Veyron still giggles under his breath, clearly thrilled, and he keeps praising me in a way that makes me very uncomfortable, but eventually I manage to shut him down, urging him to try to sleep. At last, they both quiet down, and within minutes I hear their breathing deepen and settle into the steady rhythm of sleep.
But I stay awake. The silence in the room feels heavier than usual, broken only by the faint tapping of branches against the window and the soft hum of the ceiling fan. I stare at the wavering strips of moonlight drifting across the ceiling, unable to relax. Every time I blink, I see a flash of that tire rollingtoward us, the blurred shape of the table skidding, the sudden weight against my hands when I stopped it.
Finally, I push the flood of thoughts aside and turn onto my side, hoping exhaustion will drag me under, when I suddenly hear a soft rustle from Alex’s bed.
There is the quiet creaking of springs, the faint thump of a small foot touching the floor. I hold my breath, listening carefully, wondering if one of the boys woke up, but their breathing stays undisturbed.
Then I hear a subtle scrape, something like a palm brushing across the floor. In the dark, Alex moves on all fours, crawling low, pausing once when Rain sighs in his sleep. Alex waits, frozen, until Rain rolls onto his side and quiets again. Only then does Alex push forward.
A jolt of panic spikes through me the moment I feel the mattress dip under his weight. His small body slides beneath the blanket and settles beside me.
"What are you doing," I whisper, my voice tight. "If my uncle sees you here our stay at the summer house is going to end real fast," I mumble quietly so I do not wake Veyron and Rain.
"I’ll leave in a minute," Alex whispers, trying to calm me as his small hands move across the sheet, searching for me until they reach my shoulder. I feel the light touch of his fingers drift down toward my wrist, careful and slow, avoiding the bandages.
"You saved my life today, Bay. I wanted to thank you, the whole day was so chaotic there was never a chance," he murmurs, and his voice breaks like he has been holding something in since the moment the tire stopped.
Then I feel his face move closer to mine in the dark, and I tense up with fear, pressure, excitement, something frantic inside me I am not ready to look at, and then it happens for the first time.
Alex’s soft, warm lips brush against mine for just a brief second.
I immediately turn my head away, filled with absolute unworthiness crashing over me. Not me, not the filthy, disgusting me… how could someone like Alex want to kiss me?
"You don’t need to thank me, Alex. I will always, always protect you," I whisper with a trembling voice, and as I say it I feel the weight of it land somewhere deep inside me, like I’m giving him a promise, but also making one to myself, a promise that settles deep inside me forever.
Alex exhales softly.
"Don’t say stupid things, Bay. Why wouldn’t I thank you? You did something heroic." Then he raises his phone and the screen lights up the dark. "Look. You are already on the news."
I freeze as I stare at the display. The local outlets really are showing the camera recording.
"Heroic teenager saves group of kids," the headline says.
My name is not mentioned. I feel a wave of relief wash through me when I see the angle of the footage, filmed from the side, my back partly turned. Even the commenters seem unsure of what they are looking at.
"Wow, how did he do that?"
"No way."
"Physics says nope."
"That wheel had too much momentum."
"Dude, that thing should have crushed him."
One comment even does the math, pointing out that a wheel like that can carry anywhere from several to more than ten thousand joules of kinetic energy, which basically rules out the possibility of a human stopping it without severe injuries, broken bones, being crushed, or being thrown across the ground, and so on. More people replied underneath with arguments about impact force, deceleration, the angle ofcollision, all of them trying to understand something that I myself cannot explain.
Alex watches me, the screen’s glow caught in his eyes.
"How did you do it, Bay? It really seems impossible."
"You’re not considering adrenaline," I say quietly.
"Adrenaline or not, that’s basic physics. I’m good at math and the calculations that guy posted make sense. It’s like being hit by a small car."
"I don’t have an answer for you, Alex. It was adrenaline. I wanted to save you, that was what mattered to me. That’s what I focused on."
The bright rectangle of the screen reflects in Alex’s beautiful eyes, and they stay fixed on my face.
