He heard the old hurt in her voice. What Fat Eddy had done to her was a fresh cut that openly bled. But what she’d experienced at the hands of her parents was a bone-deep wound that would never fully heal. It would continue to ache and fester for the rest of her life.
He knew all about both kinds of wounds.
“You talk about them in the past tense. Are they?—”
“Dead,” she finished for him. “Drowned. It was the summer after I graduated high school. They were with their usual group of deadbeats down by the bay. They were all drunk and high and when my mom jumped off the dock, she didn’t come back up. My dad jumped in after her and had to be pulled out of the water by his friends. Come to find out, a big, waterlogged tree had washed under the dock’s pilings. Mom impaled herself on a branch. Dad sucked water into his lungs trying to save her. He lived for nearly twenty-four hours, but eventually succumbed.”
“Dry drowning?”
Her hesitation told him she was shocked he knew what had happened. “Yeah. Although the doctors in the emergency room called it pulmonary edema.”
He opened his mouth to express his condolences, but she rushed ahead. “What about your folks? You said you never knew them?”
“Gunned down by a mass shooter at a concert when they were both just eighteen. Dead before they’d really been given the chance to live.”
He didn’t tell her the rest of the story. Didn’t want to burden her with the horror of it. People tended to get weird around him when they knew.
“So we’re both orphans,” she whispered, her tone heavy with sadness.
“Like I said,” he gently squeezed her hand, “we’re a pair.”
Her only response was a subtle tightening of her grip. And then…silence.
One heartbeat became two. Two heartbeats became ten. Until, finally, he stopped counting.
Has she fallen asleep, he wondered?
A part of him hoped so. He could lie there and hold her hand all night if she'd fallen asleep. The thought of that filled him with…something.
Something he couldn’t name.
Then her soft voice reached through the darkness once again. “Will you come lie beside me?”
He was sure he’d misheard her. “Huh?”Wow, Hew. Spoken like a true scholar.“I mean, what did you say?”
Her response came quickly then. Each word was edged with uncertainty. “I know it’s a weird request. We’re strangers. And I’ll understand if you don’t feel comfortable. But every time I’m about to doze off, I have that falling sensation, and I jerk myself awake. It’s been happening over and over since… Well, since it happened. And I feel like maybe if someone is next to me, someone who cangroundme, then I might be able to get some sleep.” Her voice hitched on a repressed sob. “I’m so tired. I didn’t know it was possible to be this tired. No one tells you that at some point exhaustion becomes physical pain and I?—”
She stopped midsentence when he stood.
“You want me to stay on top of the covers?” he asked.
The room was dim, but it wasn’t completely dark. He saw when she threw back the coverlet in silent welcome. There was relief in her voice when she said, “Under them as long as you’re comfortable? I’m cold and I?—”
Again, she stopped midsentence when he slid between the sheets, hastily pulling up the coverlet before spreading the thin quilt he’d brought with him atop the bed for added warmth.
His weight depressed the mattress, forcing her to slide in his direction. Her hip touched his as soon as he lay back against the pillow.
He wanted to take her hand. He wanted?—
It didn’t matter what he wanted.
All that mattered was whatshewanted.
“Sh-should we stay like this?” His voice sounded like his hot chocolate had been laced with glass shards. “Or do you want me to hold your hand again? Or maybe?—”
“Can I…hold you?” she interrupted.
He blinked in surprise.
