Page 66 of Not Made to Last

I hold her tighter, almost too afraid to ask. “Then what?”

“Max…” Her eyes meet mine again. “I could hear him crying, screaming,wailing.”

I can’t breathe.

“He’d only been on this earth for three years, and it was the second time he was in a car accident that took the lives of both his parents.”

“Jesus Christ,” I murmur, unable to see straight.

Arms around my neck, she folds into me, as if I’m the one who can save her. I can’t even save myself. “He wouldn’t stop crying, and I think it’s the only reason the kids from the other car got out. They could hear him. And I could hear them, and I was yelling, screaming through the phone…” she trails off, her breaths ragged, her tears so big, so constant, they soak through my T-shirt and into my flesh. “Do you believe in miracles, Rhys?” I start to answer, but she doesn’t give me time to speak. “Because I don’t. Never have. But this couple driving past somehow saw me standing on the side of road, hysterical, and they pulled over to see if I was okay. I could barely see a foot in front of me, that’s how heavy the rain was… but they saw me. Somehow. Someway… There were no sirens. I remember that much. Why hadn’t they called anybody?” She’s rambling, lost in the memories, in the anguish, and she’s moving, rocking back and forth, taking me with her. “But then I remembered I could track their location, so I found them, and the woman who hadpulled over, she called 911 for me, and then they offered to drive me to the scene and I wish… I wish I’d said no, because…” She tries to settle her breathing—an impossible task. “And then there was the aftermath. The guilt and the shame and the lawyers, and my mom, abandoning me again?—”

Wait.“What?”

“She’s not working out of state, Rhys.” She sniffs back the pain. The heartache. “I took my share of the hush money from the boy who killed my grandparents and paid my own mother to sign off as our guardian so they wouldn’t split us up. Dominic and Max, they’re blood, and they’d just found each other, and Dom… God, he was so hurt, so confused, so worried about all of us, about our futures, and it was the only thing I could think to do to save us. My mom agreed, took my money, hung around for long enough to remember how much she hated being a mom. How much she hated me. And one morning, I woke up, and she was gone… She took my money, took my trust, and just left. And you know what’s so fucked up? I wasn’t even surprised. Wasn’t evenmad.I didn’t have time to be.” She stops there, eyes wide as if surprised by everything she’s just revealed. “But no one can know about it, Rhys,” she rushes out. “If anyone finds out…” She picks up the twine and twists it between her fingers.Keep my hands busy, keep the anxiety at bay. “There’s so much more, so much I want to say, but I don’t know how to tell you or if I’ll ever be ready to?—”

“So don’t,” I interrupt, finally finding my voice.

I push back my emotions and rear back, just enough so I can focus on her sad, sad eyes. “You don’t have to give me everything all at once.”

I realize now that it’s how my feelings for Liv started:everything, all at once.

But it doesn’t need to be like thatalways.

I can take my time with her. Go slow. Uncover her heart first, then later, discover all the fragments that make her who she is.

“I have to tell you something, Liv…” Swirls of emotions pump through my bloodline. Pride. Pity. Perpetual hope. I reach up, wipe away her liquid heartache, and give her a tiny sliver of my soul. “That night when you obliterated me with your monster truck and put me in a coma—” She laughs through her tears, the single sound expanding the beating organ inside my chest. “I mentioned I was escaping my party, but what I didn’t tell you, or anyone else who was there, was that it was a farewell party. For me. I’d planned to leave that night.” And where I’d planned to go isn’t important anymore. “I’d been in this…slump.” Or, as my therapist would say, a deep state of depression. “I was already dreading the rest of summer. It felt like every day was a repeat of the last. Like I was forcing myself to wake up just so I could prepare to wake up the day after. It was the same mundane minutes that built into hours, into days, and I felt like I was standing still, and the world was moving around me…” I reach up, coat my thumb with the remnants of her sorrow. “And then you and Max showed up, and you flipped my entire world off its axis.” I lick the dryness off my lips, my heart heavy. “It’s funny… Miles-not-Moralesspent his lonely days searching for a miracle, and here I am—the luckiest guy on earth becausemymiracle crashed right into me… and I didn’t even know I was looking for it.”

35

Olivia

“Ohana! Get up!”

I gasp awake, and my first and only thought is Rhys. I’d fallen asleep in his arms, and now Max is at my open bedroom door, smiling from ear to ear, and I quickly check the spot next to me.

Empty.

All but for a torn piece of paper lying on his pillow. I inhale a sharp breath, release it slowly. Carefully. “Morning, Maxy,” I croak, my voice scratchy from sleep. As inconspicuous as possible, I grab the note and hide it beneath my pillow. Leaning up on my elbows, I ask, “What time is it?”

“Time to get your ass up!” Dom says, coming in behind Max with a coffee and…

I sit up taller to get a better look. “Is that an apple cinnamon muffin from the diner?”

“Yep!” Max grins, skips his way from the door to my bedside. “Dom and I went out and got it for you.”

Again, I ask, taking the coffee and muffin from my brother, “What time is it?”

“Almost midday,” Dom answers.

“What?”

He pokes the spot between my eyebrows. “Sleepy head.”

I push his hand away, murmur, “I haven’t slept in like that since… ever.”

“I wouldn’t have woken you, but I’m meeting the guys at the sports park soon,” Dom says.

“And you and I are going for a walk to steal some cuttings!” Max adds.

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