Chapter 32
Lily
Lily is calling you…
Kyle: FOUND IT! It was under the chair.
Lily: Now come to the bathroom so I can heal you.
Kyle: Why did that sound so nasty?
Lily: STOP
After making sure my brother and Jeremy had left Oliver's house, I went upstairs to the bathroom to get a first-aid kit to stop Kyle's nosebleed. My heart was beating extremely fast, and I had so many things on my mind that I couldn't think in peace.
What would have happened if I hadn't noticed Leo had left the house? Or if I hadn't arrived on time and Oliver had convinced my brother to go upstairs to settle his differences with Jeremy?
The same thing as last time, probably.
Leo and Jeremy would have gone upstairs to the bathroom to fight, and Oliver would have recorded them kissing, and then something more.
Then he'd use it to blackmail Leo, but when my brother refused to break up with Brandy, Oliver would have spread the video throughout the school so everyone would bully my poor brother even more than they already did.
But that didn't happen. We'd stopped it. So I needed to calm down.
I took a deep breath in front of the mirror. My hands were still trembling with residual adrenaline that my body still had as I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face, hoping the shock of it would ground me back in reality.
"Getting ready for me?" Kyle said behind me. The voice he used was the same tone as when he spoke authoritatively a few moments ago downstairs, it sounded deep, more manly and intense, reminding me of the man he was ten years later.
"Don't even try to be funny. I'm mad at you."
I splashed the water from my hands at him, but he grabbed my wrists to stop me.
The sudden contact made me gasp in surprise.
I looked up at his face, and the playfulness was completely gone.
He was serious now, his eyes dark and intense, studying me like he was trying to memorize every detail of my expression as if he wasn't in the mood for games either.
As if he understood that we were both barely holding it together and that levity was just another wall we were hiding behind.
For some reason, I didn't tell him to let me go. I needed that firm touch to feel grounded, to feel that everything happening was real and not some dream I'd wake up from.
"I know. And I apologize for that. I got caught up in the moment and didn't realize you needed me." One of his hands released my wrist to rest on my waist, pulling me slightly closer, as if he wanted to make sure I wasn't going to fall apart right there in front of him.
"We were so close to failing," I said.
"But we didn't fail, and that's what matters. Everything turned out okay. You can relax now. You did it, Lily. You saved him."
But why didn't I feel relieved? Why did I still feel stressed that something might go wrong?
"Do you think so?"
"For now, yes. It's all over. Your brother is safe from Oliver's bullying for now.”
But something still didn't feel right.
"I think there's more to the story, something I don't understand yet. And that makes it impossible for me to be at peace."
"What are you talking about?" He asked me.
"I always thought Jeremy had a crush on my brother, and that it was Jeremy who forcibly kissed him at this party, and that's why my brother felt so devastated about Oliver's bullying."
My theory had always been that Jeremy was jealous of my brother's relationship with Brandy, got drunk that day, and came to complain that they weren't spending time together anymore.
I always thought my brother let Jeremy do what he did because he felt guilty or because he was drunk, too.
But the way Leo acted today didn't seem like that was the case at all.
"I understand you perfectly. Jeremy doesn't seem the least bit interested in Leo romantically. Since I've been getting close to him, I can tell."
"It's like I don't know my brother anymore, you know?
I thought we were best friends, that we were close.
But now, even with all the time I've spent trying to reconnect with him, I can't figure out what's happening in his mind.
I can't understand what he's dealing with or why he won't trust me enough to share it. "
"I know it must be frustrating," he responded gently.
"But sometimes the people we love most are the hardest to understand, precisely because we're so close to them.
We see what we expect to see, not always what's really there.
Maybe Leo's been protecting you from something, or maybe he's been struggling with things he doesn't know how to share. "
"What do you think is going on now? Why is my brother so mad at Jeremy? Why did Jeremy come here drunk?"
"I don't know, but you shouldn't focus on that right now. You're visibly stressed, and you need to breathe. You've had too many emotions today. Worry about yourself this time."
"I can't. There are too many people depending on me to help them." I raised my free hand to his cheek. He still had blood running from his nose and a bruise. "Look at your face. I need to heal you."
"Shh," he responded softly, pulling my waist even closer, until there was barely any space between us, until I could feel the warmth of his body radiating against mine.
"Breathe, Lily. Breathe until you remember that you can do it.
Don't think about anything right now. Focus on me.
You can't help others if you're not well yourself.
To be there for the people you love, you must first be strong enough to carry that weight.
No one who's broken can truly heal others.
