Chapter 39 #2
It wasn’t lost on me that I had barely spoken a word to anyone since the ‘incident,’ but something about his stoic nature frustrated me enough to speak.
“See those rocks down there? You could hit one on your way down. Then you’d crack your head open and there’d be blood.
Bits of your brain will probably scatter everywhere.
Messy way to go. It would take the fun out of the whole peaceful drowning thing.
Just make sure to concentrate on the deepest part of the water when you jump. ”
My jaw dropped. “Shouldn’t you be trying to talk me out of this?”
He shrugged. “Looks like you aren’t going through with it, anyway. Oh well. Not every day can you achieve your goals. Give me your hand, Little One, and I’ll pull you back over.”
No. I couldn’t go back to my hospital suite. My parents forced me to meet the plastic surgeon today. Despite my protests and pleas against more surgeries, they had signed the documents to approve the procedure. The date had been set.
Defeat wore me down. I couldn’t go through one more surgery, let alone the several suggested by the physician.
Just jump, and it will be over. No more pain.
“Take my hand, Little One. Maybe tomorrow will be your day.”
“Go away.”
“Can’t. I’m already involved. If you jump, I’ll be the last person to see you alive. The police will think I pushed you and make me their number one murder suspect.”
“Then go back downstairs.”
“This hospital has cameras everywhere except the roof. They’ll see that I went to the rooftop and then connect me to the dead girl floating in the river.” Crouching down, he started unlacing his shoes. “I think the only way out is for me to jump after you once you let go.”
“You’re crazy.”
He chuckled wholeheartedly, and for the firsttime, he didn’t sound bored or sarcastic. It was real. Something about him told me that he didn’t laugh very often. The sound warmed my chest. “I’m crazy? I’m not the one hanging off the railing of a hospital roof.”
“You’ll die if you jump after me.”
“I’ll be charged with murder if I don’t. I’m a good swimmer. I’ll take my chances with the water against life in prison.”
He removed his socks next and threw his wallet and pack of cigarettes on the ground.
He was impossible. “You said it yourself. There are rocks. The fall alone will kill you.”
“To tell you the truth, I am more worried about the water than the rocks.”
“Why?”
“It’s below freezing.”
I peered over the edge, suddenly unsure whether drowning would be less painful than plastic surgery.
“Water that cold hits you like a thousand knives all over your body.” He removed his jacket next. “Which is why I’m not looking forward to jumping after you.”
I realized my tears had dried at some point during our conversation. “Then don’t.”
“Like I said, I don’t have a choice. I value my freedom more than ice-cold water.”
“There has to be another way.”
He seemed to be considering my words at great length. “I guess you could always climb back over the railing. Then I don’t have to jump or go to jail.”
I looked from him to the water. I really didn’t want to jump into that cold water or hit my head on one of those rocks.
My resolve broke when he extended his hand.
Without knowing much about him, I could tell he didn’t like being touched.
Like me, there was a clear reluctance to make physical contact.
This was a monumental gesture for people like us.
Perhaps it was because I was so touched that I slipped my trembling hand in his.
He didn’t miss a beat. He was well built for a teenager and lifted me with one hand, as if I weighed nothing.
He pulled me over the railing so fast that our bodies collided, and the impact sent us sprawling.
For a second, I thought he’d drop me, but he wrapped an arm around my waist and twisted so that he hit the concrete first, cushioning my fall with his body.
When I realized there wasn’t any pain from the impact, I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was a startling pair of the most beautiful blue eyes I had ever seen.
It stunned me into stillness. Hovering inches from his face, I couldn’t remember where I was or what I had been doing.
I only saw his eyes and his strong jaw and his generous lips above the wild collar of his T-shirt.
Beneath me was a wall of chest—his chest—that rose and fell in ragged, close-mouthed breaths.
My heart started thudding. I have had crushes on boys before, but nothing like this. At that moment, it seemed like something monumental had happened. My entire life had changed, and it would never be the same again.
He grunted, “You’re trouble, Little One. You decided not to jump and still almost took both of us out.”
