Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Iwait for him under my window.
At the spot where he smokes and at the spot where they were talking, him and her.
Sarah left a little while ago. I don’t know what she said to Leah, but she packed her bags and called a cab to the airport. Leah went to sleep then. She has to fly out for a conference early tomorrow morning and she said she’d take me back to St. Mary’s before she leaves.
Meaning my time’s almost up.
In the morning, I’ll go back to all the rules and schedules and structure. I’ll go back to detention and trigonometry and missing my bike.
I don’t care about that though. I wasn’t even expecting to get this much of a reprieve. Especially when I don’t have the privilege yet.
But he got me out.
He sprung me out of that concrete fence like I was a bird trapped in a cage. So I can’t sleep. I won’t.
I’m waiting for him.
My emancipator.
It feels like he’s been gone for ages. Chances are that he probably went back to his motel where he’s staying.
So he won’t be back.
But still, I wait.
Because for some reason, I think he’ll come. He’ll come back to the house. I’m not sure why I think that; there’s nothing here to bring him back. Sarah’s gone. He’s upset with his mother.
But I’m here and I’m his friend. And something tells me he’ll come back for me.
God, all this time. Why didn’t he say anything? About what Sarah did.
Why didn’t he…
A second later, I hear the roar of his motorcycle and my agitated thoughts disintegrate.
He’s back.
He’s back!
I’ve been sitting under the window on the cool autumn grass, my knees folded and hugged to my chest, my arms wrapped around them. I’ve been rocking back and forth with impatience but I freeze now.
I freeze at the sight of him in the driveway, sitting across his motorcycle.
His eyes on me. His brilliant blue eyes, that appear as dark as the night from this far, are glued to my curled-up form.
Like he knew I’d be here. I’d be waiting for him.
He’s right.
No matter the time, the season, the weather, I’ll always wait for him.
Without taking his eyes off me, he moves.
He leans forward, arcs his powerful thigh over the seat and gets off. As soon as he comes to stand, I spring up to my feet.
And when he starts to walk, I take off at a run.
My woolen-sock-covered feet thump on the ground as I race toward him and we meet somewhere in the middle of the backyard where I’ve watched him countless times from up above, through my window.
Although, meet is not how I’d describe the way I almost hurl my body at him.
Like I’m the bird zooming toward him that he let out of the cage, or maybe I’m not a bird at all. Maybe I’m a storm and he catches me with a wide stance and a solid body and I burrow myself in his chest.
I flatten my tiny body against his large one, my arms going around his waist and my cheek pressed against his ribs, right where his heart is.
His dead, darling heart.
I think I’ve shocked him. With my ferocity, with the strength I’m using to hug him, because he goes all stiff. But I don’t let him go.
I’ll never let him go. At least, not in my heart.
And maybe he knows that.
He knows that no matter what he can’t escape my hug so his body loses its rigidity and his arms come around me and cover my spine.
I squeeze him then, and clench my eyes shut against the onslaught of fat, thick tears. I don’t wanna cry. Not right now when I need to be strong.
When I need to be there for him.
“Where did you go?” I whisper.
His open palms move up and down my spine. “If I say I went to a bar, you’re not going to start acting like a jealous little groupie, are you?”
Chuckling sadly, I say, “I called you. I even texted. You never replied back.”
I did.
I dug up my old phone that Leah had given me when we moved in with her and Arrow. She’d also fed her and Arrow’s numbers into our cell phones.
Needless to say, I never used it, his number. I’d stare at it though, several times a day.
But I used it tonight.
It kind of felt weird, texting the guy I’ve been writing secret letters to. A clash of modern, cold technology with how I’ve come to love him.
In an old-fashioned way.
“So acting like a jealous groupie it is,” he murmurs.
“I was worried,” I whisper.
As soon as I say it, I press my forehead on his chest and open my mouth. My lips are right where his heart is and I breathe out large puffs of air as if I’m trying to resuscitate it.
His dead heart.
As if I’m giving all my breaths to that precious organ of his. So it comes alive. So he doesn’t feel empty.
But he doesn’t let me revive his heart.
Instead, he grabs my hair and pulls my neck back.
When I open my eyes, I find him staring down at me with a dark, intense gaze.
“You know, I thought one of the advantages of not having a girlfriend would be that I wouldn’t have to go through the whole ‘I was worried’ routine.
