I don’t want to see the crash, or my parents, or hear the screaming. I just want peace. Maybe I can get that peace by going with Nathan. I don’t want to die in a car, or by suffocation, but I’ll welcome any sort of peace right now.
Nathan steps closer. His movements are hesitant as if he was trying to walk up to a skittish doe. He keeps moving closer until the tips of our shoes are touching. My heart is pounding, and he’s so close. “We can walk if you want,” he tells me quietly, “but it would take a while.”
I shake my head to try to clear it, my eyes averting to the car. “No. I can do this. It’s just a car. It’s a short drive.”
“Are you sure?”
You standing close to me is distracting enough. I can survive a car ride. I think.
“Yeah,” I reply, boldly heading for the passenger side. I can feel Nathan’s eyes on me as I open the door. It makes me slightly self-conscious. The spell didn’t break even though I put some distance between us. I look up to meet his gaze. “Well, c’mon then. This was your idea after all.”
He stands there a second longer before coming to the driver’s side and getting in. I take in a steady breath, ignoring my slightly shaky hands, before taking a seat inside the compacted vehicle. The second I sit down, I can’t help but think about how easy it would be to get crushed in this tiny car. I push the thought away and close the door behind me.
I settle into the seat with tense shoulders—with a tense everything really. My whole body is stiff with discomfort and anxiety. My hands are still a little shaky as I put my seatbelt on.
I can still feel Nathan’s eyes on me, analyzing every move I make. I feel sick. My stomach is in knots now, and my palms are sweaty. The dread had come on quickly, though expectedly.
I nearly drowned in a car accident with my parents; I attempted suicide; and now I feel like I’m attempting it again by being in this car. If I was going to die, I didn’t want to die in a car, or by drowning, or by any other type of suffocation.
I want the pain to stop, but I don’t want to be scared during my last few moments in the world.
I’m staring out the front window, frozen as I try to calm down enough, so I don’t hurl in Nathan’s car.
“You’re hands are shaking.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat. “Yeah, well yours would be too if you’d gone off a bridge in one of these death traps.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to walk?”
“I’m fine,” I force myself to say. Sitting in his car is making me tense, and anxious beyond just a few butterflies in my stomach. I want to close my eyes against the thought of the car moving.
Falling.
Sinking.
Drowning.
I suck in a sharp breath, the thoughts causing terror to swell in the pit of my stomach. My eyes burn the longer I refuse to blink. “Just drive,” I manage to add.
The car rumbles to life. My hands are fists in my lap. I want to close my eyes, so I don’t have to look out the windshield, but I can’t. I can’t blink. I can’t think about anything else except falling, sinking, drowning. The three words continue to echo in my mind as images play out with them. The car is falling—sinking. We’re drowning. I’m drowning. I’m sinking.
“We’re here,” Nathan informs me. I feel gentle fingers graze the top of my hand. I open my eyes to find the car stopped, and Nathan’s hand is covering mine. My eyes drift to the windshield, then to our overlapped hands before finally settling on him.
His eyes are studying me carefully. “Are you okay? You were like in some kind of weird daze the whole way.”
I clear my throat with a nod. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He stares at me a moment longer, before unbuckling and getting out of the car—I follow suite. As we walk, he points the car keys over his shoulder, pressing one of the buttons. The car beeps in response, locking its doors.
A light breeze carries through the air, ruffling Nathan’s hair as he walks ahead of me. My own hair drifts back over my shoulders, tickling my neck as I try to catch up to him. My hand accidently brushes against his when I come up beside him. I shiver, both from the light touch and the cool air.
When we step onto the bridge, Nathan turns and spreads his arms out wide. “Welcome to Pont des Arts, a.k.a. The Lock Bridge.”
Thousands—if not millions—of locks are lined all the way down the bridge. Small, written notes are marked on some, others are just colorful, or in the shape of a heart. Each is special. Each represents a relationship. I wonder how many of these couples are still together. I wonder how many keys rest at the bottom of this river. I wonder if there is even a single space left on this bridge for another lock.
“It’s amazing,” I say as I walk over to the railing. I’m hesitant but lean over the railing, regardless, to get a look at the water below. The longer I stare down at the water, the harder my heart pounds in my chest. My hair whips around me in the breeze. It’s chilly now that we’re closer to the water, causing goosebumps to rise on my bare skin.
I glance beside me to find Nathan staring at me. Something flickers in his eyes, but he turns his eyes to the water before I can figure out what. I don’t look away. I watch him as he looks at the water below. His dark bangs are hanging away from his face, pointing toward the river as he stares over the railing.
His eyes are almost the same color as the water, but clearer.
Those gray-blue eyes meet mine again, and they hold me there. I can’t seem to waver my gaze, even though he’d just caught me staring at him. I know I should be flushed with embarrassment about being caught, but my cheeks are neither red nor warm.
“When is your dad coming back to look at the building?” I ask, still unable to tear my eyes away from him. I haven’t really noticed before, but his features are very striking. With an oval face, bushy eyebrows that move in the weirdest ways behind his head of dark hair, and piercingly clear eyes that resemble the water below the bridge we stand on; he looked almost picture-perfect.