He straightened me. We sat cross-legged on the ground as he picked up his abandoned shoes and socks and started putting them on.
“Want to tell me now why you were jumping off a roof?” he asked.
Suddenly feeling extremely embarrassed, I ducked my head. “My parents.”
“What about them?”
Instead of pressuring me to respond immediately, he waited patiently until I could form the words. “They want me to get surgery. Well, they want me to get more surgery.”
“Surgery for what?”
I normally wouldn’t let anyone see, but something about his dull eyes told me he wouldn’t judge. Slowly, I lifted the hem of my hoodie to show him the scars on my abdomen. One of the nurses almost threw up when she saw them. They had healed a little since then, but they were still grotesque.
He didn’t flinch. There was no pity in his eyes, either. He didn’t even ask how I got them; he merely inspected them. “The stitches are clean,” he declared. “No infections. You should be in the clear. Why do you need more surgery?”
I hung my head. “My parents think they’re ugly.”
“They want you to get cosmetic surgery?” he guessed.
I nodded.
“Surgery for cosmetic reasons would cause more harm than good. You might get an infection. Possibly several. It’d be stupid to do it.”
He was just a teenager but spoke like an adult with complete authority.
“I don’t have a choice. My mom scheduled the surgery ? —”
“Do you know what medical emancipation is?”
I shook my head.
“Go to the bottom floor of the hospital. Ask them to assign you a social worker and tell them your parents aren’t acting in your best interest. They’ll want to speak to your doctor, who’ll make the same assessment as I just did—superficial surgery is risky and unnecessary.
If they still push you, convince the social worker to get you medically emancipated from your parents. ”
I tried to keep up with everything he was saying, but it was a lot of information. “Medically emancipated.” I repeated the words so I’d remember.
He nodded, the corner of his mouth barely twitching with something that might have been pride. It was impossible to tell.
My gaze moved over his face. His dirty-blond hair was wild from the wind, ice-blue eyes glittering in the afternoon sun. His cheekbones made his face look carved, and if not for the perpetual wrinkle between his brows, he’d be the kind of boy you’d see on magazine covers.
I was aware of a strange heat crawling up my neck. “Thank you for helping me. I think I’ve seen you around before. What’s your name?”
He regarded me for a moment, his eyes narrowing as if his name carried all the weight in the world. At long last, he said, “Damon Maxwell.”
“ W hy can’t you remember me, Little One?”
My eyes, wide and raw, tracked the movement of his lips, but the words that spilled out might as well have been in another language.
I should have known. Sweet old Damon would have never asked me to threaten my parents with emancipation. Sophie’s words from the Alumni Fundraiser slammed into me like a brick hurled through glass. After hearing his mother call him evil so many times, Caden had started believing it himself.
“He donated money but signed it under Damon’s name. He has been doing this since we were kids. Whenever he does something nice, he credits Damon for it.”
Professor Maxwell had credited his brother with saving my life, and when we met again, he thought I had forgotten the whole incident.
My heart was about to implode. I couldn’t breathe.
I squeezed my eyes shut, as if a lack of vision would grant me a reprieve.
I felt an ache behind my sternum, the warning signs of an oncoming panic attack.
My heart was about to implode, it constricted so tightly that I could practically hear the cartilage groan.
My breaths came out in short, sharp staccatos, as if each inhalation had to be force-filtered through a sieve of disbelief.
“We met at the hospital while you were being treated for your scars,” he said.
“W-why didn’t you tell me before?” I managed to ask, the sound more exhalation than speech. It was excruciatingly difficult to force the syllables past my teeth.
He stared at me skeptically, unsure if he should have brought up the topic at all. Perhaps he really had been hurting in my absence and this was his last resort. “I was told that you have no memories of that time. That you get triggered whenever people bring it up.”
Except for that day. I had almost no memories of that time except for the day he saved me.
He studied me with an intensity that bordered on urgency. “Do you remember meeting me?”
Remember him? I had based my entire life around him.
