Annie

“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Will said coolly from the other side of the booth. “You stayed here. Last night. With Greg. In the dress I gave you. And now you’re breaking up with me for him?”

My fingers were restless in my lap. “Will, I’m sorry.”

I didn’t even know what I was apologizing for. His hurt feelings? Mine?

“Listen,” he said, his face softening with his voice, “last night I said things I didn’t mean. I care about you, Annie, and I want to be with you. What do I have to do to prove that to you?”

“Nothing,” I said simply. “It just happened this way. It wasn’t your fault.”

It was another lie, and I couldn’t understand why I kept making excuses for him. But more than anything, I wanted this business done and over with. If placating him got me there, so be it.

“But we’re great together, Annie. I’m sorry for what I said last night. I just can’t keep suffering interventions from Brandon.” He spat the name like a curse.

Anger blew through me in a gust. “Stop it, Will. I’m sorry I even brought him into this. It’s about you and me. And last night wasn’t the first time you failed to take my feelings into account.”

He laughed, a cold, bitter sound. “Your feelings? Not once did you listen when I told you he was trying to get between us. Not once did you seem to care what I wanted, what I’d asked for. But I’m the one who’s insensitive? That’s rich, Annie. Real rich.”

My cheeks prickled with heat. “I cannot believe you. Are you so blinded by jealousy that you can’t see you’ve been acting like a child?”

“A child?” he said, his eyes narrowed and voice on the rise. “You hadn’t even been kissed when I met you. You have no fucking clue what the world is about, not one.” He slapped the table, and I jolted at the sound. “God, even now you have that look on your face like a lost little girl.”

Tears sprang in my eyes, and I felt just as inexperienced as he suggested. I should have listened to Greg—I never should have agreed to this.

But my gaze was steady and hot as the sun. “Thank you for making this so easy for me. Have a nice life, Will. And I wouldn’t come back here if I were you.”

I scooted to the edge of the booth to get the hell away from him, but before I could get all the way out, he sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, reaching for my hand.

“Wait.”

I met his eyes, pulling my hand away before he could touch me.

Another sigh. His face was touched with resignation, but his eyes were dark and stormy. “Annie, I’m sorry. I’m…I’m just surprised, that’s all. I don’t like being caught off guard, and I thought I was coming here today to get you back. I know I can be a dick. Please, forgive me.”

I softened. “Thank you. And I’m sorry to do this to you. I’m sorry for hurting you.”

His lips twitched in a sad smile. “All is fair in love and war, right?”

I offered an apologetic smile of my own. “I should go.”

“You’re not working today?” he asked.

“No, I’m off. I just came here to meet you.”

“Well, let me give you a ride home.” His face was turned down as he pulled on his coat.

“Oh no, that’s okay. I’ll catch a cab,” I said without hesitation.

He straightened his collar. “I insist. My car’s right outside. It’s the least I can do after my little outburst.”

I eyed him, looking for any sign of danger, but I found none. “All right. Thanks, Will.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Cam was sitting at the bar, pretending to work on her laptop, but I knew it was a charade. Her eyes met mine in question.

“Let me go say bye to Cam real quick, okay?”

He nodded once, reaching for the dress boxes I’d brought. “The car’s just out front.”

I said my thanks, and we parted ways.

“What happened?” Cam said quietly when I approached, as if someone might overhear.

“It’s done. He’s going to give me a ride home.”

Her brows knit together. “You sure that’s okay?”

“It’s a ten-minute drive, and it’ll save me cab fare. It’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” she said, not sounding at all convinced. “Text me when you get home, okay? I worry.”

I laughed and made my promise.

A minute later, I slid into the Mercedes with Will, who leaned toward his door, face propped on his hand, staring out the window.

The driver pulled away from the curb.

The car was silent, and with every tick of the clock, the quiet screwed tighter until it was thrumming between us.

“I can’t believe you chose him over me,” he said, almost to himself, the words touched with disbelief and disapproval.

I’d naively thought it was over. Stupid me. Discomfort slid over me. “Will, I thought—”

“What could he possibly give you that I can’t? How could you possibly choose him over me? Didn’t I do everything you wanted?”

He turned to look at me, and for the first time, I saw Will as he truly was. The angles of his face sharpened, his eyes glinting with superiority.

“Didn’t I give you the things you wanted, like that day in Central Park? Didn’t I tell you we could take it slow even though it was the last thing I wanted? Didn’t I put up with your bullshit with Brandon? I cared about you. I thought…I thought you could be a fresh start, a second chance, one I didn’t even deserve. I would never hurt you, no matter what that asshole says about me.”

I watched him rant with my lips parted, my eyes skimming his hard, angry body.