I suddenly have the urge to capture his features on paper.
“Tomorrow afternoon. I don’t think you should be there. They could see you.”
“The same man is going to be with him?” I ask, ignoring his suggestion.
He stares at me a beat too long, accessing. “Yeah. Double trouble. Seriously, though, you should be somewhere else tomorrow afternoon.”
“They won’t see me. I can take care of myself.”
He places his hands on the railing and sags his head in frustration for a moment. He lets one of his hands slip off the railing, and he shifts to face me. “Why are you so damn stubborn? Why can’t you just admit that you need help?”
“Because I—”
“Don’t,” he interrupts. “Don’t you dare say, ‘because I don’t need help,’ because you do. You need help.” He hesitates, turning the next words over in his head—thinking carefully. “You’re suicidal, Taylor. You should get—”
My blood runs cold, my heart tightening in despair. I’m shaking my head. “No.” I’m backing away. Each step feels heavy. “No.”
I could see the surprise in his eyes from five feet away. He takes a step toward me as he says my name. I turn, refusing to listen to the words that will come out of his mouth next. I don’t need help. I run.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Don’t Run Away
I make it to the end of the bridge before he catches my arm and abruptly pulls me to a stop. He spins me around to face him, grazing his fingers under my jaw to tip my chin up until I meet his gaze. My lips press into a thin line when I take in his expression.
The parts of my skin that he touches somehow become warm despite the breeze that whips around us. A shiver runs down my back, and I suddenly find myself wanting to move closer to him. I want to move in close and for him to wrap his arms around me so I can be immersed in his warmth.
How can I be thinking about this right now? He takes a step closer, and my question disappears with the wind.
&
nbsp; “Don’t run away from me!” he tells me, gasping to catch his breath from the sudden race to catch me. “Stop running away from your problems—from life. You’re here. I’m here. Whatever you need, I’m here. But this has to stop. You have to stop running, and you cannot hurt yourself again.” He pauses, taking in a deep breath through his nose to calm himself. It doesn’t seem to help much. “You cannot scare me like that again. I thought you were dead, Taylor. Dead.”
I flinch from the force he puts behind that last word. He notices and seems pleased to see that I’m actually listening. “I don’t want to find you in the bathroom covered in blood again. I don’t want to find you dead. This has to stop.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I don’t get it.” I finally say, bewildered. “You don’t even know me. You only know the answers to the questions from that game you always want to play. You know me as well as I know you, which is little to nothing and—”
“Since you keep running off, it’s kind of difficult for me to get to know you.” He shifts, and I can tell he’s fighting a smirk and snarky remark of some kind.
Ignoring the smirk that’s playing on his lips, I shake my head. “Why are you so determined to get to know me? I—I don’t understand it. There couldn’t possibly be anything…” I trail off, unable to finish my sentence. How can he find me interesting enough that he’d come this far to understand and know me?
“Because,” his tone is full of obliteration as if the answer should be obvious to me, as if the answer was staring me in the face, “I saw something in you the second I laid eyes on you. You were different. I could tell. I don’t know how, but I could tell there was just…something about you. I had to get to know you; get close to you; know your likes and dislikes. I wanted to get to know the strong, yet scared girl that stood in front of me for all of about two seconds before taking off.”
Neither of us say anything further as I stare into the depths of his clear eyes. He stares right back down into my plain, boring green ones. Our gazes don’t waver. My heart is pounding wildly in my chest. It’s so loud against the silence between us, yet I can’t seem to break our mute standoff.
I have no words. I don’t know how to reply to what he’s just said to me. I am speechless—breathless. My eyes fall to his lips, and there’s a hypnotic force suddenly pulling me to him.
“You know that, right?” he questions, one of his bushy eyebrows twitching up.
“Know what?” My voice comes out just as breathless as I had hoped it wouldn’t.
The way his eyes are holding mine—they are forcing me to listen, though not just to his words, but to his eyes. “That you’re strong because you are. You may have given up today, lost hope for a second but…I don’t think you wanted to do it. I think that some part of you still wanted to live, and that’s why you’re standing here with me.” He takes a small, hesitant step closer, his eyes still locked on mine. I take note of his long, shadow-casting lashes as I stare back at him.
I open my mouth, but can’t find words. I can’t think of a reply. My brain seems to be beyond thinking. I just stand there, dumbfounded and awkwardly frozen in place. Incapable of coming up with a response, I snap my jaw shut.
Seeing my struggle, a smile tugs on the corners of his mouth. He wraps his arm around my shoulder and starts leading me off the bridge. I stiffen at first, surprised by the casual touch. I feel his arm tense in response to my reaction, but then we both relax. I don’t push his arm away, and I don’t look up at him. I can feel his eyes on me though I can’t meet them right now. His arm is around me, and that is all I can seem to think about.
He leads me off the bridge with his arm casually draped over my shoulders, before suggesting we get something to eat. Being hungry all the time, I don’t pass on the offer. We stop at a food truck and grab some burgers.
I feel bad about not being able to pay, so I thank him multiple times as we make our way back to his car. He just chuckles, telling me that it’s fine—that he doesn’t mind paying. My heart swells as I climb into the passenger seat of his car, but not in fear. I’m thankful.
