Page 62 of The Last to Let Go
She stands in front of me and turns her head, this concerned look on her face, and she walks toward me even though I’m backing up. “Come here, sweetie. Come here—okay, just slow down.” She pulls me in with both of her arms, crushing me against her breasts and ribs and stomach. I bury my face in her neck, craving the softness of her, and without warning, without permission, I feel my lungs contracting, my throat constricting, my eyes welling up. My body wants to cry. But my mind cannot let that happen. She holds me tighter and tighter, until it stops feeling good and starts to feel like she’s suffocating me, drowning me, pulling me under.
“Stop, okay?” I whisper, my mouth next to her ear, my words crashing, hard, against her neck. I close my eyes. “Please, I can’t breathe!” I yell. And as I pull away, too roughly, I catch the look on her face. Her eyes are wide, stunned that I yelled, because I’ve never let her see that side of me before, the side with all the secrets.
“Okay, you’re scaring me now,” she says, crossing her arms.
“This isn’t about you!” I snap. “I mean—God, can you just give me some space for a minute?”
She doesn’t say anything. I’m hurting her and I know this and still all I want to do is yell at her for not understanding. Even though I know it’s not her fault for not understanding, because I never told her the things that she would need to know to understand in the first place. I want to climb back into bed and feel her breathing and listen to the silence and her heartbeat and the whispers of falling snow. But I’m not allowed to have any of those things. And I hate the world, and my life, and me, and even her a little bit, for that.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Dani. Okay? I really, really need to go home. Now. It’s an emergency. For real. Please, can you just take me?”
“Yeah,” she breathes, looking at me like she’s not sure she knows who I am. “Okay,” she whispers, reaching for the clothes she wore yesterday, scattered across her bedroom floor. “Okay,” she repeats to herself as she gets dressed.
GHOSTS
“CAN YOU DRIVE ANY FASTER?”My tone is clipped, my words too sharp for the cold, icy, empty streets and the middle of the night.
“No. The roads are slick. I’d rather get you there alive.” I feel her looking at me. “You have to tell me what is going on. I want to help—I’m trying to help you—why are you so upset?”
“It’s my brother. He didn’t come home.”
“Why is that such an emergency?”
“You wouldn’t understand, okay? And I can’t explain it right now.”
“Well, try.”
I breathe in deeply, through my nose, and exhale slowly from my mouth. “Our sister was alone. She’s only twelve. I can’t understand why he would do that unless something bad happened, okay? I need to find him before—”
“Before what?”
“Can we please just stop talking?” I am exhausted, yet wired, and too tired to be so wired. I feel all wrong in every way.
“But I don’t understand. What about your mom—I mean, where’s she? What am I missing?”
“Can wepleasestop talking, Dani?” My patience grows more slippery with every word.
“Fine. Okay, stop yelling, though—you’re making me nervous, and I can’t drive when I’m nervous!”
“I’m not yell—” But of course I am. I keep my mouth shut until we get there.
She slows to a stop in front of my building. The fresh snow makes everything look like a dream. Makes me want to slow down and turn to her and cry and kiss and beg her to forgive me. It makes me want to tell her to keep driving and take us somewhere, anywhere, far away. It makes me want to leave it all behind, forever.
“Let me at least come in with you,” she says, unbuckling her seat belt.
“No. Please, I need to handle this by myself, okay? Thank you, but—oh my God, there he is!” I open the car door and try to run to where Aaron’s just rounded the corner. My feet slide on the ice, and I struggle to keep my balance. “Aaron!” I call out, my voice getting lost in the air as it swirls around us.
“What?” he whispers into the silence, not bothering to quicken his pace to reach me sooner.
I hear Dani calling my name behind me.
“Where were you, dammit?”
“I’m right here, you don’t have to yell,” he says, several feet away from me now. “What’s wrong?”
“You didn’t answer your phone!” I shout. “I was scared—Callie was scared, I mean.”
“It died.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and waves it around. “What? Is she okay?”
