I can only see his eyes, but he definitely just smiled.
Kasien
Present
She says she wants to drive. Like she hasn’t already been driving me insane for almost two weeks.
I should’ve said no. I should’ve told her to get on the back, stay still, stay quiet. But she looked at me with that same stubborn spark that used to burn me alive, and before I knew it, I was smiling like an idiot.
I keep telling myself it’s control that keeps me alive. Discipline, distance, logic. But when she’s near, every line I’ve drawn starts to blur.
I’m not drowning anymore. I let it invade me. I’m deep underwater.
“Let’s get somewhere safer,” I say as I grab her in my arms and put her on the back of the bike. I get on and she immediately circles her hands around me, her legs gripping my body.
Her touch feels so familiar. Every time she’s this close, my mind finally goes blank, the wheels stop turning.
We ride through the city, picking up speed on the highway, the lights turning into a blur. She feels so fragile, holding on to me. I feel like if I hit the speed limit she’s going to fly away.
I take a turn from the highway down to the coast right behind the city. Everything fades into darkness as we descend the dirt road toward the beach. We stop on the empty, quiet path, hearing the wild September waves and the wind bending the trees that line the way we came.
My head instantly replays all the times we used to come here and it feels like the six years never happened.
I feel like it was yesterday when we were hiding here for the first time, in my car. Fucking around the whole night, chasing every first we could find together.
For a moment, I’m eighteen, I’m not a murderer yet, and I have a perfect plan to have a happy life far away from here with the girl I’m obsessed with.
Kiara’s body climbing down from the bike takes me out of my thoughts. She stands beside me, slowly taking my visor up to look at me.
“Get down, big boy, and give it to mama,” she says, trying to summon some badass tone.
I burst into laughter.
“No way, come here.”
I scooch backward and pat the spot between my legs. She doesn’t argue with me and lets me take her under her armpits and put her down in front of me. Her lap is so close to mine that I have to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment to fight the blood running through my groin.
She probably saw that in the rearview mirror. Fuck.
Her hands are small against mine, unsteady when I cover them to guide her fingers. Her scent seeps under my skin—the same scent that once lingered on my shirts for days and covered the back seat of my car.
I hear her nervous laugh, muffled but too close, too familiar. And suddenly I know I’m fucked. We shouldn’t even be here.
I glance at the reflection of her eyes in the mirror—wide and alive. For a second, I almost forget what this night really is.
Not a date. Not a reunion.
And yet I’m deep under.
Her fingers hover over the controls, hesitant, waiting for me to tell her what to do.
“Alright,” I mutter. “Right hand—throttle. Twist slowly.” I guide her hand with mine, our fingers brushing.
“Like this?” she asks, voice barely a whisper.
“Yeah. Don’t fight it. Feel it move with you.”
Her body shifts, pressing back against my chest as she experiments with the throttle. The bike purrs and I cover her other hand next.