My thoughts quickly take a darker, more panicked turn when Nathan starts the car. I fall into a dazed state, again. I don’t notice when the car stops. Nathan has to touch my shoulder for me to break out of the trance. I blink, turning to him. His eyebrows are wrinkled with worry but doesn’t say anything as his hand falls away, and he gets out.
I follow him back to the apartment, trying to get my hands to stop shaking. I grip my jeans, digging my nails into the fabric, but my hands still quiver.
Nathan holds the door open for me when we reach the top of the iron steps. I awkwardly step ahead of him. He follows, soon passing me because of his long strides. He pushes the door to my apartment open, letting me walk in ahead of him again. I bite my bottom lip as I step into my apartment for the first time since this morning—when I cut my wrists.
I immediately head for my bedroom, keeping my eyes locked on the door ahead of me to avoid looking at the bloody mess in the kitchen. I don’t dare glance into the bathroom either as I pass it.
Nathan’s steps are close behind me, at least they were until I reached the bedroom. I turn just as I begin to push the door open. He sucks in a breath, standing frozen in front of the open bathroom door. I hesitate, watching him, waiting for him to turn away. He doesn’t.
I move to stand beside him, keeping my eyes on him instead of looking at the red mess on the white, tile floor. His eyes are large with alarm, and his lips are pressed into a thin, worried line. I lightly touch his arm, and he seems to break from the trance. His turns his head, allowing our eyes to meet.
My breathing nearly cuts off when I see the look in his eyes. Deep sadness is swarming in his clear irises.
He quickly reaches out, taking my arm; his touch firm as he examines the bandage. He’s careful not to touch the injury. His firm grip lightens as he begins to unwrap the gauze.
I suck in a sharp breath at the sight of the gashes on my arm. The skin beneath the bandage is raw and red with irritation. Blood is dried and smudged around the cuts that are slashed across my wrists. I’d bled profusely, enough that it had shown through the bandages.
Nathan reaches up and roughly runs his free hand through his hair. “Gosh, Taylor-Tot.”
Taylor-Tot? I want to question but now doesn’t seem like the time. I shift my eyes to him, taking in his strained expression. His hand is firm but gentle on my arm while his other grips his hair between his fingers. He gently pulls my arm, willing me to follow him to the kitchen.
He pulls out the First-Aid Kit again to clean and re-bandage the wound. I watch him, my eyes shifting between his careful hands and his worried expression as he works, still feeling the same force from before pulling me to him.
When he’s done, he heads for the bathroom. I watch him from the counter as he pushes the door open further before slowly stepping inside. My heart sinks. With an anxious sigh, I push off the counter and slowly walk to the bathroom.
I find Nathan crouched in front of a puddle of blood. The puddle is in front of the counter—where I’d sat as it drained from the cuts on my wrist. He has a wet bar of soap in his hand. I watch, unsure of what he’s planning on doing with it. He starts scrubbing the floor; his eyebrows pulled together tightly. He doesn’t look up at me as he works. I hesitate, debating whether to help him or not.
“Don’t you ever do this again,” he tells me quietly, his voice hoarse.
I watch as the blood smears across the tiles, my voice barely above a whisper as I force myself to reply, “Okay.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
No One Sees Me
“It’s getting late, shouldn’t you be getting home?” I ask Nathan. I’m lying on top of the covers on my bed with my arm draped across my forehead as I gawk up at the ceiling. Nathan is sprawled out in the rocking chair; his long legs stretched out in front of him with his arms hanging off the sides of the chair. It looks kind of funny, but I manage to swallow my laug
hter.
I push myself up, moving to the edge of the bed so that I can look at him. I fold my arms on top of my knees and rest my chin on them, keeping my eyes locked on him. His head tilts slightly after a moment of silent staring. “Did you have a boyfriend back home?”
I blink, taken aback by his random question. He hasn’t answered my question yet, but I’m shaking my head in response to his. My eyes drift down to the covers. “No. No, boyfriend.”
“How come?”
I frown down at the covers. This is the last thing I want to talk about. Why can’t he just answer my question? Why did he have to ask something so random and awkward? “I don’t know. No one caught my attention, I guess. I never really thought about dating while I was in high school. I always thought that there would be time for that later, like in college, I guess.”
He’s caught me off guard, making me feel lame about not having gone out with anyone. He always seemed to ask the questions that I didn’t want to answer. “What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?” I try to push back the small amount of hope that was forming, telling myself that his answer made no difference to me.
A smile tugs on the corner of his lips, and his eyes shift downward, making it difficult for me to read him. “No. Are we playing twenty questions, or just asking questions?”
I roll my eyes. “We’re playing the ‘ask as many questions you want’ game.”
“Are you going to leave tomorrow when my Dad comes?”
“Nope. I’ll be here, watching.”
His brows pull together in concern. “I really think you should go to the park or something. Just anywhere but here.”
“Why are you more worried about this than I am? It’ll be fine.”
“And what if it’s not? What if he sees you? You’re seventeen; you’ll go into the foster system.”
“It’ll be fine,” I assure him again. “No one will see me.”
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