Page 45 of Dove
“I’m your sister now, aren’t I?” I forced myself to smile a little too brightly, to lighten whatever this feeling growing between us was. “Of course, you do.”
The stars in his eyes seemed to dim, and the wild thing in my chest pinched as if I’d said the wrong thing. I rubbed at my chest discreetly, willing the feeling away.
I took in Josh’s moonlit outline and wondered.
Thatwasall I could offer him… right?
13
DOVE
Ahandsome smile.
Warm brown eyes in a rearview mirror.
Screeching tires.
Glass shattering.
Blood on my tongue.
Gasping breaths.
All of it was too much, too painful, toorealuntil a familiar voice chanted urgently in my ear. “Dove, Dove, Dove!”
I woke with a start, disoriented and trembling.
The feeling was a familiar one. Something I’d been dealing with since the crash. For a while, I’d escaped the clutch of the nightmare—the memory—had on me, giving me some semblance of peace. For many years it had succumbed to an ever present, but bearable, ache in my chest. A tragedy that hung over me but didn’t overwhelm me like it once had. I was learning to deal with it, allowing my subconscious to let go of the memory haunting my dreams.
Until Josh left.
Once he was gone, they’d slowly seeped back in, tainting my dreams like a drop of ink in clean water. Only they weren’tthe nightmares I was used to—if one could ever truly get used to such a thing. They changed, morphing into an entirely new torment: Josh’s hands curled around the steering wheel, hisblood dripping onto the windshield, his face obscured where I was sitting in the backseat. I’d always wake drenched in sweat, tears wetting my face, a sob caught in my throat, with the urge to run to his room and make sure he was okay. The first few times I’d done just that, forgetting. I’d opened his door and panicked when I found his bed empty. The adrenaline running through my veins from the dream fueled me into action, and it wasn’t until I was nearly to our parents’ door that I remembered Josh had left voluntarily.
If the nightmare had me on a high, the realization that Josh was gone—and I had no way of finding out if he was okay—was the crash. Every year that crept by without a word from him only reaffirmed what I’d been afraid of: that I’d never see him again. That all I had left of him was memories and nightmares.
As the haze of my current nightmare faded, I blinked through the blur of tears, stilling when Josh’s face came into view. He hovered over me, eyebrows drawn together, face creased in concern.
“Josh?” I croaked out in confusion until the nightmare bled away into reality, and I remembered he was home now. He washere.The worst day of my life hadn’t repeated itself, hadn’t stolen yet another loved one away from me. Hadn’t left me completely and utterlyalone.
The sob building in the back of my throat escaped, and Josh’s frown deepened. His knee dented the mattress beside me, close but not touching, like he wanted to offer comfort but wasn’t sure he was allowed.
The distance separating us felt like a mile, and I needed to not only see, butfeelfor myself that he was really here, alive and whole and healthy.
I launched myself at him, burying my face in his chest. He caught me with a soft grunt, arms locking around my back without hesitation. His hand rubbed a soothing path up and down my spine, and he didn’t flinch as my tears soaked through his shirt—he just held me tighter.
The nightmare clawed at my mind again, but I clung to Josh, tightening my arms around his waist. The anger that had simmered since he left didn’t matter now. I didn’t care about the walls I’d put up, or the distance between us. All that mattered was the warmth of his body against mine—proof that he was here. That he was alive.
My eyelashes grew wet and heavy as more tears escaped, and I hid my face against his stomach to muffle my cries.
“Shhh, Dove,” he soothed in a low voice, his hand warm through my thin sleep shirt. “It was just a bad dream,” he continued in a deep hush. “It’s okay. We’re both okay.”
Nothing feltokayexcept the strong embrace of his hug, where I could pretend that maybe our world wasn’t as broken as it actually was.
Josh let me be until my cries quieted, until my breathing was only interrupted by a few hiccupping sniffles. The warmth of his body against mine was comforting and inviting, and my eyes slid closed as a sudden exhaustion washed over me.
I was just beginning to drift into a hazy, post-cry doze when Josh’s hands slipped from around me. I stiffened, arms tightening, heart thudding with panic in my chest. I didn’t want to move yet. I didn’t want to face reality outside the protective circle of Josh’s arms.
“Hey, no.” His hand rubbed a calming path along my shoulders, “I’m not going anywhere, but if you’re gonna fall asleep on me, I’d rather be on the bed instead of hunched over it.”