Not that I ever went through it before. But still. ”
I fist his t-shirt at his back. “Too bad. You do have a girlfriend.”
His frown is immediate and thunderous. “What the fuck?”
“I am a girl. And I’m your friend. So girlfriend,” I say, the most cliché thing in the history of all things.
He watches me a beat. “You learn that from a chick flick?”
I don’t know how he can make me smile at a time like this, but he can and he is. “Yes. We should watch some together.”
“Yeah, over my dead fucking body.”
“Oh, I think you’ll be alive.”
His fingers pull at my hair as if emphasizing every word he’s saying. “I think this friend thing isn’t going to work out.”
I shake my head in his hold and study his features, whispering, “Again, too bad. You’re stuck with me.”
The moon is red again tonight, a fireball, and it highlights the lithe lines of his body and lean angles of his face.
Bringing one hand to the front, I reach up and do what I wanted to do back when he was talking to my sister and smooth out the messy strands of his hair. I push them away now, and he clenches his jaw.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” he asks, irritated. “In the cold.”
I huddle my shoulders and rub my cheek in his vintage leather jacket that I put on after Sarah left and Leah went to sleep. “You kept me warm.”
His fingers squeeze my scalp, making me crane up my neck even more. “Shouldn’t you be out there, haunting some bridge or empty street somewhere?”
My heart swells in my chest. It becomes so big that it’s pressing against my ribs. It must be pressing against his too, I bet. He must be able to feel it.
Feel the size, the drumming rhythm of my heart.
When I’m done setting his hair in place for him, I bring my hand back once again and grip his t-shirt. “That’s why you gave me that permission slip, didn’t you? So I could be free.”
Something passes through his face, clenching everything for a second. “It’s Friday. Would you have snuck out to go dancing?”
I bite my lip and nod.
He bends down then, his chest pushing at mine, his fingers tightening in my hair to make a fist and his other hand pressing in the small of my back.
“So consider this, me reining you in,” he growls. “Me putting a leash on you and making you follow the rules.”
A current runs through me at his low, rough growl, at his dominating words. “I don’t wanna go haunt a bridge or a street somewhere.”
“So you decided to haunt me, instead?”
Something about that makes me bite my lip again. “Yes.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I wanna talk to you.”
“Talk to me about what?”
I swallow as my eyes sting with tears. “I know. I know why you beat him up. Ben.”
His eyes grow bright then, violent even, his jaw clenching hard. “Why?”
“Because you wanted to,” I whisper, pressing my knuckles on his back. “It wasn’t because he was the first person you saw. It wasn’t a bad coincidence. It was because you were looking for him. Because he betrayed you. Because my sister betrayed you.”
There’s no surprise on his face when I say that.
In fact for a second there’s something very akin to a dark sort of amusement rippling through his stunning features. “You heard.”
“You were standing under my window.”
“I was.”
Suddenly I understand. “You were… you knew I’d listen in.”
His mouth curls up in a tight lopsided smile. “You looked pretty upset when you had to leave the room after dinner ended.”
“Was this your way of putting a leash on me so I wouldn’t go around breaking rules to find out what happened?”
“Yes.”
My hands move then.
I let go of his shirt at the small of his back, and creep both my arms up and get them around his neck just to hold him closer, tighter.
Putting a leash of my own around him.
“I hated dinner,” I tell him. “I hated everything about it.”
His chest undulates on a slight chuckle. “Why?”
I tug at his hair. “Because you ate everything on your plate.”
“And that’s somehow objectionable to you.”
“Yes,” I insist. “You ate everything and you were so quiet. You even cleaned up after. When I knew, I could see how…” – I flick my eyes over his sharp, jutting features – “angry you were. Your shoulders were all tight and the way you’d clench your jaw every two seconds.
But you never said a word. You were so nice, Arrow. ”
My tone sounds accusatory and he hears it too.
It thickens the lines of amusement around his mouth and eyes, and his own arms move, both his hands burying in my loose and wild hair. “I thought you wanted me to be nice.”
I shift on my feet, restless. “Not like that. Never like that. I don’t want you to hide your emotions, ever. I like you the way you are. All mean and rude. Completely impolite. And I promise I’ll never hit you.”
“What if I deserve it?”
I chew on my lips, thinking about it. “Well, maybe I’ll hit you then. But only a little bit.”
