. You know that, right?” He said that like he was trying to convince me the sky was up and not down, and I was the moron for not believing him. Then he grinned. “You got a television screen in this house? Let’s watch a movie.” He looked around and made a tsking sound. “This massive place and no television in your room? So low-brow of you, Aspen. I’m disappointed.”
“Shut up.” I tugged him to the door and led him to the movie room. I was a little embarrassed. “There’s a bigger one in the basement, but this one is just for me. They put it in on the off chance I might have friends who wanted to hang out.”
My neck was hot. I knew my face was red, and I didn’t know why. Blaise came from wealth too.
I motioned to the speakers. “We can turn it super loud and no one will hear us.”
He looked around the room. The large screen encompassed an entire wall. There were couches spread out over the rest of the room.
He shook his head. “Man, no snack room? No attendant to walk the lane, check our tickets? Make sure we didn’t sneak in? You’re so poor.”
“Stop it.” I hit him with a pillow and nodded to the back. “The snack room is there, and before you make any more jokes, I actually talked my parents out of doing more than they did.” This was embarrassing enough.
Blaise sighed as he grinned down at me. “Looks like we’ll just have to hole up here in case there’s a zombie outbreak. What? You don’t have two pizza toasters? Just one? Talk about budget cuts. I can really see it in here.”
I grinned, my chest loosening, and by the time we’d made a pizza and settled on the couches, it was well past midnight. When the movie started—a superhero one that wasn’t scheduled to come out for another year—I got comfortable. This was one of the perks of my parents’ job, but I was asleep not even halfway through it.
At one point, I woke to the feeling of a blanket settling over me. Then Blaise pulled me against his chest, and I closed my eyes once more.
“I’m not always this bad, Aspen,” he whispered. “I promise.”
He was almost perfect to me.
18
Aspen
Blaise: Where are you?
Me: Still in bed.
It was Monday morning, just past nine, and I was tired. Not that I really had any reason to be, but I was. I was calling this an early vacation, since I was done with school. There was no reason to go, even though I wasn’t camping after all. And since I planned to ignore my graduation (they would mail me the diploma, I checked), this was the beginning of my summer.