Page 20 of Intersect
“I can’t blame her. Anyone would have been scared ofme.”
“I’m not,” hesays.
I glance at him and feel a small crack, a sliver of light entering that dark place inside me. “Yeah,” I reply, smiling. “You’renot.”
He presses his mouth to my forehead. “I hate that you seem so surprised by that. You deserved to spend your entire life surrounded by people who treated what you could do like a gift instead of acurse.”
My heart stumbles and falters.He’s wrong. I bury my head to his chest and try to ignore the thought. But it remains anyway, a tiny undercurrent of guilt I can never quite place. There’s the dread I feel when he mentions Ryan’s name. And in that dream about the hospital in London, my certainty I’d done something Nick wouldn’t forgive me for—it means something. At some point, in one of these lives, I think I may have done something verywrong.
* * *
“I have to pee.”I mean to whisper but it comes out loud enough for half the room to hear. “I think I’m drunk,” Iadd.
Nick’s eyes crinkle at the corners, his dimple coming out as he tries not to laugh. “Yeah, I think you might be,” he says. “And you’re a cute drunk, but my brother isn’t, so maybe we should find him and get out ofhere.”
My stomach sinks at the mere mention of Ryan. He was once my closest friend, after Nick—I still remember the kid who sat under my window when I had mono and played chess with me, moving pieces as I instructed. The little boy who brought me tulips when I broke my arm…tulips he cut from his mother’s garden without permission, a move he’d later be punished for. But now his bitterness about the situation has ruined everything, no matter how hard he tries to restrainit.
“Hey,” says Nick, tipping my chin up. “What’sup?”
It’s something we don’t discuss, normally. But alcohol has loosened my tongue. “He hates me now,” Iwhisper.
Nick pulls me toward him. “No, it’s me he hates. He thinks I stole you. And maybe I did, but I’d do it again in aheartbeat.”
He kisses me, tasting like beer and spearmint, which is oddly not an unpleasant combination, but he ends it with a reluctant sigh. “This isn’t a good idea when you’re drunk,” hesays.
I step into the space he’s created between us. “I think it’s an amazingidea.”
He groans and closes his eyes. “No, it’s not, because you won’t make the same decisions you would if you were sober, and if we keep going I’ll be tempted to let you make the wrong ones.” He pushes away from me, his shoulders set in a way that means there’s no arguing with him. “You pee while I go find Ryan. I’ll pull up the car and meet you infront.”
Somewhere in the far recesses of my inebriated brain I know he’s right, even if I don’t like it. I promised my mother I’d wait until I was out of high school. It’s just getting harder and harder to keep thatpromise.
He leaves in search of Ryan while I move through a dark hall and into an even darker bedroom in search of an unoccupied toilet. When I’m done I stumble blindly back through the bedroom, running my hand along the dresser to find my way to thedoor.
“There you are,” says a familiar voice, pulling me against him. “I’ve been looking foryou.”
I press my head to his chest. Now that I’ve peed all I want in the world is to go to sleep. I’m so tired I’m not sure I’ll even make it to the car. “I thought we were meeting in front,” Imurmur.
“I’d rather meet right here,” he says, as his mouth lands on mine. Even inebriated I recognize it’s not his normal kiss. It’s harder, pushier, needier. He stumbles a little and my hip slams into the side of the dresser, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Something is wrong with him and I can’t quite form the words to ask. His hands are on my ass, gripping me the way they do when we’ve taken things too far and he’s desperate to come. I don’t understand what’s happening, but when he pops the button on my jeans, it triggers an alarm inside me: Nick wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be like this. He wouldn’t do thishere.
“I don’t thinkwe—"
“I wanted you first,” hesays.
My blood turns to ice and I put a hand on his chest to push away from him. “What?”
The door opens. Light from the hallway illuminates the room, and Nick stands there, the blood draining from his face as he takes in my open jeans and my hands on Ryan’schest.
“No!” I cry, jolting myself awake. I sit up, struggling for air, and press my knees to my chest, my forehead between them, forcing myself to take controlled breaths. Beside me, Nick—grown-up Nick—is in a deep sleep.What did I do? Did Nick understand? Did he forgive me?Unlike all the other memories, even the bad ones, I feel tainted by this. I want it just to be a dream and I know it wasn’t. My head bumps against the frame of the bed and Nick rolls towardme.
“You okay?” heasks.
“Yeah,” I whisper. He pulls me down beside him. My leg slides over his and, half-asleep, he rolls toward me, pressing his mouth to my neck, his body far more awake than his brain. It distracts me from my panic of a moment earlier. I want him to keep distracting me. I want to forget itentirely.
6
QUINN
Well, we made it through the night without having sex,” he announces overbreakfast.