My mind is elastic, and it’s going to snap.
“I’ve done a terrible thing,” he confesses, and each word is staccato. “I don’t expect your forgiveness. But I have to fix it. And to do that, I need your help. You have to help me, Calla. Help me save you.”
Save me, and I’ll save you.
Right?
I feel… I feel… I feel.
I feel a wave of déjà vu. I feel a wave of emotion, of sensation, of things I should know but don’t.
“What have you done?” I ask him through fractured thoughts. “What do I need saving from? From you? Because I don’t think I can be saved.”
“You’re wrong,” he insists, and his eyes beg me. “I can save you.”
I shake my head and the movement is painful. “There’s only one way,” I whisper and the words hurt my soul. “You have to leave me alone, Dare. You have to let me go. I can’t take anymore. I can’t take the secrets.”
“You love me,” he reminds me, his stare cutting me into pieces.
“I know,” I whisper, throwing those pieces away. “But I don’t think that’s enough right now. I’m going to break, Dare. I’m going to break.”
I draw my knees to my chest and look away, taking a deep shaky breath.
“I know I sound crazy,” I admit. “I know it. But I can’t help what I feel. I have to protect myself from you. I know that much is true. My heart is telling me to be afraid of you.”
And it is. It’s telling me there’s a reason.
I feel it in my bones, in my hollow reed bones.
Dare closes his eyes, and it is minutes before he opens them, and when he does, they’re so empty, so lost.
“Fine,” he says simply. “Protect yourself from me. Hell, I’ll protect you from me. But come with me to Whitley. That’s where you’ll find the answers. You can have your space, you’ll have peace and quiet, and you’ll recover, Cal.”
“The answers are at Whitley?”
I stare at Dare, at the body I love, the eyes that I can fall into, the heart that has held me up… and hidden so many secrets.
He nods, and it’s like the movement is painful for him. He doesn’t want to go to Whitley, but he’s willing to go for me.
“Your dad wants you to go,” he adds. “Can you do it for him?”
Can I?
An overpowering sense of foreboding cripples me, almost sending me to my knees. I don’t know. I only know… if I don’t find answers, I might lose my sanity.
The answers are at Whitley.
I exhale, realizing that I’d been holding my breath.
“Ok. I’ll go.”
For answers, and for my father. Because he’s been through enough already. He shouldn’t have to watch me fall apart.
Dare’s beautiful eyes shutter closed. “I love you, Calla.”
Pain ripples through me to the point of being physical, to the point of stopping my aching heart.
“I know.”
But I don’t think that’s enough.
I don’t say it.
Because he already knows. I see it on his tortured face.
I ache to reach out and touch it, to sooth him, to hold him.
But I can’t.
There’s something to fear here.
And until I know what it is, I have to distance myself.
It’s the only way I’ll survive.
Chapter 3
The plane ride is long, even though we’re in first class.
A flight attendant pays personal attention to me, bringing me blankets and warm cloths and icy drinks, and the whole flight, I’m on pins and needles with Dare.
Because I love him.
Because he’s a stranger to me now.
Seated next to me, in the wide leather seat, he tries to engage me in conversation, tries to pull me out of my shell, but I avoid every effort.
It’s so painfully, impossibly hard, but I have to.
I have to until I know what he’s hiding.
He’s hurt, I can tell. Because my actions are painful. They’re painful to us both. But there’s something giant and black and scary hanging over my head, and I can’t let it fall on us.
Everything depends on me. I know that much is true.