Chapter 17 – Reese
YOU CAUGHT ME
REESE
Ihad one final meeting with Dean Voss before break, and it was entirely pointless—like every other one of our meetings. But I was beyond relieved I wouldn’t have to see him for almost a month.
I could pretend I wasn’t lying to Dakota for a while.
When winter break officially started the following week, the students that hadn’t already left went back home to spend the holidays with their families.
Some stayed behind, which struck me as sad.
Did they not have families to spend their time with?
Were they like me? Or did they despise their families like Dakota did?
I stayed behind. My grandma didn’t celebrate anything and was a cranky woman devoid of love—to give or receive—so I wasn’t rushing back to Boston to go feel like I was a stain on her dress she couldn’t get out. Spending three years with her had been more than enough.
Dakota stayed behind too, just like he said he would.
After I was all better, I haunted the nearby cemetery like a ghost, slipping away whenever Dakota wasn’t paying attention. I found the little iron gate he’d told me about and used that.
I soon realized he was always paying attention, though. He just pretended he wasn’t.
Sometimes he followed me out here. I never knew whether or not he did until he popped up randomly, scaring the living shit out of me.
Kind of like the first day I met him.
It was so strange to think back on that day and remember the initial impression I’d gotten. To now know how wrong I was.
I’d gone the opposite way on the spectrum; now I was just dreaming about him all the time. I tried to keep him out of my mind during the day, but he haunted me at night.
I couldn’t believe I let him do that to me the other day. He’d tricked me into his arms, I was sure of it. And I’d just walked into his trap without a second thought, fallen asleep on top of him, and then…
Fuck, it was so embarrassing. Even worse was the fact that I liked it so much. That I wanted to do that again with him.
It was like every time he put his hands on me, all rational thought flew out the window.
Which was why I’d kind of been avoiding him.
On a cold, Friday afternoon, I went back to that crumbling stone wall in the woods, made my way through weeds and uncut grass, and sat at the base of a giant oak in the center. The restlessness and confused thoughts that had plagued me for days simmered to a faint hum.
I tipped my head back against the uneven bark, closed my eyes, and tried to picture my family, but their images were fuzzy and out of focus.
I only ever got to see them in my dreams now.
When I was little and had nightmares, Mom used to tell me to think of her when I closed my eyes.
That she’d visit me and make my dreams sweet as honey.
And it worked. Every time, it worked. Now when I closed my eyes and thought of her…
parts of her were missing, like someone had burned holes into a photograph.
The picture was incomplete, distorted and blurry.
I wanted her to murmur in my ear that she’d give me dreams as sweet as honey, but she didn’t have a face anymore.
It was frightening, how fast those memories had faded.
Memories started like mud, thick and heavy and cohesive, slowly drying over time, shrinking, fragmenting, until they were just crumbling dirt, breaking apart into particles of dust that got swept away with the wind.
They didn’t last, didn’t ever remain perfectly intact, no matter how hard you tried to hold onto them.
That should’ve been a comforting thought when looking back on the bad times. It wasn’t, though.
There was only one comforting thing in my life right now, and that was Dakota.
He made me want to laugh. To smile. I’d thought any and all good feelings I’d once had were completely dead.
I used to laugh. I used to smile all the time. I was happy once. But it slowly bled away from me, one day at a time, until it was all gone.
I wanted to be happy again; I’d forgotten what that even felt like. I’d spent so many years in the mud, clawing my way through the crumbling ruins of all these dark memories, and I was ready for some sun.
But there was a voice whispering in my ear that I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t enough, period. Not for my dad, not for playing the violin, not for any kind of decent life. I wasn’t worthy. There was a flaw in my code, a disruption in the chain that denoted how useless I was.
If I’d only been good enough, my dad would’ve had something to hold onto. He would’ve been able to grab onto my worth and keep himself afloat. Instead, he grasped at empty air and sank even further until he was gone forever.
I sighed, wishing I could turn my stupid brain off. Silence all the noise.
I’d gotten used to living like this. Feeling this way. I’d gotten used to the hole in my heart and the mess in my head. I used to think things would get easier as time went on, but they didn’t. They just became easier to push aside and pretend they didn’t exist.
