But it wasn’t enough.
It hadn’t been enough.
I tried to get him to breathe, to get him to do something.
“Brady! Stay with me, Brady! It’s going to be okay! Help is on the
way. Can you hear me, Brady?” I tried to speak softly even though I
wanted to scream.
“Brady?”
I tried to feel for a pulse, but there was too much blood, and my
fingers kept slipping. I pulled his shirt open and continued doing
compressions, even though he was lying back in his seat. It was a blessing
that at least something was holding his spine in place.
I tried so hard to breathe into his mouth, but it was as if I didn’t
have enough breath.
“Brady? Brady!” That time I yelled, hitting his chest harder.
His eyes flickered open.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.
“I love you, Brady. Stay with me, okay? Can you keep your eyes
open?”
He mumbled something else, and blood trickled out of his mouth.
Oh God, there was so much blood. His hand reached for mine. I didn’t
know if I should stop and hold it or keep going.
I kept going.
He had to live.
I needed him to live. My heart was breaking in two. I would have
taken his spot in a second.
“Brady? You still with me?” I tried to keep my voice light as I
heard sirens in the distance. Thank God.
“Will always…” He coughed up more blood.
“Will always what?” The ambulance had just arrived.
“Love you.” He exhaled one last time as the door was torn open.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” The paramedics kept talking and talking,
but all I heard were Brady’s last words. All I saw was blood, and all I felt
was empty.
I fell to the ground, forgetting I was at the movie theatre
right in front of the girl’s bathroom.
Voices were muffled behind me, but it was as if I couldn’t
hear what they were saying. I clawed at the door. Why wouldn’t it
open? I couldn’t have a meltdown in front of the whole town!
Strong arms picked me up to my feet embracing me from
behind. “Shhh,” Demetri whispered in my ear.
Was I crying?
I touched my face. It was wet.
“How’d you find me?” I whispered hoarsely, refusing to
turn around and look at him.
“Sam and Aaron said you ran by them toward the women’s
restroom.”
I nodded. My heart beat slowly, reminding me that I had
life, when all I wanted to do was crumble into a tiny ball and die.
Why was this still so hard? Was it because I refused to forget him?
But by forgetting him, I lost him. I didn’t know what to do.
I turned in Demetri’s arms and wept against his chest. He
brought out the vulnerability in me. I both hated and loved it.
“Do you want to talk?” he asked after a few minutes.
I wiped some tears from underneath my eyes and shrugged.
“Let me text Alec and let him know what’s going on. We can
walk back. It’s only a few miles, and it will give us time to talk,
okay?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded.
Chapter Eighteen
Demetri
She was a damn mess. I mean I knew what she’d been
through, but only because the guys in group had filled me in.
Maybe it was worse than I thought. I cursed, and rather than
texting Alec, thought it might be best to explain things in person, so
he didn’t think I was off doing who knows what. I jogged into the
theatre to locate my brother.
“We’re gonna go,” I whispered once I found Alec.
He gave me a confused look. I shook my head, my way of
saying leave it alone. I mean, he and I had our own deal of shitty
baggage we had to deal with. Hell, I was still dealing with some of
mine, but this girl… I don’t know. There was something about her,
something more that was spiraling her into the anxiety I saw in her
eyes. I knew what it felt like to be so lost all you wanted to do was
allow the darkness to consume you until you breathed your last
breath.
me a pat on my back. Nat teared up.
She was always tearing up when we all had to part ways. I
knew it was hard on her to leave her home and to leave me. She
was always worried I was going to fall back into bad habits.
Poor thing.
She reached over and squeezed my hand then whispered,
“Don’t be an ass, Demetri. I like this one.”
Ah, Nat. Why I fell in love with her in the first place, that
damn honesty. “Thanks, Nat.”
I ran back down the stairs and went in search of Alyssa.
She was standing next to the exit, her arms protectively
wrapped around her frail body.
“Ready?” I held out my hand. Without answering, she took
it. At least she wasn’t crying anymore.
We walked at least a mile in silence.
Damn. I hated that type of silence. The kind that’s so thick
with emotion you nearly choke every time you try to breathe.
My eyes searched the landscape as I struggled for breath.
Even though we lived in Malibu, nothing really compared to the
way the Pacific Ocean smelled in Oregon. The climate sucked hard,
but when it was nice, it was one of my favorite places in the world.
Not that I would ever tell Nat or Alec that. They’d think I was back
on drugs for sure.
“So,” I bravely spoke into the chasm of silence between us.
“Was it the preview?”
