“Paige?”
“I heard you. I just... have different memories.”
An ambulance siren bleated in the distance. Seb’s hands still clutched my arms.
“Why did you keep my letter?”
I blinked up at his face. “What?”
“The letter I sent from boot camp... the one with the photo. You kept it. I know because I saw it in your dresser drawer when I was crashing in your room.”
Several emotions rolled through me in succession. I felt insulted and resentful that he was baldly admitting to going through my things, even though it wasn’t a surprise. And I was embarrassed that I’d kept the letter all this time and felt defensive.
“Why didyousendmea letter? You didn’t send one to Benny or Jazmine. Why me?”
The expression on Seb’s face was so unguarded, so open... something inside me that was wavering under strain finally snapped. I didn’t wait for his answer. I gave him my honesty instead.
“I kept your letter because you were my best friend,” I said. “Even before Jaz, it was you and me. When we were kids, you were my entire world. But then you went away like everyone else—my mom, my dad, Nana. So I guess... I was mourning you, Seb. And maybe that takes longer than I thought it would.”
When I dared to look at his face, I found pain and hurt there, along with a raw tenderness I hadn’t seen in a long time.
“I’m still here, Paige,” he whispered. “That’s the difference. They’re gone, but I’m not. I’m still here...”
Night air whipped across us. Here in the half dark of the rooftop, circled by downtown’s lights below, I could make out the sharp planes of his face. He looked like he’d stepped out of an early-nineteenth-century painting, a windswept romantic poet on a moor, brooding and serious and epically handsome.
I was spellbound, unable to take my eyes off him but utterly lost for words. It didn’t help that I was still a little shaky, still breathing heavy after nearly falling to my death.
So why did I feel so safe?
So calm?
So willing to do it again?
When he spoke, Seb’s voice was so rough and low, I almost didn’t hear him.
“Paige... ?” he said.
“Yes?”
“I...”
“Yes... ?”
“Fuck it,” he whispered to himself, eyes fixed on mine. “Paige. Listen to me for a minute, okay?Don’t think.”
“What?” I whispered back.
Adrenaline zipped through me. I didn’t understand, not at first. Not until the hands gripping my arms loosened and slid over my shoulders, where he cradled the back of my head. I was so shocked by the intimacy of his touch that I froze, and he stared down at me with an intensity that felt electric.
“Don’t think,” he whispered again, his face inches from mine.
My heartbeat quickened inside my chest.
His gaze dropped to my lips, and I knew what was coming a second before it happened.
He kissed me.
My body was still frozen in place when his mouth came down on mine. It wasn’t an erotic kiss, or even a tender one. His lips roughly pressed against my lips as if he were trying to take control or argue his point. And I... didn’t kiss back.
