Age Seventeen
“Are you crazy? We’re going to get caught.” But her smile proclaimed this was the only place she wanted me to be. I tiptoed the rest of the way into her room, quietly latched the door shut behind me.
A rush of something good propelled me forward as I climbed into her bed.
I breathed out in relief when she set those tiny hands on me.
Because this girl…she ushered in the good. Something that felt so right.
Didn’t matter that I’d been sneaking in here for the better part of the last three weeks, both of us doing our best during the day to play it cool, to pretend like this wasn’t transpiring night after night.
It wasn’t as if anything salacious was going down between us, anyway, but I doubted Ash would take all too kindly to my sleeping in her bed.
She nestled her head on my shoulder, her sigh so easy when she fisted a hand in my shirt. “Sing to me.”
A self-conscious smile wobbled on my mouth, my words lost in the strands of her hair. “What do you want me to sing?”
“Something soft and sweet.”
Just like her.
I pressed a kiss to her temple, her heart going thud, thud, thud where it was flush against my chest. “I don’t know anything sweet.”
Chaotic, heavy beats were what I knew. Sunder’s sound and vibe were so much a part of my soul, the songs running through my veins like they were essential to sustaining this half-life.
In the shadows, she peeked up at me, trust shining back. “I think you are all things sweet, Austin Stone.”
This time it was affection running through my veins. Something foreign and right. A missing link.
Pushing out a sigh, I wrapped my arm around her head, pulling her closer, this girl who somehow managed to make me feel whole when I was so goddamned broken.
I cleared my throat. Began to sing Broken by Lifehouse. Softly. My voice was a mere scrape from the back of my throat. The lyrics hit me hard as I held this girl in my arms. Wishing she could truly belong there.
As quiet as they were, the words seemed to impale the air. The meaning of them was dense. Intense and absolute.
I’m falling apart, I’m barely breathing
With a broken heart that’s still beating
The words were so true for both of us.
And it struck me as I sang the song to bring her comfort while her touch brought the same to me.
The two of us were barely hanging on.
And in her name…in her name…I’d found meaning.
I trailed off as the song came to an end, my throat nearly closing up with the emotion suddenly locked there.
Edie clung to me, her face buried in the material of my tee, before she inched back and gazed at me as if she were the one who was looking at the light. Moisture swam in her eyes. “You have the most beautiful voice.”
Everything went tight, those stupid hopes igniting in her belief. “No.”
Wasn’t close to being as talented as my brother. As the rest of the guys.
Wasn’t even worthy to be in their space.
I fuck it all up. Ruin it all.
Slightly, she shook her head, disagreement and exasperation and adoration so damned clear. “Don’t you see it, Austin? How amazing you are? How talented? Do you have any idea what your voice does to me?”
Somehow I managed to get her closer. God, it made me feel insane that I both wanted to tug my damned hoodie over my head so I could curl up and hide and lie back so this girl could completely strip me bare.
“When you’re here it doesn’t hurt so bad,” she whispered. Soft, soft fingers fluttered up the column of my neck and brushed across my lips.
I suppressed a groan, my voice going rough as the two of us dug deeper into the other than we’d ever gone. As if every single layer separating us was slowly being exposed. “What doesn’t hurt so bad?”
Would she finally tell me? Trust me enough to fully let me in?
Reservation and fear held her tongue. I could feel it right there, lodged at the base of her throat, begging to be expelled.
“Everything,” she whispered into the hush of the room. “I…I don’t feel so alone. And the dreams, they don’t come, knowing you’ll be coming soon.”
I cleared my throat, the rasp of words raw. “Mine either.”
Maybe that was the scariest part. The fact she filled up all those vacant, hollow places within me. Soothing them with her touch. When she was near, the nagging need to fill up my veins, to distort the pain, to cover the loss, to clot out his voice—it was muted.
Subdued.
Like she was doing all the covering herself.
“What do you dream of?” Her question was almost guarded with the plea.
Those empty places throbbed. “Him. About his laugh.” I blinked toward the ceiling, visions so clear. “Mostly his eyes. Every night, it’s like he’s looking back at me.”
Her smile was soft. Filled with understanding when she propped herself up on an elbow, her gaze intent. She touched my face. “Maybe he is…looking back at you. Would that be such a bad thing?”
Sadness tugged at my mouth, the hatred I felt locked up tight, condemned to the well of my toiling spirit. Because she didn’t know. Had no clue it was my fault. “Feels like it is…when I wake up and realize it’s not real. That he’s really gone.”
Sympathy pinched her brow. “Were you there?”
A phantom of a memory slithered through me, the feel of his body twitching in my hands. “Yeah. I was there.”
She buried her face in my neck. “I’m so sorry.”
After a few moments, she pulled back to look at me, aqua eyes sincere and so damned sweet.
Diamonds.
Light. Light. Light.
This girl who somehow managed to pull me from the overwhelming waves that held me under.
The urge struck me with the force of a two-ton truck.
Crashing as it careened.
I wanted her.
I wanted to kiss her and touch her.
Bury myself inside her.
Lose myself in her body and her heart and her mind.
Hold her.
Love her.
That crazy energy blistered, the one that stirred through every time this girl stepped in the room.
But tonight it’d twisted into something different.
Something more.
Fuck. I wanted more.
My mouth watered and my hand was on her face. Her lips parted, and I was inching forward.
Those eyes widened in fear.
She turned her face.
Breaking the connection.
Rejection slammed me. Too hard. So hard it nearly blew me back two years. Back when I’d been spiraling.
Down to darkest depths.
Veins full of poison.
I clenched my jaw, needing to escape. But she was grabbing my hand that’d been on her face, pushing it back to her heated skin, holding it tight. She whispered, “Don’t leave me, don’t leave me,” again and again.
Moisture glistened in her eyes, shimmery pools of sea, her expression so fucking raw. Real and honest. “I just…can’t do this, Austin. Not again. It hurts too much. But if I could, it’d be you. I promise, it’d be you.”