Page 104 of Little Do You Know

“How far did she make it?”

Owen pulls a clean shirt over his head. “Chris was paying attention and caught her after only a few feet past the sideline. I pulled Thalia off the field to pass her off to my parents so Chris could scramble together a few plays with Evan while they carried you off the field on a stretcher. I knew Lia had balls, but that was another level of stupidity. Just like you making out with her during halftime.”

“Dude, ignore Chris,” I say with a short laugh, flipping him off. “I didn’t purposely run into Thalia at halftime. It was a happy coincidence. Kind of like how Blake’s family only lives thirty minutes away from campus, and you didn’t stay at the apartment last night.”

“Not all of us live with our girlfriend and her brother.”

He has a point there.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Thalia

I’M PULLED FROM my sleep when Sebastian tries to carefully slide out from underneath me, feeling the immediate loss of his warmth. The bed shifts and with the moonlight coming in from behind the curtains, I can make out enough to see Sebastian sitting hunched over on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.

Bash sighs quietly, and I try to keep still so he thinks I’m sleeping. If he wanted to talk, he would have woken me up.

He’s been quiet the past few days, and I haven’t really known what to say. Other than him insisting that he was fine, Sebastian hasn’t said anything about what happened. Truthfully, I think it scared him. It would scare anyone. Hell, it scared the shit out of me.

I don’t know if the right thing is letting him pretend nothing happened. Sometimes when Sebastian thinks I’m not paying attention, he’ll watch the video from the game that shows what happened on his phone. It’s only happened a handful of times, but it’s only been a few days.

Owen isn’t faring much better. I’m surprised the crutches haven’t been chucked out the window yet, but tomorrow is supposed to be his last day on them.

I adjust slowly to rest my head on my arm, but it doesn’t matter how quietly I move because he still hears. “I’m sorry if I woke you up,” Sebastian says softly, and I take that as my cue to sit up.

“Are you okay?” I ask, crawling over to where he’s sitting and wrapping my arms around his torso. Bash falls silent, and I rest my head on his right shoulder.

“Just a bad dream.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Sebastian sucks in a sharp breath. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

I press a chaste kiss to his shoulder. “Well, if someone had told me seven months ago that we’d be in a relationship, I’d call them crazy. If you want to talk, I’m here to listen, or we can sit here in silence. Either way, I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”

It’s so normal for me with my insomnia that I didn’t think anything of it when he was awake. I should have questioned more why Sebastian was up in the middle of the night.

“I sometimes have these dreams that I think are memories, but I can’t…I don’t know if they really happened. I was so young when my parents died that I don’t remember them. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Sometimes, the dreams are of my mom smiling at me, but I don’t know if it’s a memory or just a picture I saw at home,” Bash says, frustration lacing his voice. “There’s another one with my dad that I think about often. We’re at Mimi’s pool, and he throws me up in the air, catching me before I hit the water.”

“Did your grandparents ever talk about them while you were growing up?”

“Not really. If Mimi did, it was only by accident. I know it made them sad to talk about my parents. My mom’s parents were divorced, and neither wanted anything to do with me because I’m a walking and talking reminder of her. I didn’t know that until I found their numbers in Mimi’s phone as a teenager, and they asked me not to contact them again,” he says quietly, and my heart breaks for him.

“It’s their loss, Bash,” I whisper, trying to reassure him. “You’re the best person I know. They should have wanted to be a part of your life.”

“I know, but it doesn’t matter. My mom’s father died of a stroke a few years ago, and her mother lives in Oregon. I’m not even sure if she’s still alive or not. If they didn’t want to be in my life, I’m glad they weren’t there.”

“I had no idea.”

“It’s not something I talk about.” Sebastian exhales deeply, as if telling me this is a weight off his shoulders. How much exactly does he keep locked in? This isn’t healthy. “Is it sad that the only things I know about my parents are what Mimi has said while she thought I was my dad?”

“Maybe she thought she was protecting you? I do know Mimi loves you more than anything. There’s nothing that would have changed that.”

“I know she loves me, but I wish I knew more. Now there’s no one left who knew them.” Sebastian relaxes against me, and I hold on tightly to him. “Mimi’s favorite thing to tell me growing up is that almost can be the happiest or the saddest word because it’s all the chances you choose to take or not to take. If I’m being honest, I fucking hate the word. Everything in my life is an almost, and I’m so sick of waiting for the other shoe to drop when things are going well. I got it tattooed as a reminder of everything Mimi’s taught me.”

I uncurl one of my hands to rest it where I know the tattoo is. Bash flinches slightly, and I trace it once, hugging him tightly again. “I choose you, Sebastian. We’re not going to be another almost. I promise.” I know it’s a significant promise, but I mean it. Despite everything I’ve previously said in heated moments, I can’t imagine my life without Sebastian. I hate that I ever made him feel like he was less than. It explains a lot more about why my words hurt him so much when I asked Sebastian why I would want him. That was something, I’m guessing, he’d been asking himself for years because of his other grandparents.

“Tonight, I dreamed about the accident. My mom was singing, and then she was screaming…” He pauses to clear his throat, and I can hear in his voice how hard this is for Sebastian to talk about. “We were upside down, and there were flashing lights. I broke away from whoever was helping me to grab my bear that was covered in glass. I went back for the bear instead of my parents and then I never saw them again.”

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