Page 29 of Let Me
“Take me back.”
He still hasn’t said anything, but I can hear him breathing. Softly, but not quietly. Like he might be choking, or fighting back rage, trying to claw it back into place.
“You’re sick, Riley. Do you understand that?” He’s looking at me with nothing but hatred and it pierces something in my heart. I’ve tried to forget this. Thisthingbetween us, only to see that after all this time, there was nothing to forget.
Because there’s nothing there at all.
“Run. Like you always do. Run, and fuck up someone else’s life just a little more.”
I get out of the car. Because I can’t stand to be so close to him and yet so damn far away. I get out, and even though it’s stupid and reckless and impulsive, I do run, and I don’t look back.
He doesn’t even bother to call after me.
FIFTEEN
Present
SHE’S ALWAYS BEEN WILD.
It’s what I loved about her. What I knew Jack could never keep up with in the long run, no matter his threats and screams and fits. Hell, he didn’t keep up with her even in the short run either, and as soon as I think that, I feel it again. That hatred, ice-cold and all-consuming. And the guilt. The guilt never fails to eat me alive.
I watch her run and remember when I longed to chase her. Chase her from my brother, from her mom, from her entire life. I wanted to chase her until she was all alone and I was all she had. I would have protected her. I would have looked out for her. Fuck, I did. That’s how she ended up in my arms that night. Shocking the shit out of me, my face heats at the memory. She deserved better, is what I thought then. She didn’t deserve for me to take her in a hotel room, one rented just for that purpose.
Now, I’m glad we were interrupted by that phone call. Because now, I think she didn’t deserve it at all.
But it’s dark as fuck out here, and Benji is somewhere out here too, waiting for her. She thinks I took her here to be alone, or to scare her off into the darkness. I guess the last one is true, but this is only the start. And yet even after all this time, even after everything she’s put me through, after everything she’sstillputting me through, the thought of someone else hurting her makes me feel physically ill.
I think of Benji and want to punch him in the face, break his nose against my knuckles. I know he won’t actually hurt her. At least, I think I know that. Before he went to prison, I would have said no, of course not. They didn’t spend much time together. She always seemed a little scared of him and my other friends when she saw them around the house.
But Benji wouldn’t have hurt her then.
Now, though, I don’t know what Benji would or wouldn’t do.
Especially after he’s been drinking. Which is my fault. I pushed him to.
I get out of the car, leave it unlocked, just in case she gets there before I can find her, and run after her. Only her light brown hair is visible in the darkness and when she rounds a bend in the trees, she’s gone, and I run faster.
I don’t dare call out her name because I don’t want her to think I carethat much. I tell myself I don’t. I don’t care at all. If she were to get hurt out here, if Benji were to find her first, well…she would deserve it. In fact, it would be the least of what she deserves.
But even still.
Suddenly, I can’t see her at all. She was there one second, her long hair streaming behind her, and then she’s not. She took off her heels, and I don’t see them either, which means she’s carrying them, but how she could have just disappeared like that…
I stand still, looking in all directions, heart thudding in my chest.
Riley and her stupid fucking games. They were always the most dangerous kind.
I take a few steps forward, see beyond the trees ahead the lake glimmering under the stars.
To my right, deep in the thick of the trees, off the footpath, I see her. She has her back against a thick trunk, facing away from me, her hands behind her, clenching the tree, as if she’s using it to hold her up.
I remember her in the sex club, falling into me.
I shake that memory away, the satisfaction I felt watching her watch Adam. She hadn’t even been hurt. She had seemedrelieved.
I don’t think about that.
Instead, I come closer to her, on silent steps. I might be tall, but years of wrestling has given me a strange grace, too, and I use it to my advantage now as I sneak up on her.
