Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Middle
Becky
Someone’s shouting, the words loud and angry, clanging around inside my already throbbing head.
I hear voices. Familiar. One is the high nasal tone of my dorm mother, a middle-aged lady who lives on the floor above me.
Rumor says she’s an alcoholic, but who knows.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen her.
I try to focus on her words, but it’s hard with my head swimming.
It’s about how she’s sorry and she didn’t know.
There’s talk about an ambulance. A hospital.
“No,” I whisper, my lips so dry and cracked that I taste the copper tang of blood when I speak. “No hospital.”
The bed dips as someone heavy sits down next to me.
“What? Why?” says a voice, rough and male. Someone I should know. A name floats out of reach.
“Too many hospitals,” I rasp, then cough weakly. I don’t even have the energy for that. “Tired of them. Know how it ends.”
A hand hesitantly brushes my forehead, the touch light.
“She’s burning up,” says the deep voice.
More talking. Is someone crying? The house mother?
Consciousness fades. My mind untethers and floats away.
***
It must be later because the sky is dark now.
Chill air brushes my bare legs. I’m wearing my nightgown, so why am I outside?
Am I in the clearing? Don’t I have a test tomorrow?
Panic thumps in my chest, and I kick my feet, flail my elbows, smacking into something hard and warm. It grunts and loosens its hold.
“Stop it,” says a voice right by my ear. “I’m going to drop you if you keep that up.” He sounds annoyed, a tone I’ve heard before. Lots of times.
Carrson?
Pieces come to me. The stars over my head. The sensation of arms around my shoulders and under my legs. A jostling, like I’m being carried.
“I’m going to throw up,” I warn him.
“You better not,” he shoots back.
Yep. That’s him.
“Put me down.” I bat at his arm.
The ground is wet under my bare feet. With effort, I crack my eyes open. Water droplets delicately balance on leaves, and there are puddles on the sidewalk. It must have rained. We’re outside of a big white house with a gray roof and dormer windows. I should recognize it. I’ve seen it before.
I turn my head and vomit into a bush.
Carrson holds my hair, and I’m pretty sure I hear him gag.
“This is the throw-up bush,” I tell him groggily.
“Gross,” he mutters from behind me, and I smile faintly, picturing the way his lip curls in disgust.
“I saw someone else puke here once,” I add, because that feels important.
My legs give out, and the ground rushes up to meet me. I brace for impact, but he catches me. Sweeps me up into his arms.
“You don’t like to be touched,” I say as I rest my head on his chest. His heart beats, a soothing sound. “That’s what you said,” I mumble. “Were you lying?”
“No.” We’re going upstairs now. He hitches me a little higher. “I was telling the truth.” There’s the click of a door opening. “I hate it,” he whispers into my hair, his arms tightening around me. Still, he doesn’t let me go.
A few more steps. Then I’m falling, no sinking, into something so soft I wonder if I’ve died.
I have one last thought before I pass out and it’s a happy one.
At least I’ll get to see Remi again.
***
Carrson Ashford is trying to murder me. More specifically, he’s trying to drown me.
I thrash in his arms as water pours down my face and into my mouth, choking me. It’s everywhere, cold, relentless, dragging a cough from my chest. I sputter and shove at him, trying to twist free, but his grip only tightens.
“Calm down,” he snaps, his voice loud over the pounding spray. “I have to break your fever. It’s the only way.”
I force an eye open, blinking against the water streaming down my face. It takes a minute for the scene to make sense.
We’re in a bathtub. The old-fashioned kind. Oval porcelain with a showerhead high above us. Water rains down, freezing cold, soaking through everything. I’m wedged between his spread legs, my back pressed to his chest, his arms around me to keep me upright.
I scan dully, noticing details my brain can’t quite process. His jeans, darkened and clinging to his thighs, the line of muscle tense under the fabric, the way the water runs over his hands where they’re wrapped around me.
I’m in my nightgown. It’s soaked through, the thin fabric plastered to my skin, leaving nothing to the imagination. I get one second to register that. One second to feel the flicker of embarrassment before the sound of the water dulls. The room blurs.
And it all goes black.
***
It’s daytime now. The light hurts my eyes even though I keep them shut, bleeding through my lids in a dull, pulsing red.
“Thirsty,” I whisper through parched lips, unsure if anyone’s there to answer me.
“Drink,” he says. “A sip.”
The water is cold. Soothing. Before he can pull away, I reach out and grab his sleeve. I force my eyes open. Carrson stands over me, his expression pulled into that familiar frown, but there’s another emotion there now, layered underneath the irritation. It takes me a second to recognize it.
Worry.
“Don’t go,” I whisper. There’s no strategy behind it. No plan. No angle. Only the quiet panic of being left alone. “Please.”
His jaw ticks, and I think he’ll say no, but instead he sets the glass down and gestures. “Scoot over.”
The mattress dips as he sits beside me, then shifts again as he stretches out, his back against the headboard. Dark wood, intricately carved, but I can’t focus on it.
He tips his head back and closes his eyes, a long, weary exhale leaving him. The shadows under his eyes stand out now, darker than usual. He looks exhausted.
Because of me?
I lean into him, drawn by the simple need for warmth, proximity, the solid presence of another person. My head touches his shoulder. He locks up. Every muscle tightens, like he can’t decide whether to shove me away or let it happen.
