“He told me to look after you. I promised him I would.”
The whole world tilted upside down, the stars rocked wildly in the sky, and I felt dizzy and nauseous. Slowly, everything stopped spinning, and I realized I was lying back in bed. A large, dark shape was half sitting and half lying next to me.
“Caitlin?”
I didn’t answer, just closed my eyes and let the hot, miserable tears trickle down my face in silence. I could feel the sheets and blankets rustle as Adrian slid into bed beside me. Large arms wrapped around my shoulders and I turned and buried my face in his chest, misery winning out over embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” Adrian said after a moment. “I couldn’t wake you up.”
I rubbed enough tears out of my eyes to look up at him. “What?”
“You slept fine for a few hours—then I could tell.” He sounded concerned. “I tried to wake you up, but I couldn’t.”
I didn’t say anything, just held on to him as tightly as I could, the dream still vivid in my mind.
“Do you want me to take it away?”
I thought about it. “No. Not this time.” I didn’t know if that meant he’d leave, but I hoped he’d stay.
He tucked me against his side, drew the covers up, and wrapped his arms around me like he wasn’t ever going to let go. And I let him, because it was him, and because I was tired, and because, in the middle of everything, being next to him felt like the safest place in the world.
*
“How was quality time with Mr. Man over there?” Trish asked lightly as I closed the door to her truck. Ahead of us, Adrian pulled back onto the road. I’d wanted to show up at school in Trish’s car just in case Norah saw me and reported back to her parents that I’d come to school with the wrong person.
“It was nice.”
Trish rolled her eyes as she pulled onto the road and headed for school. “I said it once and I’ll say it again: You are the worst storyteller on the face of this planet.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked, settling back into the seat, feeling more rested than I had in days.
“Oh, I dunno; how about did you sleep with him?”
I chewed my lip thoughtfully. “Yes.”
Trish’s eyes popped open wide before she noticed the grin on my face. Her eyes narrowed. “Let me rephrase: Were you sexually active with one Adrian de la Mara on the night of the eighteenth of December?”
I smiled at her. “Nope.”
“You’re such a killjoy,” she muttered at me.
“You know, what I don’t understand is why everyone’s so interested in whether or not I have sex with Adrian. It’s not like we’re not the only couple in Stony Creek.”
Trish gave me a dry look. “Mystic, it’s Stony Creek. There’s literally nothing else to talk about.” She turned left. “Besides, I don’t think you understand how much of a thing Adrian is here. I mean, first his aunt and uncle show up out of nowhere about ten years ago and hole themselves up on the mountain and hardly ever talk to anyone in town, and then Adrian shows up out of nowhere about two years later and gets chauffeured to fifth grade in a brand-new Mercedes, and he’s this awkward, cute kid that never talks to anybody, and then high school hits and that boy turned from cute to forest-fire-in-the-middle-of-a-dry-July hot and didn’t give a single girl the time of day, and then you show up and suddenly wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, you’re together twenty-four/seven and not trying to lick each other’s faces off every five seconds—which you should be because you’re both too hot not to—so you understand if we’re all a little curious as to why.”
I stared at her. That was the longest sentence I’d ever heard in my life.
She saw the look on my face and sighed. “Let me make this simple: You and Adrian are magical strangers in the land of Stony Creek. All the dull little woodland creatures want to understand the smallest details about the magical strangers, but the magical strangers keep to themselves, thus building up their own mystery and allure. That curiosity built and built until everyone imploded, creating a black hole that sucked the entire universe into the size of an eyeball, which burned a hole right through space and dropped straight down into hell, where it was incinerated. You basically just killed everybody, Caitlin; are you happy now?”