“I can’t believe I lost to him.”

I didn’t realize I’d been shifting to the door, the instinct to get out of the car hijacking my body, sending a cold chill up my back and to the hairs on my neck.

His face shifted, flashing with anger, his hand darting out to grab my wrist. His fingers closed around the small circumference and yanked, pulling me across the leather bench and into him. I yelped in surprise.

“You should be mine.”

“Let me go, Will,” I said through my teeth, twisting my flaming wrist, but it was locked in his fist.

“Sir?” The driver eyed us in the rearview mirror.

“You’re hurting me,” I bit out, tears filling my eyes.

“You’re supposed to be mine,” he said, holding me still as he pressed a rigid kiss to my lips.

I fought against him, uselessly pushing his stony chest with my free hand and turning my head to escape his unyielding mouth, but he pulled me closer. My heart jackhammered, dimming my vision in pulses.

“Sir!”

Will’s face turned to the driver as the car came to a stop.

I pulled my free hand back and slapped him hard enough to send the sting up to my elbow. And in his shock, he relaxed his grip enough for me to reclaim my wrist. I flew across the car and opened the door, scrambling out just before his fingers closed on the back of my jacket.

And the moment my feet hit the pavement, I ran.

He shouted a string of insults out the open door, but they didn’t reach me. I barely registered the honking cars or the Mercedes pulling away. All I could hear was the erratic thump of my pulse in my ears. All I could feel was the cold ground beneath my feet. All I knew was that I had to escape.

When I came to a stop, I dropped to my knees, my vision vibrating with my heartbeat, my heart fluttering so fast, too fast, the muscle spasming frantically. I fumbled for my phone with shaking hands, unable to draw enough breath, my lungs empty and scraping against my ribs. —I couldn’t call I couldn’t speak.

I pulled up my sister’s last message and fired off a text.

Need help. I’m in the park, sending you my location.

There wasn’t enough air, my limbs moving laboriously as a creeping blackness in my vision pulled me to the ground. And then I felt it—the jerk in my heart, like a string had been pulled. It was on fire, my heart in my chest beating so fast, so hard, so bruised, that I pressed my palms to my sternum in disbelief of the deep measure of pain, a hot slice of a knife through the very center of me.

And with a final gasp of air from the very depths of my lungs, I slipped away, onto the cold, icy ground, into darkness.

Greg

I hopped off my board and ran to the door of the bookstore, whipping it open, rushing inside, scanning the bar for Annie. I found Cam instead.

“Where is she?”

Alarm commandeered her, arresting her face and planting her feet on the ground. “She left with Will, not five minutes ago. He was giving her a ride home.”

I swore, pulling my phone out of my back pocket to text her again. She hadn’t answered my text from before, and my mind jumped from one conclusion to the next without taking a breath.

My phone buzzed in my hand with a text from Elle.

Have you seen Annie? Something happened. She’s in the park, but I don’t know where.

My fingers flew as I sent back three words.

I’ll find her.

I turned and ran back out without a word, throwing my board onto the pavement in front of me and jumping on without thinking about what I was doing or the cold or what would happen.

Every thought I had was focused on her.

My mind raced with my wheels, tracking the path he would have used to take her home, not certain why it was urgent, but knowing it was all the same. The temperature had dropped, my breath leaving me in bursts of burning cold, my eyes scanning the park around me, not knowing what exactly I was looking for.

And then I saw it—the flash of yellow between trees, the same sunshiny color of her coat.

I hopped the curb and jumped off my board, leaving it where it was, running full tilt for the heap in the frosted grass. And with every footfall, my hope slipped away, replaced by cold awareness.

I fell to my knees at her side and rolled her into my lap, my heart stopping when I saw her lifeless face.

Her skin was an unnatural shade of gray, her lips a deep shade of purple, the blue veins in her closed lids visible.

“Annie,” I whispered, my throat locking.

Her body was limp, dead weight in my arms, her head lolling. I held her cheek; it was cold as ice.

“Annie, can you hear me?” I pressed my fingers to her neck and found her pulse easily; it was beating double the time it should have been.

“Jesus Christ,” I breathed, pulling her into me, my face turning to the expanse of gray sky. “Please. God, please.”

She stirred in my arms, the smallest moan escaping her lips, and I held her, looking into her face as her lids fluttered open.

Her lips parted as if to speak, but only a soft Ah made it through before her eyes closed again.

“No,” I whispered, fumbling for my phone. “Don’t leave me,” I begged as the line rang. “Hurry,” I demanded after I gave the dispatcher everything I could.

And then it was just her and me, the birds in the park and my fingers on her careening pulse, the sirens in the distance and her life on a thread. And I prayed to every god I knew.