You'll just end up passing your wounds to them instead of your strength. "
I began to breathe, looking at his face, trying to calm myself.
I focused on those blue eyes I'd fallen in love with when I was too young to understand what love really meant.
On how beautiful he looked watching me in that moment.
On the way, his wet hair had fallen across his forehead.
On the strong line of his jaw that was starting to become visible.
On the fullness of his lips that I absolutely should not be staring at right now.
Something in his gaze made the chaos in my mind begin to settle.
The frantic beating of my heart slowed as I let myself get lost in the warmth of his eyes, in the steady rhythm of his breathing, and in the gentle pressure of his hands, anchoring me to this moment.
For the first time, all this mess, I felt like I could think clearly again.
When my heart finally returned to its normal rhythm, I spoke quietly, "I'm feeling better now. You can let me go."
"But I'm so comfortable here," he whispered, his words barely audible. I could feel the warmth of his breath ghosting across my lips as he spoke. "Don't you feel comfortable too?"
If he weren't holding me so securely, I would have melted into a puddle right there on the bathroom floor. My knees felt weak, my breathing had picked up again (but for entirely different reasons this time), and I was hyperaware of every single point where our bodies were touching.
"Come on, don't play hard to get," I managed to respond, though my voice came out more halting than I intended, revealing exactly how affected I was by his proximity. "The doctor in me needs to clean that nose."
The woman in me needs something else entirely, I thought, but absolutely did not say out loud.
Kyle laughed softly, like he knew exactly my thoughts. He released me slowly, his hands trailing along my sides before he finally let go entirely and sat down on the toilet seat. "Go ahead, Lily, heal me."
I opened the medicine cabinet, retrieved the first-aid kit, and a clean towel. When I positioned myself in front of him, I realized that with him seated and me standing, we were almost at the same height.
He placed his hands on my legs, just below my hips, as if he didn't want me to escape, though that wasn't necessary.
There was nowhere else I'd rather be at that moment.
He had become my safe haven over these past few weeks, and right now, after all the chaos that had just unfolded, I felt completely at peace in his presence.
Well, perhaps "peace" wasn't quite the right word. Not when his hands were on my thighs. Not when I could see the way his eyes had darkened as he looked up at me. Not when every nerve ending in my body was screaming at me to lean down and close the distance between our mouths.
I forced myself to focus, scrutinizing his nose to assess the extent of the damage. My fingers ghosted across the bridge, checking for breaks or displacement. "You're lucky; it's not broken."
"I don't think that's the reason I'm so lucky right now."
I tried to ignore what his words and touch were doing to my pulse and focused on controlling my breathing because I needed to treat his injury properly.
But it was increasingly difficult when all I could think about was how good his hands felt on my skin, how right this moment felt despite everything, how desperately I wanted him to kiss me again.
Get it together, Lily. You're supposed to be healing him, not thinking about—
"My friends in college used to call me 'the wannabe doctor,'" Kyle said with a small laugh.
"Whenever someone got hurt at a party or scraped themselves playing basketball, they'd come find me.
I'd patch them up and tell them if they needed real medical attention.
I think part of me liked pretending I was still connected to that world. To the hospital. To you."
I felt something twist in my chest at his words.
"I never tried to play nurse again after I decided not to pursue medicine," I admitted quietly.
"Even when my friends needed help with something basic, I'd tell them to go to urgent care.
I told myself it was because I'd moved on, but really.
.. I didn't want to admit I still liked it.
That giving it up hurt more than I wanted to acknowledge. "
I took a cotton swab, applied some rubbing alcohol, and began cleaning the entire affected area.
I checked for signs of a deviated septum and examined the surrounding area for hematomas, but everything looked normal.
The blood had stopped completely, and while there were some bruises around the impact site, there didn't appear to be any serious trauma.
"There you go," I whispered as I finished my examination. "We're all done."
But neither of us moved. His hands stayed on my thighs.
I stayed positioned between his legs, close enough that I could count his eyelashes if I wanted to.
And neither of us needed to say why we weren't moving, why we were prolonging this moment.
His gaze traveled slowly from my eyes down to my mouth, and the intensity of it made heat pool low in my belly.
I didn't know where to put my hands anymore.
They hovered awkwardly in the air between us, not quite touching him but not pulling away either.
"Lily," he said, his hands slipping away from my legs to release me completely from him.
"Yeah?"
"I need you to leave. Now."
"But I—"
"Because if you don't," he interrupted me before I could say anything else, "I'm going to break the promise I made to never kiss you without permission again."