I think to myself,I’m done with this.I can’t keep doing this.
Somehow it gets worse every week, and it happens slowly. First, it was hanging out with the guys, and I don’t think they noticed. I think our friends think it’s just him being a twenty two year old. But I know it isn’t. He keeps getting farther and farther away from himself, and I can’t catch up.
I have to be done.
Christian groans, “Lana?”
I grunt. “Come on, baby, just get to the bathroom with me.”
He doesn’t put in effort, he can’t. So I keep pulling him the rest of the way until my muscles are sore from lifting him into our tub. He’s barely moving and if it wasn’t for the quiet groaning, I’d think he was dead.
He’s finally in the tub, knocked out. I take a deep breath, swallow, and turn on the shower—cold water.
He wakes up gasping, spitting water out from his mouth. “Lana!”
My body goes rigid. I let my vision blur for a little while so it doesn’t hurt to see him, but I blink and finally turn off the water.
Christian sighs, wiping a hand down his face, and curls up to himself. He doesn’t look at me again, he doesn’t speak.
He starts sobbing, curling into himself.
“Christian.”
He sobs harder. Vehemently.
I take off my socks, toss them away, and take off my leather jacket. Then I get in with him.
I sit back and pull him over me as he weeps. “I’m sorry.” He hiccups. “I’m sorry.”
I’ll be angry with him later, I promise that to myself. I’ll be angry with him later because he is breaking in my arms and I don’t know how to save him.
CHAPTER 8
Christian
The summer storm comes and I realize I’ve missed it. But living in your car when the heavy rain drops sound like they’re about to crack your windshield is terrifying, and I’mshivering.
I wrap myself tighter in a blanket I bought earlier this afternoon, but it’s doing nothing. I knew these storms could be violent, but I experienced them indoors. I’m in my car, it’s not the same.
My seat is as far back as it can go, the way it is every night, but no matter what I do, I can’t find a comfortable position. I’ll never be able to find a comfortable position in here. I’ve never had a comfortable position in life either.
Only when I was with Lana.
I remember the day I firstreallymet her outside of a party. I was so early because my father was angry and drunk, and my mother was off somewhere doing who knows what. I walked there because Peter’s house was only two blocks away from mine and the guys were driving. I’d had a drink before I left myhouse, about two glasses of my dad’s most expensive whiskey just because I felt like it.I needed it.
Then I got to Peter’s house and there was this girl I’d only ever seen in passing at school, and she was sitting at the edge of the sidewalk. She had this medium length hair, much shorter than it is now, and it looked like she curled it. I could only see her profile from where I was, but her nose seemed small and her lips were full and a deep pink. Then she smiled to herself, looking up at the sky, and I saw a dimple.
I sat next to her. I already knew her name and she knew mine, but I wished I didn’t so I could ask her and hear it from her first. It was Luca who told me her name because she was Isabelle’s friend first before she was all of ours. I wished she could be the one to tell me, inher voice, so I could fall in love with her two syllable name right then, all over again.
Then she started asking me these questions and I wanted to give her every answer. I’d find the answers to the universe for her if she asked, even now. She told me about wanting to go to business school and having these visions about a bookstore cafe. She rambled and rambled, and I only smiled, taking in every word. I cut in and asked her some of my own questions eventually.
She asked me my favorite color and then said, “Don’t say blue. Why is it always blue? You guys are so unoriginal!”
I laughed and told her, “It’s not blue. I really like orange right now, I don’t know why. I’d never wear orange though.”
That made her laugh, and that was it.
I wanted her.
