Pull

“Thanks.”

I hung up the phone. Should I go home? Should I chase after him? I turned off my car and walked across the street to my parents’ store. Maybe my dad could at least enjoy the coffee I bought.

The door jingled when I walked in. “There she is!” My dad announced as if I’d been missing.

I gave him a weak smile.

“You should have a bigger smile on your face than that after what that boy is doing for you!”

“Huh?”

“The boy.” My dad repeated as if the boy was in fact Demetri’s’ name.

“Demetri?” I asked. “What’s he doing?”

“Getting your favorite taffy.”

“I don’t have a favorite taffy…” I said slowly. “Unless?” On family vacation my parents had taken me to a taffy store that had the best peppermint taffy I’d ever had in my entire life. I swore to them it was the best taffy in the world. Whenever I got sad my parents offered to help me work on our recipe to make peppermint taffy. It never tasted the same.

“Is he going to Canon Beach Taffy?”

My dad shrugged. “Can’t say.”

“Is he?” I repeated more urgently.

“Yes.”

“Dad…” I paced in front of him. “I have to run, but I know I work this afternoon and…”

“Go, I think I can handle my own store.”

I ran out to the car and hopped in. The minute I turned the ignition I froze. What was I doing? I hadn’t driven that far out of Seaside since before the accident? Why was I going after him?

Urgency coursed through me. I could do this. I had to see him — I had to talk to him.

He needed to know that I loved him too. That even though it hurt, I wanted him in my life.

A familiar fear plagued me as I turned off the main Seaside Highway and started heading down Highway 101.

Cars passed me as my car still hadn’t gotten up to speed. But I was trying to be cautious.

One mile. Two miles. Three miles. I couldn’t stop staring at the mile markers. Once I hit ten, I knew it was only a bit farther before I reached the store.

And then the sound of sirens assaulted me.

I tried to ignore the panic in my heart. Tried and failed as I slowly came up to an accident, an accident that was literally one mile away from the one Brady and I had been in.

A black Mercedes was wrapped around the telephone pole.

My stomach dropped, and the light that Demetri had ignited within me, died.

I pulled over and watched in absolute horror as they directed traffic through one lane. I couldn’t move. No. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t. I shook my head back and forth. No.

I hit my hands against the steering wheel as my entire body started convulsing. Everything felt numb, but at the same time, I was still able to hear my heart as it slammed in my chest. Each thump was like another reminder that I never got to tell Demetri how I felt. He would never know that the love I felt for him was more than Brady — it was everything.

And now he was gone.

I jumped out of the car praying it was a nightmare, begging God to take it all back! It was me. I deserved to die, not him. Not him! It was all my fault. All because he thought I needed cheering up. He stayed with me last night, he held me while I tried to attack him.

And now he was gone.

My heart couldn’t take it.

It was impossible. A person’s soul can only take so much before they finally give up, before they finally want to die too.

I stumbled as I tried to cross the street, not caring that cars were going by me. If they hit me, fine. At least I’d be with him, At least then I could tell him how I felt.

An officer began yelling at me. Soon I felt hands grab my arms and throw me against my own car.

I pushed against him. “Who is that? Whose car is that?” I yelled.

“Ma’am, we need you to stand back.”

“No!” My voice shook. “I need… I need…” I began hyperventilating. The officer helped me to the ground and instructed me to calm down.

Right. Because telling someone who can’t breathe to calm down is actually helpful. If he wasn’t a cop and if I wasn’t dying of heartbreak I would have flipped him off.

All the air felt like it had been sucked out of the universe. All that was left was pain. I was so damn tired of feeling pain.

“I’ll take care of her,” a familiar voice said through the haze of my choking. I gasped for more air as soon as I recognized the voice. Demetri? He didn’t say another word. He sat down on the cold wet ground and pulled me into his body, placing his hands on my chest, he whispered in my ear, “Breathe. Just follow me, okay?”

Too panicked to do anything, I nodded as he breathed in my ear, pressing down on my chest when it was time to exhale and letting up when it was time to inhale.

I closed my eyes against the flow of warm tears streaming down my face.

“I love you.” I gasped, shaking violently in his arms. Done. I was so incredibly done with being sad, with being traumatized. “I thought… I thought something happened to you! Promise me, Demetri. Promise me nothing will ever happen to you.”

He sighed heavily in my ear. “I can’t. But if I died tomorrow, know that I loved you with my entire being today.”

Chapter Thirty-four

Demetri

I wasn’t sure she could drive herself home, so I made her ride with me and told Nat and Alec to come get her car for her.

I’d been driving back into Seaside when I saw her fight off the cop on the side of the road. My first instinct was to pull over and wait in the car. I mean, clearly she was getting a ticket, right?