Page 130 of Cross the Line
I flip the device, front to back, side to side, racking my brain. The screen wakes, sleeps. Then—ping!
“NameDrop,” I tell him, getting up to grab Finley’s phone from the top of the files Dad left on the coffee table.
I hold the tops of our phones together, like Oliver did when we swapped numbers. I’d never used it before; didn’t know the feature was on by default.
Sure enough, her contact card pops up on my screen. All it needs is a tap on both to share. As easy as swapping phones.
“God,I… I didn’t know. I didn’t realize what he had done. What hewas doing. I—I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t. I promise. I was flustered, and…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I’m about to stand and still Finley when Eli snatches her hands and pulls her to him.
Relief wisps through me when he folds her into his chest, and her arms circle his waist. Watching them like this cracks my ribs wide open. My love for them is too big for my body.
Eli frames Finley’s face with his hands. His eyes are on hers, and their chests collide with ragged breaths.
“Stop apologizing. I’m not mad at you,” he says, stern and sure. “Just so you know. I want that to be clear. I am not angry with you. I’m…This... This is on me, Fin.”
Fuck.
I want to make him take his words back. None of this is his fault. He keeps self-flagellating for other people’s sins. I wish he’d punish them, instead.
“Not everything is your fault, Eli.” Finley’s murmur earns a bitter scoff.
I know that sound. The look. The whole wrench in demeanor that vacuums the air from the room.
My mouth dries at the sidelong glance he gives me. Maybe he’s telling me to leave. Maybe he’s begging me to do more. To be more right now.
I can’t.
There is nothing I can do to save him. To save her. To save us.
The sinkhole is growing beneath our feet, and we’re about to go down.
At least we go down together.
CHAPTER 34
ELIJAH
Slap!
Slap!
Slap!
Lining up another row of pucks with my stick, I drag in a breath, tell myself for the umpteenth timeI didn’t chicken out, then rifle every puck into the open goal. They ricochet, skid back, and I tee off again—line ’em up, shoot, slap—until my body screams as loud as my head, and my skates skitter on the lake’s glassy surface.
Daylight fades to a silvery glow off snow and ice. The porch lights behind me barely cut the dusk when Jayden steps out.
“It’s dangerous playing out here without proper light. You won’t see the cracks,” he says, nudging the last puck straight with the fluorescent toe of his snow slip-ons.
I blast a few more while I hunt for words after he watched me buckle earlier. I was close to saying everything, and then—nothing.
Crickets.
Not because Finley isn’t strong, but because I can’t be the one to shatter what she believes about herself the way Presley shattered me.
“You must have a death wish,” he starts, a chuckle turning to a rough grunt—as if that’s all he sees in me now. He’s wrong. I’ve never cut myself with the intention of ending my life.
