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For a fleeting second, I wondered what Christopher would do if we came face-to-face on the other side. Dude would probably kill me if he found me showing my face back around here. I’d take it as it came because hiding was no longer an option.
I burst into the darkened, silent apartment. Christopher’s door sat wide open, like it’d been so many times before. Undoubtedly, the guy was on the prowl.
Aly’d been left alone, again.
Frustrated air puffed from my nose. I didn’t want her to be alone anymore.
Light seeped from beneath her door. I paused in front of it, fucking shaking, because the truth was, I was scared. I was so good at destroying, but clueless when it came to mending the disaster I’d left in my wake. I rapped one knuckle on her door, my heart beating all rough when I placed my hand on the knob. I didn’t wait for an answer. I turned it and let it slowly swing open.
And I just stood there in the doorway, staring at the girl staring back at me. Faint light crept up the walls from the lamp on her dressing table. Her head was cocked up in shock as she sat on the edge of her bed facing out, sitting cross-legged with a large sketch pad balanced on her lap.
Affection rushed through me and I was fisting my hands, trying to keep this insanity under control. Defining Aly had always been impossible. Sexy as all hell, i
This girl was my perfection. Months ago, that’d been my first thought when I looked up from the couch to find her standing there. Never before had someone had such a physical effect on me. I mean, damn, it’d felt just like I’d been struck. I should have known then she hadn’t just impacted me with a shot of lust. The desire and need she’d driven me half-mad with had been so much greater than that.
It’d been truth.
Was I scared of everything my returning stood for?
Yeah.
Because this was real.
Not some fucked-up fantasy like I’d convinced myself to believe.
Slowly Aly slid the pad from her lap and onto the bed. She blinked, green eyes acute as she watched me with uncertainty. “Jared.”
With the sound of my name on her lips, I broke. In two long strides, I crossed the room and dropped to my knees in front of her.
I was giving in. I was ready for her.
A soundless gasp parted her mouth when I took her face in my hands. Her knees jutted out just over the bed, digging into my sides like a reluctant embrace. Her hair tumbled down my arms in a wave that I wanted to get lost in as I looked up at her. I ran my thumbs under her eyes, capturing the tears that fell.
I struggled to pull a breath into the well of my lungs, and my tongue darted out to wet my lips. I tilted my head to the side, caught in her unwavering gaze. Devotion poured from her. Even after all the shit I’d put her through.
“You saved me,” I whispered, drawing her left hand to my mouth. I kissed along the scar where my life had made its mark. I ran my nose along it, then pressed my face into her palm because I just needed to feel.
God, I needed to feel.
It was warmth and good and the girl. And fuck… if it wasn’t everything.
Aly started trembling as awareness took hold. Slowly she unwound her legs, and I moved back a fraction so she could drape them along my sides.
“How did you know?” I asked.
I felt her pulse accelerate, and she hesitated. “Jared… I… ” She blinked through something that looked like fear.
“Baby, talk to me,” I softly prodded.
She released a weighted breath and slipped both her hands over the tops of mine, which were rested on her thighs. I squeezed her in reassurance. “I never told anyone about that night… maybe because it’d impacted me too much, I don’t know. I mean, I’d tried to tell my mom, but I guess I was just scared.” She kind of shrugged. “That whole week after you got expelled from school, I’d been… ” She frowned. “… unsettled. Everything was so messed up. Your family was wrecked and mine was coming apart at the hinges. I felt like I was losing every single person I cared about.”
I went rigid. I destroy everything I touch.
In silent encouragement, Aly reached out and smoothed her thumb up the line that dented my brow, like she knew exactly what I was thinking, like she knew me. She didn’t stop talking as she did. “There was this knot building in my gut.” She shivered. “I kept getting this overwhelming feeling that something really bad was going to happen. That night, I couldn’t sleep. Mom had finally made me turn off my light a little after eleven since I had school in the morning, but I had a little flashlight that I used so I could draw at night.”
Aly drew back and inclined her chin to where her sketch pad sat wide open at her side. She traced her fingers along the lines she’d forged on the page.
My heart stuttered with the image looking back at me.
The drawing was beautiful, just like the girl, only because it’d been rendered by her hand. But it was my face on the page, all hard planes and angles, my arms and chest exposed, her own interpretation of my sins swirled and shaded across my skin. And my eyes… she recognized so much in me that I couldn’t see.
“People, Jared… that’s what I keep in my books. Only the ones I love.” She ran her thumb from the bottom page of the pad to the top, lifting them one by one to expose them, image after image of me.
Again I was reeling, because, fuck, it was just overwhelming. This girl who had leveled my walls, the only one who’d understood, the one who saw right though all my bullshit, had always seen me.
She turned back to me, her voice softening with caution. “After your mom died, I couldn’t draw her anymore. It was like there was this block that wouldn’t let me see. It broke my heart because I wanted to remember her. I guess I thought it would somehow keep her alive, but it wouldn’t come… until that night.” Aly drew in a shaky breath. “But it was all wrong, Jared. I could feel it. It was like I was compelled to draw her face, but she was crying out, and I knew she was crying for you. And I kept drawing and drawing and the same thing kept coming out until I’d worked myself into a complete panic. I had to check to make sure you were okay. I snuck out and ran across to your house. You were supposed to be grounded, so I figured I’d just peek in your window to check on you. But I found it open, and your room was empty.”
Aly squinted, as if she were back in that moment. “God… this fear overtook me.” She focused back on me. “Right then, I knew something was wrong. I snuck back in my room, but I couldn’t sit still. I ended up grabbing my sketch pad and thinking I’d go draw in the fort. As soon as I wedged myself through the hole in the fence, I saw Mr. Ramirez’s car. I knew it was you. I just started ru
“And I knew… ” She cupped my face. “I knew how broken you were and it broke me, too. I pounded on your chest because I didn’t know what else to do. You started throwing up, and that was when I heard a cop car stop on the street and shine its light into the field. It turned out they were already looking for you. I was a coward, Jared… . I ran because I was scared and I didn’t know how to process what I saw. I hid in the dark in the back of the field, watching them work over you… watched them take you away. I’m so sorry I left you there. I’ll always regret that.”