I twist away from him, my knees pointed at the passenger door. My arms fold tighter around my body. He wants me to talk to him, but I don’t even know what to say; there’s nothingtosay. All I want to do is escape into my house and cry my heart out to the stars as they gleam with apologies and sympathies from way up high.
I’ve never done that before.
I’ve never tried to kiss someone, let alone someone like him. Someone so far out of my league.
Minutes pass. Five, ten. My thoughts are intrusive, a topsy-turvy mess.
What was I thinking?
God, I was so—
The car swerves left.
At first, I think I imagined it. Fell asleep.
My fractured mind is playing tricks on me.
But then a sudden jolt yanks me back to reality, and I realize the road ahead is dangerously skewed. I snap upright and look over at Lex, watching the moment his eyes flutter shut and his head droops. “Lex!”
He shoots awake.
Grabs the wheel just as the car skids across the snow-covered road.
“Shit.”
He wrestles with the steering wheel, jerking it right.
The tires scream in protest.
We spin and slide and zigzag as slush and rubble spit at the glass and my heart drops out of me with every violent lurch.
But it’s too late.
An earsplitting scream tears from my lungs.
I brace myself for impact, stealing a glance at the stars, just as my brand-new car wraps around a tree.
Chapter 16
Lex
Something warm tickles my temple.
My mother.
I had a nightmare. She sings me a lullaby with the stars as our night-light, her voice like whispery moonglow. “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House. That’s the song she’s singing. I recognize it. I know it; I feel the melody deep in my bones. It soothes me, just like the sweep of her hand soothes me as she dusts thick bangs out of my eyes. Those warm fingers skim across my forehead while she smiles down at me.
She loves me. She does. It’s impossible to simulate love when it pours from the soul in chords and lyrics. A lyrical love. It can’t be faked.
Her voice is a warble of jumbled notes and words. Feels like I’m underwater. Sinking, swimming, floating. The warm sensation dribbles down my cheek, trailing to the corner of my mouth. Coppery. Melted pennies on my lips.
I poke my tongue out as my eyelids shudder, and her voice dissipates. The song is replaced by a sharp ringing in my ears, a violent drone. Pain shoots through my rib cage, between my eyes. My face throbs. My body aches. I feel my head loll to the side as tremors course down the back of my neck, my spine, making me hiss. The ringing morphs into a horn. A car horn. Loud, loud, loud. Deafening. I want to claw it out of me.
Make it stop.
Stop.
Fuckingstop.