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?” I looked away. Maybe if I wasn’t focusing all my
attention on her like she was some sort of broken bird, she would
feel freer to speak her mind.
“It was the sound.”
“The music to the preview? I thought One Direction was
your new favorite band.” My ploy at joking didn’t work. No smile.
Nothing. Not even a blink.
Right.
“The sound of metal hitting metal.” Her lower lip quivered.
She bit down on it hard and looked at her feet as we walked.
I suck. Seriously, how did I not get that? Shit. I didn’t know
what to do. I was so out of my element. I was like my own broken
Humpty-Dumpty, still trying to put myself back together. How the
hell was I supposed to glue her pieces together when I was still
trying to find mine?
“At risk of sounding like a complete loser and making you
pissed, I think you should talk about what happened, or just talk
about him.” God, how I hated him in that moment. What the hell
did he do to her?
She was silent for a while. I grabbed her hand as we reached
the first bridge and crossed over. She stopped right in the middle
and leaned over it.
“Brady was perfect.”
Okay, so maybe I lied. I don’t want to compete with a ghost.
I mean, how do you compete with perfect? I can’t even compete
with Alec. Hello, insecurity, thy name is Demetri.
“Perfect how?” Seriously, the guy was dead, and I still
wanted to kill him. How t
errible of a person was I? I knew I was
going crazy. I mean, if he was standing right here all I could
imagine doing was pushing him off the bridge and telling him to
stay the hell away from Alyssa. To stop hurting her so that I could
have her. Selfishness, thy name is also Demetri.
It’s not about me. It’s not about me, I chanted in my head as she
smiled and shrugged. “He was the best quarterback our town had
ever seen.”
I bet he was.
“He drove around in a beat-up old van that he and the
football team finally turned into a tailgating van. They painted a
Seagull on the side of it and everything.”
“A Seagull?” I laughed. “Lame.”
“Um, Demetri?” Alyssa pointed to my sweatshirt. “It’s kind
of the mascot.”
And I’m an idiot. “Wow, I guess I never noticed. As Alec
said, I did spend half the school year high.”
Alyssa cracked a smile and exhaled loudly. “Anyway,
everyone loved him.”
“Did you?” I knew I was basically setting myself up for
being hurt, but it seemed important. I didn’t want to be that guy
anymore. The one that chases a girl he can’t have. The guy who
wants the girl to fill in the gaping holes in his life.
“I do.” She shook her head. “I mean, I did.”
And there’s my answer. Shit.
I know guys aren’t supposed to get all emotional about this
stuff, but again, up until the past six months, I’ve basically been
hiding my emotions behind drugs and alcohol, so right now
everything just feels raw.
Instead of pushing the rejection away or hiding behind a
cocky grin and walking away, I could only stand there and tell
myself it was better that way. Better to know before I got too
involved.
But I couldn’t lie to myself. I couldn’t lie to her. I was way in
over my head, and I hated that the guy who had her heart didn’t
even have the decency to allow her to let it go. I knew it wasn’t his
fault he died, but the ass in me kinda blamed him. Because I
couldn’t compete with a star quarterback. I mean, I’m famous. But
someone who’s dead? Someone who this perfect girl held in such
high esteem? Yeah, it wasn’t gonna happen.
“I’m sorry, Lyss.” I put my arm around her and memorized
the way it felt to hold her. Most likely that would be my last time.
Not because I was going to go crazy and try to kill myself, but
because there was no way I could win this.
None.
“It was my fault you know,” Alyssa said against my chest.
“Everyone blamed Connor for so long, but no one else was there.
No one else knew what happened.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more. I rubbed her back
and cursed in my head as she kept talking. “He told me he loved
me. We’d pulled over because he wanted to kiss me and was
excited about our future. I mean, that’s what we were talking
about. Our future. I didn’t know that within the next fifteen
minutes it would get stolen from us.”
“How is that your fault, Lyss?” I whispered in her hair. It
smelled like coconut. I closed my eyes an inhaled.
“Because I’m not stupid. It was raining and Highway 101
always has accidents because of all the curves. We should have
kept driving. Instead, I kept kissing him and distracting him.”
What a way to die. I mean, I’m not trying to be insensitive,
but wow. I can only imagine how much she would distract me
while driving. “I’d probably pull over too.”
“You would?”
“Huh?” Crap. Did I say that out loud?
“You’d pull over too?”
“Well…” Shit, shit, shit. “Sorry, Lyss. I’m just being honest.
If you were my girlfriend, and we were kissing and talking about
exciting stuff, I’d probably want more time with you. I probably
wouldn’t have even made it to the car, because I would have locked
you in your room until graduation.”
