Chapter 17 #3
“What the…” Ridge rolls closer, craning to see. “Oh. Oh.” He presses a hand over his mouth, which does nothing to stop his laughter.
Nevan looks between us and his sketchbook, baffled. “What?”
Ridge’s eyes are bright with delight. “And Paul…” he finally manages, “… has an unreasonable fear of spiders.”
“It’s not unreasonable, you asshole,” I mutter.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” Nevan turns the sketchbook’s page so the spiders are gone. “It’s what I draw to warm up.”
Ridge looks happier than he has in days.
Can’t say I enjoy that.
“Nevan, did you know Ridge is a writer?”
Ridge turns toward me with slow menace. “Don’t you dare.”
“No?” Nevan says, confused by the change in topic.
“Horror, mostly. Very good, actually. Published under R. B. Wells.”
“I’m not really into books.”
“That’s okay. But you should ask him what the B stands for.”
“You absolute bastard,” Ridge growls out.
Nevan looks between us. “Why?”
“Ridge’s middle name is Bonnell.”
Nevan’s mouth twitches, then he chokes on what is very clearly a laugh and turns it into a cough that fools no one.
“Oh, go ahead. Laugh. That’s fine.” Ridge folds his hands in his lap with great dignity. “You know what else is fine? The fact that Paul loves plants. Passionately. His entire phone camera roll is plants.”
“Yeah, and?” I huff. “Other people’s phones are full of pictures of their pets.”
“The funny thing about plants is that sometimes, when you bring them inside, very small things come in with them.”
I glare at him.
“You know, Paul even had his favorite plant as a phone wallpaper. Lovely plant. But there was a spider on it, a small one, tucked into the corner of the frame, and he hadn’t noticed until I pointed it out.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I groan out.
“He had an exterminator smoke the entire house.”
“They infest! And multiply. If you find one, there are seven. If you find seven, there are…”
“He had the whole house smoked,” Ridge repeats, chuckling. “Only for us to figure out it was a speck of dirt on his screen.”
Nevan is laughing properly now.
I let it go on for a moment before leaning forward and picking up his water glass, handing it back to him. “Drink that.” I wait until he does. “And then we should talk about what Seraphine told you.”
Nevan takes a long sip before setting the glass down.
He looks at Lennon, still and pale against the mattress before he looks back.
“She told me I’d die young in my sleep. She’s been saying it since I was little.
She read it in the cards, in the stars. She had…
” He stops and exhales a tired breath. “Visions, she called them.”
“She said that to a child? Her own child?” Ridge’s tone has gone very flat.
“She has said it to me my whole life.” Nevan’s tone is not defensive, just matter-of-fact.
Resigned in a way that suggests it stopped hurting only because he ran out of room to keep hurting about it.
“When I was a teen, I jumped out of my bedroom window while sleepwalking, straight through the glass. I needed thirty-three stitches down my leg.”
“What?” This boy needs therapy, like yesterday.
“Yeah.” Nevan shrugs. “The glass missed my femoral artery by a couple of centimeters. I thought that maybe that was it, what she saw, that I miraculously survived it. But she never stopped warning me, even after.”
“Fuck, now I feel bad for yeeting your dream projection out of a window.”
My head whips toward Ridge. “You did what?”
“Nothing.” Ridge looks a little sheepish. “Anyway, that’s not something you tell a child, even if she saw it in your cards.”
“That’s my mom. That’s how she is. She told Lennon too. Before…” He glances at me. “Before you hit her with your car. She told her she was about to die.”
I go still. “She did?”
“Yeah. She predicted it.” He shrugs. “She predicts a lot of things. You can’t always tell what they mean until after. But in hindsight…”
“But Lennon is still alive, and so are you.” I put a hand on his shoulder, even if mine protests at the movement.
“I think I want to go see my mom, if that’s okay? I know you guys told me what a tether is, but I’d like to ask her to explain it to me again anyway.”
Ridge frowns. “Why?”
“Lennon said I’m her tether.”
Ridge and I both look at him. Ridge, because he’s Ridge, shows nothing. I show very little, but the question that comes out of Ridge is the same one that’s moved through my mind. “How did that happen?”
Nevan’s gaze drops to the sketchbook, his thumb tracing the edge of the page. “I think it’s because I told her I love her.”
“Huh?” Ridge’s gaze turns to mine. “Have you told her that already?”
“I mean, yes, but…”
Did I say these exact words?
I told her that I’m not angry.
I told her that I’m trying.
I told her that I wanted only her, that she’s my soulmate, the love of my life, but did I actually say, I love you?
“Okay. You two go see Seraphine,” Ridge says, already wheeling himself closer to our woman on the mattress, something equally protective and soft in his expression. “I’ll stay with Sleeping Beauty.”