Chapter 28

Wednesday

I slowly opened my eyes and was about to stretch when I froze. V's arm was still wrapped around my torso. I could feel the rise and fall of his chest against my back and the tickle of his out breaths against the base of my neck. The sweet smell of his cologne had completely surrounded me. I couldn't deny the fact that I had slept soundlessly in his arms. Clearly he felt the same or he would have wandered back to the couch once I had fallen asleep. He wanted to hold me. The thought made my chest ache. How could I like this so much when I knew I still had feelings for Miles? Feelings that I had stomped on last night when I pulled away from our kiss.

Suddenly, the realization that V was still asleep replaced the feeling of guilt creeping into my stomach. This was my chance to see who he really was. As slowly as possible, I turned underneath his arm in order to face him.

He groaned and I immediately stopped. I waited a few seconds before completing my roll toward him. His eyes were still closed. I slowly exhaled as I stared at his masked face. His long lashes didn't do much to cover the dark circles underneath his eyes. He was exhausted. My being here had forced him to sleep on the couch the last few nights. And who knew how much sleep he ever really got. Most of his appearances had been in the middle of the night when he was veiled in a cloak of darkness.

But I didn't want him to be hidden any longer. I needed to see him. I reached out and lightly touched the bottom of his mask. V didn't even flinch. I slowly pushed it up. My fingers brushed against the scruff under his chin. It felt as though a current shot through me.

As if my touch did the same to him, he grabbed my hand and rolled on top of me, pinning me to the mattress. There was a wild look in his eyes.

"What are you doing?" his voice rumbled.

"I thought..."

"You said you trusted me!" He blinked hard as he stared down at me. It was like he was trying to rid himself of his anger. But no matter how many times he blinked, that wild look remained in his eyes. "Were you lying?"

I don't know anymore. "Trust is a lot easier if it's reciprocated. How can I trust you if you don't trust me?"

"You need to get to class," he said, but he didn't move off of me.

 "I can't go to class today. There's no point. I can't focus on anything. We need to find Julie."

"You have to go. It's better if you pretend like everything is normal."

"There's nothing normal about my life. It's just a sequence of one disaster after the next."

He just stared down at me. He loosened his grip on my hands slightly, but still didn't move. "One day you might look back at your life and realize that spending a few days with me wasn't such a disaster."

"I didn't say being here was a disaster. That wasn't..."

He leaned forward and pressed his masked forehead against mine. "You didn't have to."

"V."

He lifted his forehead off mine and stared down at me. He parted his lips like he was about to say something, but immediately closed his mouth again. He climbed off of me.

Without his touch, I was suddenly cold. It felt a lot like our borrowed time had just ended. And even though it already felt like my heart was torn into a million pieces, it still hurt. "You're not a disaster," I said into the silence that had settled around us.

He stopped in the doorway. "Go to class. Pretend to be Eli's girlfriend. I'll see you tonight." He closed the door behind him.

After quickly getting ready, I searched the apartment for V. But he was gone. He was probably out looking for Julie. He was trying to fix my life that I had called a disaster. And I hated that he thought he was a part of that. He wasn't a disaster at all. He was the hero that this city so desperately needed. I just wasn't sure he was the hero I needed. I shook my head. That was the whole problem. A part of me thought that he was what I needed. And I didn't understand what that meant.

 

***

 

Kins sat down next to me with a huge smile on her face. The smile almost looked insane, like she had done something diabolical. A knot started forming in my stomach. She had accepted the fact that Eli wasn't the vigilante when I had told her. I thought that we'd agreed for her to drop it. She wasn't still searching, was she?

"Hey, what's up?" I said, dreading the answer.

She leaned on the armrest that separated us. "Double date. Tonight. The Tavern on the Green."

"Sounds fun. Who's going with you and Patrick?"

"What do you mean who's going with me?" She slapped my arm. "You and Eli of course."

No way. "Oh, no," I quickly said. "Shoot. We can't tonight. We already have plans." And technically we did. Eli was supposed to be helping me figure out what the hell Don was planning.

