Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
I couldn’t make an emergency call.
But someone else must have done it.
“Oliver. Oliver,” Niko utters, and suddenly I feel his warm kiss on the side of my head. “Oh my God.”
“Can’t turn my head,” I say, my voice coming out raspy.
All I can see is the smooth black leather and plastic along the passenger door, and the shiny silver of the door handle.
“You don’t have to move an inch. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. Holy fucking God.”
I feel his arms wrap around me, and there’s only one thing I feel.
Love.
I feel love coming from every inch of him as he holds me like this, my body slumped in the front seat of the car.
He loves me.
Even if it’s temporary.
Even if it’s never going to mean anything, or matter.
And I think I’ve loved him longer than I was ever aware of.
“Where is he?” I manage to say.
Niko’s hand strokes along my hair. “Callum is outside, in handcuffs. They’ve got him, Ollie.”
“The gunshots?”
“He grazed my arm before I got the gun from him and got him in the elbow. It was finally enough to stop him from strangling you.”
“You’re shot?” I say, feeling tears well up in my eyes. “No, Niko—”
“I will be fine. The ambulance is here, Ollie. I see it at the end of the street.”
“Saved my life,” I whisper. “You did that, for me.”
He kisses the side of my hair again, holding me close. “I purposely shot through the back windshield because I knew someone in your house would notice. Aaron was watching through the window, and he’s the one who called the police. He saved you, too.”
Suddenly the passenger door swings open and I see the blanket of white snow outside and then a woman in first responder uniform appears, crouching into my field of vision.
“Can you tell us your name?” the emergency medic says.
“Oliver,” I say. “Oliver Ashford.”
“Breathe for me, Oliver. We have a stretcher coming right now.”
Another medic comes to help Niko, and as I get dragged onto a stretcher, I go in and out of consciousness a little again.
But I know he’s with me.
I know he saved me.
And that’s the only thing I need to know.
When I wake up in a hospital bed, everything hurts worse.
But finally my brain is clear, I can breathe steady, and I can think straight again.
Past a half-open powder blue curtain on my right side, I can see Niko, asleep in the bed next to me.
And tears well up in my eyes, out of nowhere.
He’s here.
Sleeping. Peaceful.
And I love him more than I can endure.
There’s gauze around one part of his upper arm, but other than that, he looks as beautiful as he ever does.
And I can’t imagine anyone else I’d rather want near me.
I told him too much, and I know it.
But I drift back off into sleep, dreaming only of dancing with him.
21
Niko
Niko, an hour ago, checking his phone for a minute before falling asleep
Username: Dragonfly
I see a message that Oliver must have left me.
Before it all happened.
Before my past crashed into our perfect world like a meteor.
Hercules2210: Always knew I was your favorite.
I leave a heart emoji as a reply, then put my phone aside.
When we get back to Crimson College the next day, we drive through a snowstorm for the final hour of the trip.
I have a rental car because the back windows of my car are fucking shattered with bullet holes, and because that car, now, is evidence.
Oliver and I don’t talk much.
We’re both exhausted. In pain.
But it’s enough that he’s here with me. Because somewhere along the way, I let myself break my own rule.
I love him.
I’m still not good enough for him, and I still know this will all have to end.
But I love him like it’s a sickness. Like no matter how hard I tried to stave it off, it hit me, slowly at first and then like a speeding train.
I don’t say it.
But it’s there between us in the air for the whole drive.
It’s the most comfortable silence I’ve ever felt, and it’s not really silence anyway, because Oliver put on a low, ambient electronic playlist for the drive.
When we walk into Onyx House, though, the anvil of guilt that had been on my heart for the past day only comes back down, heavily, all at once.
Oliver’s roommate, Percy, is waiting there in the front room when we get back.
The freckled redhead has barely been around the house all semester, but he looks up at us the moment we walk inside, and he looks scared like he’s just seen a ghost.
“I think something bad happened,” he says.
I feel like there’s acid pooling in my stomach.
What more could have happened?
When will I ever be able to breathe?
“Tell us,” I say, because I already have an inkling of fear.
“The guy was here again. There were only, like, three of us at Onyx House Christmas night, and everyone else was off campus. I heard someone rapping on the door at, like, fucking four in the morning, the day after Christmas—”