“Can I…” I pause, my teeth chattering. “Can I…add to it?” I ask.
Chase’s voice is raspy, his bloodshot eyes holding onto mine. “Please, Laik.”
I can’t speak again, so I settle on a nod, my throat tightening, my flesh turning hot as I begin penning the second verse.
We run together, or we don’t run at all
A promise I made right before the fall
In the dirt, I tried to crawl
Shot away, never felt so small
I’m staring down at the open notebook when my rolling tears splatter like raindrops onto the paper, bleeding the ink into smears of crimson beneath.
I whisper when I start to cross out theI’sreplacing them withthey. “If you choose to keep it, maybe sing the I’s as they.”
Chase’s eyes are locked at my temple, and a gnawing panic builds at the base of my spine. He reaches for my hand, the same way I had reached for his.
My skin tingles when he brings it to his mouth, rests my knuckles at his lips.
“Show me what it should sound like,” he breathes.
My body freezes, goosebumps pressing hard against my flesh.
“I-I-I can’t do that,” I stutter.
Chase pushes his forehead to my knuckles, lets go of his breath. “God dammit, Laiken, sing for me.”
One solo tear rolls down my cheek.
Silence steals the space between us.
“I hate you for this.”
He turns his eyes on me, rests his stubbled cheek to the top of my hand.
“I know,” he whispers.
And when I don’t reply, shivering instead, he finishes, “Show me how to sing it, Laik.”
So, I bleed out for him, and then I push to my feet, finding the soles of my shoes in what is a phantom pool of our shared blood, and return the way I came.
Chase doesn’t try to stop me.
And as I climb my way out, tripping and landing on shaky palms, scrabbling back to my feet, I realize it hurts, maybe even a little more than it did three years ago.
Because a part of me, the human side, wanted, maybe even hoped, that this time when I ran,he would chase me.
It had been hours since I left Devil’s Tunnel and made for the clubhouse, and yet, I could still hear the vibrato of agony that wobbled in the fractures of her voice—feel the sick sensation that had followed, dropping like a cold, hard stone into the basement of my stomach.
Truth is, I hadn’t read her lyrics when she penned them.
I didn’t even know she could write.
The same way I hadn’t known she could sing when she sat in the back seat of my truck three years ago expertly harmonizing with me like we’d been at it for years.
Laiken held onto her secrets tightly, and I didn’t know of them until they left my skin tingling, my palms sweaty and my throat rigid.