A smirk blooms on his mouth. “Very charitable of you.”
“Stop making jokes. This isn’t funny. This…
” I grab his chain at the back of his neck.
“Why didn’t you say anything? All this time.
All this time I thought… I thought I could do something to get you guys back together, and this dinner…
” I take a deep breath. “I went to Leah, Arrow. I went to see your mom and I told her that we should do something to… to make you both see reason. And she’d already planned this dinner.
But I want you to know that I knew about this.
I knew about the dinner and that Sarah was going to be here.
I hid it from you because I thought you wouldn’t show up and…
God, I’m so sorry, Arrow. I put you through this.
I could’ve saved you. I could’ve spared you the pain and –”
“No one could’ve spared me the pain,” he speaks over me with an almost lashing voice. “No one could’ve saved me.”
I swallow painfully. “Why didn’t you say anything, Arrow?”
His eyes flick back and forth between mine, a painful, tormented look flashing in them, and my witchy heart squeezes and squeezes.
“For months,” he whispers, his rough words vibrating between us, “she lied to me. He lied to me. He was my closest friend. I trusted him. I trusted him with my game. He knew about my plans. He knew that I was going to propose to her. He knew that. He knew I had a ring. But I was stupid, wasn’t I?
“I was blind. I was fucking dumb. Because for months, they went behind my back and I didn’t suspect anything.
I had no clue. I had no goddamn clue. I thought everything was fine.
I thought everything was okay. Every fucking thing was perfect.
But it wasn’t. You hear stories about guys who get taken on a ride and you think, how fucking stupid do you have to be to miss that?
How fucking stupid do I have to be to miss that?
I’m The Blond Arrow. I’m supposed to win.
I’m supposed to be perfect. Flawless. But I’m not, am I?
I’m a failure. I failed in my relationship. ”
Oh God, no.
Please, please don’t let him think that. Don’t let him put this on himself.
Arrow puts so much pressure on himself as it is. He thinks everything is his fault and he beats himself up over it so much. I don’t want him to think this is his fault too, his failure. When it’s not.
This is absolutely not his fault and he’s making me cry and I can’t cry right now.
If I start, I won’t stop and I can’t do that. I have to be there for him. I have to tell him that he’s not a failure.
I grab his face then. I grab it and I dig the pads of my fingers in the hollows of his sculpted cheeks.
“You didn’t fail, Arrow. You were betrayed, okay? She betrayed you and I still can’t believe that she did that. But it’s not your fault. It’s not your failure.”
He grinds his teeth for exactly eight seconds – I counted – before saying, “Well, I got cheated on, didn’t I? And I was the one who didn’t know about it so whose failure is it, if not mine?”
I go to say something else, something that will make him understand.
Only I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know how to make him understand when he believes himself so wholeheartedly. When it’s written all over his face, his tight and stubborn features.
His pained features.
God, there’s so much pain. So much torment and I don’t know what to do.
Except…
Except pull him closer and kiss his clenched jaw.
And his thrumming cheek.
I do it all lightly, simply a peck. But the effect of it on him is loud and jarring.
His brows snap together as his eyes focus on me. They lose their cloudy, pained look and a light flashes in them.
“What are you doing?” he growls, his fingers flexing in my hair.
“Giving you the answer to the question you asked me a long time ago.”
Or at least it feels like it. That it was a long time ago. When in reality, probably only a couple of weeks have passed.
“What question?”
I rub my thumb in the hollows of his cheek and kiss him again.
I know he told me to not kiss him. He told me that he’s a nightmare for girls like me. A walking talking heartbreak.
But he doesn’t know that heartbreak is my friend.
That it’s been my friend for years now. Since the day I saw him in the kitchen. That fifteen-year-old boy has grown into this tormented, betrayed, dangerous man and I’m more in doomed love with him now than I was eight years ago.
Arrow doesn’t know that when your love is doomed, you’re not afraid of a little heartbreak. You walk with it. You dance with it. You breathe it in.
So I ignore his rule and gather the courage to place a soft kiss on his gorgeous, exceptionally soft lips.
“You asked me if I’d be your rebound girl.
So I’m telling you that yes, I will be. I’ll be that girl for you.
The girl you come to, to fuck all your frustrations out.
The girl who spreads her legs for you the moment she sees you’re jacked up and you need it. ”