And now there was a boy who wanted to dismantle every brick I’d placed so carefully over the last decade until nothing stood between us.
“Mom,” I whispered, plucking at the frozen grass. “Tell me what to do.”
Tell me it’s okay to let myself have this.
Tell me not to be afraid.
Tell me that no matter what happens, I’ll be okay.
I was going to break. I knew it. I could feel it coming.
Dakota Voss was slipping past my walls and deep beneath my skin without me feeling a thing.
I was going to cave—it was only a matter of time.
And that excited me. I was anticipating the thrill of it. The uncertainty of all of it.
I didn’t want to be seen—and yet I did. Desperately. It was a fierce need he’d awakened that warred with the voice in my head that had been screeching the same words over and over: don’t see me, don’t look at me, don’t see me, don’t look at me.
Because once anyone looked close enough, they’d see there was nothing worth looking at.
Maybe it was time I stopped overthinking it, stopped trying to fight it.
But every time I followed that train of thought, at the end was a horrible, stark reminder of what every outcome would be; I’d always lose, because no matter how much effort I put in, the things I cared about were inevitably stolen from my grasp in the most awful way.
Hands suddenly covered my eyes and a shock of terror flashed through me. A deep, scratchy voice whispered in my ear, “Caught you.”
The scent of something sweet and smoky engulfed me, sent a blistering rush of excitement through my frozen bones.
“Weird place to hang out,” Dakota murmured, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
He pulled his hands away and came around to face me.
Eyes full of mischief, lips quirked up in a smile. I got stuck on that freckle in the corner of his mouth.
A cold finger traced one of my eyebrows.
I dug my teeth into my bottom lip as hard as I could, then startled when Dakota reached down and placed his thumb on my lip, pulling it free.
“Don’t do that,” he murmured, his eyes locked on my mouth. “I don’t like it when you hurt yourself.” His gaze lifted to mine. “But you can bite me whenever you want.”
I scoffed and shoved his hand away, but he just laughed.
“What’re you doing out here? Surprised you got over the wall this time,” he said, smiling a little.
I shook my head again. “Nothing, I just…missed my family. I used to visit them back home every week, and now…”
Dakota hummed. “Is that who’s in the picture you keep in your notebook?”
I scowled at him. “You went through my shit?”
God, he was such a nosy bastard. And why the fuck did I like that?
Dakota shrugged. “You left it on your bed and it was sticking out. I was curious.”
“Of course you don’t even apologize,” I muttered.
But fuck, I needed to be more careful. What if he found all the notes I was keeping on him? What would he think?
“Because I’m not sorry,” he said, leaning closer to me.
“I want to know everything about you, and if I have to stoop to shady ways of getting that information, I will, since you won’t tell me yourself.
Besides,” he said, tilting his head and placing a finger over my mouth.
“This mean little mouth just tells lies anyway.”
He slid his finger along my bottom lip, then let his hand fall away. He sat down next to me, and when he placed his hand over mine, almost hesitantly, I didn’t move. “What happened?”
I swallowed, then started tracing a finger along the vein on the back of his hand. “Car accident.”
I could feel the heat of his body as he pressed himself against me, one long line of warmth from my shoulder to my thigh.
“We were…” I swallowed and plucked at a blade of grass. “Me, my mom, and my sister were on our way to one of my music competitions.”
His fingers flexed on mine. “You were in the car?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Until I wasn’t.” I laughed despite there being nothing funny at all about it. I picked up a twig and scraped it into the dirt. “I went through the windshield and they went through the guardrail and over a cliff. They died instantly.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever told this to anyone before.
Back in Boston, all the people in my life already knew.
They knew to stay away from the boy with the smudge on his face because he’d bite your head off if you got too close.
I’d never had to explain anything about my past, and the words were so strange to hear, the weight of them on my tongue crushing, the taste of them sickening, sour and curdled.
Ten years and it still felt like yesterday. Ten years and it felt like ten lifetimes.
“I’m sorry.” He brushed his thumb back and forth over my skin. “I’m so sorry you lost them, but I’m glad you’re still here. Really, really, glad, Reese.” Dakota smiled at me, and I unraveled completely.