Page 20 of The Off-Limits Play

“I know, but I’ve got a curfew, and I need to leave now or I’ll get in really big trouble. It takes me like twenty-five minutes to drive home, and I can’t be late.”

“But I can’t drive.” His words slurred together. “I’m too wasted.”

“I’ll drive.” I held out my hands, and he dug the keys from his pocket.

He gave me a reluctant pout. “Bastian said we can stay. Let’s just crash here, baby. Please. We can wake up together.” His dopey smile got wide and sloppy. “We can do stuff.” Trailing his fingers down my body, he drew a circle around my right breast before flattening his hand across my waist and then down to squeeze my butt.

I laughed against him. “You’re probably too drunk to get it up anyway.”

“I won’t be in the morning. You can be my hangover cure. Please, baby. Stay with me.”

“I really want to, but my parents will never be okay with it, and I can’t put Hayley’s mom in that position. I’ve got to go.” I checked my phone screen. “Shit. I’m gonna be late.”

“That’s okay.” He pulled me close and whispered against my ear. “No one’s gonna die if you’re a few minutes late.”

I sighed, giving in to his addictive kisses. Even drunk, his tongue still knew how to melt me. Gripping his shirt, I pressed myself against him, and we made out until someone bumped him from behind. Cold beer splashed across his shirt and against my cheek.

With a shocked laugh, I wiped it off my face and made the mistake of noticing the clock on the wall.

“Shit! We have to go. Nick. I’m gonna get in trouble. Come on!”

Nick frowned at me. “You go. I’m gonna stay.”

“Really?” My insides shriveled.

“I’m gonna crash here. But I’ll come see you tomorrow, ’kay? Come pick me up in the morning.”

I frowned but couldn’t blame him. If my parents weren’t so annoyingly strict, I would have been staying too.

Lurching forward, I planted one more searing kiss on his mouth before forcing my body out that door. Everyone was disappointed I was going, and thanks to multiple goodbyes and explanations, it took me ages to reach Nick’s car.

By the time I started the engine, I had exactly seven minutes to make a twenty-five-minute drive. There was no way I was going to make it, but I rushed anyway.

The rain pounded the roof, lightning illuminating the sky while thunder rolled right behind it. I gripped the wheel and sped down the hillside, my insides jittering. I hated being late. And I didn’t want Hayley’s mom to get in trouble with my parents.

Grabbing my phone, I went to call her, but it slipped through my wet fingers and landed in the footwell of the car. I reached down, trying to find it while keeping my eyes on the road.

And then I don’t know what happened, but I hit the next corner, and Nick’s car didn’t do what I wanted it to…

I can’t remember exactly what happened after that. Sometimes when I sleep, I have these dreams of flying, like my body is weightless for a second, and then I’m crashing and tumbling. Spinning around like my body’s been thrown into a tumble dryer. I always wake up before that final crunch.

I remember the crunch.

Not when it happened, but when I came to, I remember the scrunched-up metal. It was dark, but lightning kept flashing, giving me brief moments of clarity. It didn’t take long to figure out I was completely trapped. My leg was pinned; I couldn’t move an inch. The car was down some kind of embankment. I wasn’t upside down, but I was at this weird angle, my body starting to ache and burn as the rain pounded down on the roof and windshield. It was machine-gun fire—hard and relentless, made a thousand times worse by the booming thunder and cracking lightning.

I don’t know when I started screaming, but I cried and called out until I lost my voice. I wept and whimpered until I eventually drifted away into blackness.

I thought I’d died.

But then I woke up in the hospital and?—

My dorm room door pops open, jolting me out of my memories. Thank God!

My muscles were already starting to coil, my heart racing as I tried not to go there again. I hate remembering, but sometimes the nightmare hits hard, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“Hey,” Jolie chirps, walking to her bed and throwing her phone down. She seems in a better mood this evening. I think. She can be a little temperamental. Not in an “I think she’s about to lose her shit” kind of way, more that I just never know if she’s up or down. Sometimes she’s warm and friendly, smiling at me, like right now. And other days I catch her looking all glum and barely responding to my questions.

I study her for a second before saying anything, making sure I’m reading her right. “How are ya?”

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