The walls started closing in as I hyperventilated. How was this possible? He had been here all along.
Now that he was in front of me, I didn’t know how to reconcile the man I resented with the phantom of the boy I had worshipped. I wish we could get a reset. I didn’t want to view him as the monster from my nightmares. And he deserved to know of my lifelong devotion to him.
But things had become so murky between us that it seemed impossible to start over.
He took my silence as refusal, whereas it was the panic getting the better of me.
His lips curled into a bitter smile as he shook his head. “Figures. You forgot everything. Even the man who tried to murder you.”
The words cut through my fog like cold water. “You know who stabbed me?”
“You know him, too.”
My stomach clenched. “What are you talking about?”
He watched me with clinical detachment. The specks of vulnerability from earlier were gone.
“Did you know Rayyan would have inherited a much larger percentage of the company if he were your father’s sole heir?
” he asked, his voice flat. “Even if your father couldn’t publicly claim him, he would’ve handed Rayyan his shares upon his death.
There was only one thing standing in the way. ”
The breath was knocked out of me by the punch of his words.
Professor Maxwell straightened from the wall, his jaw tightening as he delivered the final blow.
“Your father already had a legitimate heir—you. But if that person were no longer in the picture, Rayyan could combine the assets he would gain from his parents and the ones he expected from your father to take hold of the company. All he had to do was get rid of you.”
I shook my head at him, hands trembling violently. “No. You’re wrong.” My voice cracked on the last word.
“Am I?” His eyebrow arched in challenge. “It wasn’t even that difficult to figure it out. All I did was follow the money. It was so obvious that I had to wonder whether your family already knew and deliberately swept it under the rug.”
My stomach lurched. I tasted bile at the back of my throat as I swallowed hard. I knew my family was fucked up, but were they that fucked up? My own brother would repeatedly stab his eleven-year-old sister and leave her for dead? The thought made my skin crawl.
I couldn’t remember a thing about that awful day, only a voice that repeatedly said, You stupid bitch , with hatred so vile I didn’t think it was possible to harbor toward a child. He had said it repeatedly until it had been ingrained into my brain.
Professor Maxwell looked at me with half-lidded eyes. “My poor little lost girl.” His lips curved with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes, it was cruel and mocking. “The things they’re willing to do to you are sickening. It’s a shame that you have so much love to give, and no one to love.”
The words sliced me open. My throat tightened as tears threatened to pool in my eyes.
“It’s a shame,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a velvet whisper that somehow cut deeper than a shout, “that you keep them around while spurning the only man who loves you.”
I stumbled backward, my heel catching on the floor. Each step was an attempt to escape the truth that clung to me like a second skin. I stifled a sob with a hand over her mouth, tasting the salt on my lips.
“They don’t deserve your loyalty, Little Rose.” His voice caressed my name while his fingers twitched at his sides. He stepped forward, jaw clenching. “When will you finally realize I’m the only man here for you?”
The shots from tonight had gone straight into my bloodstream. Tears and alcohol blurred my vision as I blindly walked backward to distance myself from what he was telling me. I refused to believe it. My tongue felt thick, useless.
His eyes widened suddenly. “Rose, stop!”
The warning ripped from his throat, but it came too late. I had retreated too fast. Cold metal pressed against my lower back, biting into my spine. The split second of horrifying clarity that I had walked too far back was no match for gravity.
“Fuck, Rose!” He lunged for me, his hand outstretched, fingers splayed, the veins in his forearm corded and frantic.
But I had already lost my balance. A shriek exploded out of me, so shrill and animal-like that I barely recognized it as my own.
My hair whipped into my eyes and mouth. All the noise of the party—music, laughter, the drunk symphony of my friends—collapsed into a vacuum, and in that hush I could only see him.
In that suspended moment before impact, I caught one final glimpse of his face.
The mask of cruelty and cocky disdain he wore like armor had shattered.
Instead, he was a shell of a man, mouth twisting with desperation.
He looked like a man watching his own soul plummet off the ledge, and I realized his wild expression might be the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.