"Eli already agreed. Whatever you two already had planned is officially rescheduled. You're coming with us."

Damn it, Eli. "When did you even have time to ask him?"

"This morning when he was getting dressed." She raised her eyebrows at me.

"God, Kins, what is wrong with you?"

"What? I told you that just because I'm in a relationship it doesn't mean I can't appreciate a fine male specimen. From a distance."

I laughed. "You're ridiculous."

"No, Eli's abs are ridiculous." She smiled at me as I rolled my eyes. "But seriously, tonight is going to be a blast. And you have to dress up. This place is fancy." She gave my Converses a disapproving glance.

"They look cute with a sundress," I said.

"Not really. Oh! We should go shopping after classes today."

"I don't have time to do both." Had I seriously already committed to this double date?

"But..." she stopped protesting when the professor walked in. "We'll talk about it later.

Not a chance.

 

***

 

"Seriously, Eli? A double date with Kins and Patrick?"

He smiled at me as he sat down in the desk next to mine. "Good morning to you too. You look really nice today."

I sighed. "We don't have time for a date tonight."

"There's always time to make sure we're keeping up appearances. We all agreed that in public you and I would be dating."

"Eli." My voice sounded desperate. "Kins wants me to go shopping with her for new shoes. I can't handle going shopping and going on a date and any other freaking thing right now. I'm having a hard enough time sitting here like everything's fine."

"Hey." He put his hand on my knee. "If anything, tonight will take your mind off of your troubles. I think we could both use that."

"What, like that party we went to where you completely abandoned me? Because last time I remember us putting pressing matters aside I ended up drunk and alone." But really it hadn't been so bad. I had run into Miles after all.

"I told you that was because of work. I'm sorry..."

"I don't care about your apology." I moved my knee away from his hand. "Tell them we have to cancel."

"Give me one chance."

"I've given you plenty of chances."

"The real me. Summer," he said, lowering is voice. "Please. Just one chance." He put his hand back on my knee.

I looked down at his hand and then back up at his face. "We can't be ourselves on a double date anyway."

"Then we'll cut out early."

I bit the inside of my lip as I stared at him. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"It's just one night."

I shook my head. Possibly one of my last nights. "You promise not to ditch me?"

He smiled. "If something comes up, this time I can just take you with me."

I folded my arms across my chest and stared at the front of the room. I hadn't even realized the professor had already started talking. I stared blankly at the board. Class. A date. None of it mattered. I just wanted Julie to be okay. "Okay, fine. But only if V is willing to push back the meeting tonight. And we have to be back for it. On time."

"Deal."

I pulled out my phone to text V. Before I pressed on his name, I realized I had one unread message. It was from Miles. I clicked on it.

"I promise that whatever it is you're not telling me isn't going to scare me away. Please stop running."

Running. That's all I knew. The thought of standing still terrified me. I started bouncing my knee nervously. I could barely even sit here, knowing what was going on in my life, or more accurately, not knowing what was going on. The only thing I was sure of was that I wasn't going to drag anyone down with me. And if that meant pretending for one night that I had a boyfriend so Kins wouldn't get suspicious, or avoiding Miles, that's how it had to be.

Besides, Miles was dead wrong. If he knew what I was planning, it would scare him away. The only thing I was looking forward to was the thought of seeing death in Don's eyes. And not his usual dead stare. I wanted to know what he looked like when he could no longer hurt anyone. When all the life was sucked out of him just like he had sucked out mine. The thought made my veins feel cold.

I deleted Miles' message and typed out one to V requesting that our meeting be pushed back a few hours.

His response came almost immediately. "Whatever you need."

My knee kept bouncing. Whatever I need? What is that supposed to mean? He was probably hoping that I'd come home in a better mood than when I left. I almost laughed out loud at the fact that I had called his apartment home. I hadn't had a home since I was nine years old.

I couldn't focus on a word that the professor was saying. My eyes were glued to the phone. I didn't know if V was mad or completely neutral. But I hated where we had left things this morning. "I didn't mean you were a disaster, V," I typed out and pressed send.

I stared down at my phone for the rest of the class. A response never came.