“Really?” She perked up.
“Lyss, look at me.”
She swallowed and looked up, bright blue eyes shining with
tears. I kissed each cheek and sighed. “To me, it doesn’t really get
better than this.”
“Than what?” She scrunched up her nose.
I pulled her hand into mine and kissed her lightly across the
lips, then on each cheek again and then each hand, taking my time
inhaling her skin as I licked its smoothness and memorized the way
it felt against mine. “This, Alyssa. It doesn’t get better than this,
than you.”
Her eyes welled with tears.
Great. Must I always make girls cry?
While I was sitting there berating myself for being an ass,
her eyes lit up. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me
hard on the mouth.
I wanted to kiss him away. To make her forget him, to make
her heart beat in tune with mine.
And suddenly, as her mouth worked its way down my neck,
I realized for a split second what life would be like without her in
it. Empty. Maybe I couldn’t compete with a ghost, but I could sure
as hell try.
Chapter Nineteen
Alyssa
I didn’t deserve him. I was sitting there sobbing my eyes out
over a guy I just told him I still loved, and he treated me like I was
his princess. He treated me like I wasn’t broken.
And I was. So incredibly, irrevocably broken.
His mouth did crazy things to mine as he tilted my head
back and kissed my neck. Brady never kissed my neck much. I
really liked it. I liked how his lips blazed a possessive trail near my
chin, how his eyes hooded when he watched me. It would be
impossible for me to get tired of the way he makes my body ache,
the way he makes every part of my skin feel more sensitive.
And again I’m reminded, as he pulled away and kissed the
top of my head, I didn’t deserve him. He was shattered enough
without adding me to the mess. We would destroy each other. How
do two people heal together when they can’t even heal apart from
one another?
“We should talk.” I told my mouth to stop moving, to throw
my arms around his neck and tell him I love him. I mean, I wasn’t
sure if love was the right word, but when I thought about being
apart from him, the darkness seemed to close in around me. I
needed my sun. I needed him. But it’s like keeping a shiny toy you
know doesn’t belong to you. You give it back, so it can be enjoyed
by someone more deserving. I didn’t deserve two amazing boys in
the span of two years. I certainly didn’t deserve a rich rock star
who wrote songs about me.
“We are talking.” He pulled me into his side, and we
continued to walk.
“About us,” I said it fast, like ripping off a bandage. We only
had about a mile left to go, before we would be back to where I
took the turn for my house.
I felt his arm tense around my shoulders. “What do you
mean?”
“I mean —” Crap. I don’t know how to do this. “Maybe it’s
just not the right time, you know?”
He stopped and pulled me in for a hot mind-blowing kiss
then set me back to my feet again. “It’s always the right time.”
With Demetri, that could very well be true. And again, why
did his kisses make me forget everything?
He grinned and leaned down for another kiss. His lips
pressed against mine; the warmth of his mouth made my knees
weak. Damn. I needed to get away from him before I made things
worse. I stepped away and sighed. “Look, I just think I need more
time to work through some of my issues. It’s not you.”
Demetri’s eyes widened and then closed for a painful two
seconds in which I almost took back what I’d just said. When he
opened them again, I saw a different Demetri, one that I’d never
seen before.
I kept talking. “It’s me. Like I said, I have a lot of stuff I’m
still dealing with, and I’m just dragging you down, and well, I just I
don’t want to get involved with anyone. So can we just like hang
only sometimes and not be anything more?” There I said it. He
could walk away without feeling guilty. I didn’t need to be fixed.
Not when I saw the same look in his eyes that I saw every day in
the mirror.
His eyes darkened. I took another step back. He shook his
head firmly. “No.”
“No?” Whoa! Where did easy-going Demetri disappear to?
This guy looked more intense, more like his brother. Did they do
some mind-changing thing I wasn’t aware of? Crap. It’s like telling
a lost puppy just to go home, but instead it follows you until you
cave. Why was he making this so hard? I needed him to leave. If he
didn’t leave, I would break, and if I broke I would never have any
hope of being whole again.
Making a snap decision, I kept walking and refused to turn
around…
I felt him behind me. Finally I stopped once we were in the
middle of downtown.
“What?” I snapped.
“No.” Demetri shook his head slowly. “I won’t leave you
alone. I won’t abandon you. I’m sure as hell not going to listen to
you, and you can damn well know that I’m going to fight for you.”
I think my heart just faltered. I blinked a few times to see if
he would start laughing or break out of whatever insane mood he
was in. Instead, he very politely walked me the rest of the way to
my house, said goodnight, and left me at my door.