I know I should move, but I don’t have the strength and, honestly, I don’t want to.
“This is nice,” I mumble, half-delirious.
“Mmm,” he murmurs, noncommittal.
“Sorry if I get you sick,” I tell him, my head drooping.
“I never get sick.” He crosses one ankle over the other, his shorts riding up to expose the inside of his thigh. There are marks there. Not fresh, more like scars. Perfect circles. Lots of them as if something was done to him. Repeatedly.
I reach out and poke one. “What happened?”
Careful not to dislodge me, he tugs his shorts into place, covering the strange markings. “Nothing.”
I get ready to ask more, but the room spins as everything narrows, collapses.
***
The next time I wake, I can actually open my eyes. It’s nighttime now. That night…or another? I can’t tell. The room is dim, lit only by a small lamp on the nightstand, casting a weak yellow glow that pools across the bed and spills onto the floor.
Carrson is slumped in a chair beside me, his head tipped slightly back, his eyes hooded but not quite closed. Watching me.
The first thing I notice is that he isn’t wearing a shirt.
I don’t know why that’s what my brain latches onto, but it does.
Seeing him that way in the clearing had been one thing, the open sky, the space around us making it distant, unreal.
Here, in a bedroom, with the walls close and the air still, it’s different.
There’s nowhere else to look. Only sculpted muscle and smooth skin.
“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” I ask, my voice rough from sleep.
“You got sick on it,” he says evenly. “Like the two before it.”
Oh.
Heat floods my cheeks at the thought. The idea of him seeing me weak, completely vulnerable, makes me want to pull the covers over my head.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” I say, even though I can’t afford it.
“Don’t bother.” There’s no judgment in his voice. No softness either. Just a simple statement.
I glance down, and freeze. This isn’t my nightgown. I’m wearing a T-shirt. A man’s T-shirt. It hangs loose on my frame, soft with wear, the fabric thinned in places from years of being washed.
“Is this yours?”
Carrson nods once.
I glance around, searching. “Where’s my nightgown?”
“I threw it out. It was…” He pauses, then shakes his head. “You don’t want to know.”
My fingers find the hem, which falls to mid-thigh, barely there. I tug it down, and that’s when I notice. I’m bare underneath it. No panties. No nothing.
Heat rushes up my neck, spreading fast, until my face is on fire. I go frozen, caught somewhere between mortified and very, very aware of the fact that this…this is his.
His shirt. On my skin.
“Wait,” I say, pushing myself up on my elbows despite my weakness. “Did you—did you change me into this?”
Carrson’s gaze darts away, ending up somewhere near the window. He nods. And I swear his ears turn pink.
“So you saw me…” I trail off, even though I already know the answer.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat, glancing at me, then away again. “I tried not to look.”
I study him. “Tried and succeeded?” I ask. “Or tried and failed?”
His shoulders lift in a small, almost helpless shrug, then fall again. “Somewhere in the middle,” he admits.
I slump back against the pillow, dragging an arm over my eyes. “So embarrassing,” I mutter.
He chuckles faintly, the sound low and rough, as if he doesn’t do it often.
I peek at him over my arm. He’s smiling. Not much. The faintest curve of his mouth, but it’s enough to change his whole face. Softer. Less dangerous. More handsome.
“It’s only fair,” he counters, “since you saw me with that thing in my eye.”
I drop my arm. “You mean when you cried?”
The softness disappears instantly.
“I wasn’t crying,” he says, his mouth pressing into a thin line.
“You totally were—”
I stop myself. What am I doing? He saved me, and here I am, picking a fight.
“Sorry,” I mumble. Then, quieter, “And thanks. For making sure I was okay.”
“It’s nothing,” Carrson says, though the words are swallowed by a yawn so wide I hear his jaw pop. He blinks, pulling a hand down his face.
I glance toward the clock on the nightstand. “Is it really one a.m.?”
“Yeah.” Another yawn. He stands and comes to the side of the bed, arranging a pillow and blanket that lay on the floor.
I push myself up slightly, peering over the edge. “What’re you doing?”
“Going to sleep.” He smooths the blanket out with efficient, practiced movements. “It’s late.”
I blink at him. “You’ve been sleeping down there?”
“All three days. Close enough to hear if you stopped breathing.”
“Three days?” My voice comes out high. Panic flares to life. “What about my classes? My parents?”
“I took care of it.” He tucks his legs under the blanket. “Your teachers know. Your parents too.”
“How?”
“I called them.”
I try to picture Carrson, of all people, speaking to my timid, soft-spoken parents, and fail completely.
“They asked if they should come,” he adds, reaching up to adjust the lamp. “I told them you’d be fine. You were past the worst of it.”
The light changes as he pulls it closer, the glow dimming.
“We can talk about it tomorrow,” he says. “I’m tired, and you need to rest.”
He twists the knob, and the room falls into darkness. Silence sets in around us. I lie there for a few minutes, staring up at nothing, listening to the quiet rise and fall of his breathing.
Guilt creeps in. I turn onto my side and lean over the edge. “I feel bad you’re sleeping down there,” I whisper. “You can come up here. I’ll stay on my side.”
“No thanks.” His response is immediate, muffled slightly by the pillow.
I wait. Then wait a little longer. “Carrson?” No answer. “Are you sure?”
Still nothing. I frown, irritation rising, and then I hear it.
A soft, steady snore.
He’s already asleep.