Page 27 of Raise Up, Heart
“I should get—” Cole begins, and then he stops.
If he answers the phone, then he has to tell them something. If he doesn’t, they’ll worry. He’s been acting far too strange, more than usual, and they’ll probably send the police looking for him. Sheriff Hunt will remember what he was in the station for, Rosanna will get involved, and hell, they’ll probably end up calling his dad too, and all of this before morning.
“What am I going to tell them?” Cole asks.
Damon says, “You could tell them the truth—if you want to be institutionalized.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Cole says, climbing out of bed. He reaches his coat, still on the floor where he dropped it earlier. He fiddles in his pocket for the phone, sees the caller ID, and answers with the most insincerely nonchalant, “Hey, Rosanna,” that he’s ever managed.
“Cole, honey? Where are you? Dad says you aren’t out at the cabin. Michael said you were acting very strange today at the office…and, baby, it’s nearly three in the morning and you aren’t home yet.”
Cole wants to ask how she knows, but he suspects she went over there when he didn’t reply to her earlier texts.
“I’m sorry, Rosanna,” Cole says, scratching at his head. He glances at Damon who’s staring at him intently. “I should have called. I met up with an old friend. I’m at his place.”
“An old friend? Who?” Rosanna asks.
He’s not sixteen anymore. He has a right to be anywhere he wants to be. And yet he finds himself making up a lie instead of just telling her that it’s none of her business. He doesn’t want her to be frightened, and she sounds really worried. “Just an old friend from college. You didn’t know him.”
“Cole, I’m—”
“Rosanna, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Cole says, and it feels like another lie, because he’s not sure he’s ever leaving this cabin again. He’s not sure he wants to.
“Honey,” Rosanna beings.
Cole cuts her off again. “Rosanna, I’m okay. All right? I’m gonna stay here tonight.” He fakes a yawn. “In fact, we’re gonna hit the sack now. See you tomorrow.”
He hangs up on her before she can say anything else, and he sets his ringer to silent mode so that they won’t be interrupted again. He feels like someone reached into the bubble he’s been living in the last few hours and popped it. Reality is lies. Reality is his sister being scared for him, and his family being worried. Reality is that he has no damn clue what they are going to do now.
Damon’s watching him from the bed, his chest and arms resting outside of the covers. The red scar running down the middle looks dark in the low light. Cole sighs, runs a hand in his hair, and says, “Damon, what are we going to do?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Damon says. “You need some rest. You’ve got to be exhausted.”
Cole is—he’s so tired. Somehow he’s crashed. He was incredibly high before. Higher than the last layer of the stratosphere, nearly floating into space, and now he is here on earth with a not-dead lover, and he’s living in a horror story that should scare him to death but only makes him sure that change has come. He’s going to have to jump into the fray and beat back the real world with a sword until he can make this right. For both of them.
CHAPTER 6
You fall asleepbefore he does. You try not to, but you do. You’re both sticky with come—once again, you never made it past rutting together, both of you too desperate to even manage a blow job—and you’ve given up on trying to get it off. You’ll deal with it tomorrow in the shower, but for now you give in and let the darkness carry you into dreams.
Sleep isn’t comfortable for you; it’s too full of what you went through to get here, and you often wake up wet with sweat, as though you’re still fighting for your life, battling your way out of Alex. It’s necessary, though. You tried to fight sleep in the beginning as a test to see if you were real, because surely, in a dream, you’d have no need for rest, but it always overtook you in the end.
You wake up after only a few hours, and the morning light is coming through the window. Cole’s not asleep. He’s sitting up in the bed, staring at you and the expression on his face is determined, possessive, even.
You say, “Go to sleep.”
He shakes his head, not saying a word. There’s no arguing with him, you know that, remember it well, and you’re awake now anyway.
You drag yourself up to a sitting position, rub at your eyes, and say, “You okay?” He swallows and nods, remaining silent, but his expression is intense.
“Cole?” you ask.
He doesn’t speak.
“Cole? Hello?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m just thinking. You’re…not…right. Not safe. You’re not supposed to be here. It’s true. And I know now what I have to do.”
You aren’t expecting this, but it’s not like it’s a lie. “Okay,” and you drag it out a little. “And what’s that?”
