Page 89 of The Truth About Love

We fall into a soft silence, the air between us thick with the weight of our confessions. I self-consciously tuck a wayward lock of hair behind my ear, wishing that he’d done it for me like he’d always used to do, and distantly wondering if he even gets the urge to do it anymore.

“I thought you didn’t come to that game in high school,” he says after a little while, a small frown marring his perfect features.

It was the game he played on the day of the very first night he’d spent with me on my balcony. He’d asked me days before if I would come to watch him play and I’d told him that I’d cheer him on from home, but later changed my mind. I never admitted to him that I’d actually gone.

Back we fall into silence, but despite all that’s happened tonight it’s an easy one. The kind of silence that only occurs when two people are completely comfortable with one another, when they understand each other in a way that no one else does.

We just simply stare at each other for a while.

“I should get to bed,” I say after a while. It must be the early hours of the morning by now. “Will you be okay out here?” Given the fact that he was supposed to be staying at Cara’s tonight, Winter and the boys have set up camp in his bedroom, leaving Auden the couch to sleep on tonight.

“I’ll be fine.” His features pull tight as he deliberates something in his mind. I’m not the only one of us who thinks loudly. “Goodnight, pretty girl,” he says gently and then he bends down to press a kiss to my forehead.

The kiss only lasts a second or so, but it sends every nerve in my body haywire. I haven’t felt his lips on me for so long. It’s like I’ve been naked all this time and only now his lips have touched my skin again do I realise just how bitterly cold I’ve been without them.

He might have just fucked me, but nothing has ever compared to the power of Auden’s kiss.

“Night, quarterback.”

I’m still dazed when I make it back to my bedroom and get undressed. I absentmindedly cut my nightly line in blood on the underside of my foot, but I barely even register the pain. My head isn’t in it tonight. I’m just following the motions.

Even when I take out the Ambien I keep hidden in the seam of a coat I have hanging in the closet, I’m too caught up in the memory of Auden’s mouth to register that my supply is almost empty. It doesn’t occur to me to worry about what will happen when the pills run out.

Because it’s not as if I’ll be able to get more. I wasn’t exactly prescribed them and I won’t be able to contact my dealer without Auden finding out. But right now, I’m too blissed out on the high of the kiss on my cheek to give it any thought.

It’s a problem I’ll save for another day.

Chapter Twenty-three

Auden

The dying sun pours in through the wall of windows and drenches the apartment in violet light. I sip distractedly from a cup of hot tea, my thoughts fixed on the girl asleep down the hallway.

Summer-Raine has spent the last several days hauled up in bed. She’s sick. Really sick, if her incessant vomiting and uncontrollable sweating is any indication. Though bizarrely, she doesn’t have a temperature. I know, because I’ve been checking every couple of hours. And when she isn’t sweating or vomiting, she’s either sleeping fitfully or sobbing into her pillow.

I don’t know what’s wrong with her, so I don’t know how to help. Of course, I’ve been doing all the usual stuff you do when someone is sick. I’ve spoon-fed her chicken soup, made sure she’s having enough fluids and carried her to and from the bathroom every time she’s needed to go. But we’re five days in now and she isn’t showing any sign of getting better.

Something isn’t right. I can feel it in my gut.

I check the time on the oversized clock on the wall. It’s been two hours since I last checked on Summer-Raine, so I grab a bottle of water and some crackers from the kitchen and carry them through to her bedroom.

She’s laying on her stomach in the centre of the bed, her face buried in a pillow as she groans in pain. The sound goes through me and turns my stomach. I could be sick from how worried I am about her.

“Summer-Raine, I brought you a snack.” I perch on the edge of the bed and slide the plate of crackers towards her. She doesn’t even glance up. “Come on, you need to eat something.”

She releases another groan and presses her face deeper into the pillow. She tries to say something that sounds like “go away”, but she’s trembling so much that the words are barely audible.

I hate this. If I could take it all away from her I would. I’ve never been able to handle seeing her in physical pain, perhaps because I know how much it takes for her to be affected by it, so I know that whatever’s happening to her is bad.

“Please,” I beg quietly. “It’ll make me feel better if you do.”

Finally, her sunken eyes rise to meet mine and she nods once. A tiny movement that I almost miss, but it happens and I waste no time holding a cracker to her lips for her to take a bite as she adjusts herself into a more upright position. I don’t move my hand away until she’s eaten it all and taken several sips of water. But not twenty seconds after she’s finished is she retching over the side of the bed.

“Fuck,” I curse, jumping up to grab a trash can for her to aim into, before swiping her hair away from her neck and rubbing her back until she’s done. “What can I do to make this better?”

She swipes the back of her hand across her mouth. “Nothing,” she rasps. “You can’t make it better.” At the crestfallen look on my face, she whispers, “I’ve done this to myself.”

But I don’t know what she means by that and her eyelids are growing heavy again, so I help her lay back down and tuck the blankets in around her. Then I lightly stroke the side of her face until she falls asleep. Longer, even, if I’m being truthful. It’s just that my hands have been without her for so long that they don’t feel right if they’re not touching her, so I take the opportunities when I’m presented with them.

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