Page 75 of Dark and Dangerous

He doesn’t.

And I promised myself last night that if he doesn’t answer, I would stop trying. It’s one thing to worry like I have, but it’s another to have the boy who causes the worry blow me off.

I’m okay, he said, and maybe that should be enough for me, but it’s not.

Jonah drove me to school and back, and we didn’t have a lot to say. He said he was exhausted, still recovering from the tournament and work, then school, and I was still recovering from… life, I guess.

Dad left for work early in the morning, and now I’m alone, and it’s late and pouring out.

It feels like it’s been raining for days.

From the window above my desk, I can see into what I now know is Jace’s bedroom. I wonder if he ever looks for me too.

His house is dark, the same way it has been every time I’ve checked, and his van is nowhere to be seen.

My phone vibrates with a notification, and I’m quick to check it. Hope dies in my chest when I see the text from Jonah telling me he can’t give me a ride to school the next day.

I respond, thanking him for letting me know, and check the time. It’s 9:48. I take one more look over at Jace’s house, but nothing has changed. I’m exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and so I crawl into bed, hope that the darkness behind my lids strips away the darkness that lives in my heart.

I’m just about to shut my eyes when a flicker of light passes across my window. I sit up, confused, wondering if I imagined it, and listen for any noises. I question if I locked the doors before bed, then worry if I could even hear an intruder over the sound of the rain pelting against the tin roof.

Heart in my throat, I flick on the lamp on my nightstand… just as I hear that familiar sound…

I’d wake up to it most mornings. Fall asleep the same way.

A basketball bouncing off concrete.

It’s faint, but it’s there… I know it is. I rush down the stairs, more annoyed than anything, because Jace is here, out in the fucking rain, playing basketball, when he doesn’t even have the courtesy to call me back. Or to answer any one of my calls.

I open the back door, almost get blinded by his headlights aimed directly at me. Then I push open the screen door, staying a step back so I don’t get pelted by the rain. Jace is on the half-court, in his usual black attire, and he’s shooting hoops as if it’s just any other day.

“What the hell are you doing?” I call out.

He finishes his shot, buckets of course, and then goes after the ball before turning to me. He’s already drenched, his clothes sticking to him like a second skin. His hair falls over his brow, like ink spilled on cedar. “I was more tired than I should’ve been after the tournament,” he yells over the rain, shrugging. “I need to practice.”

“It’s pouring out!”

He turns swiftly, ignoring me completely, and dribbles toward the basket for a lay-up.

I shut andlockboth doors between us and head back up to my room. The boy plays games, both on and off the court, and I refuse to be his teammate.

Or his opponent.

I crawl back into bed, earphones in, white noise on, to block the sound of him so close.

Yet so far.

And I pray that sleep finds me.

I toss.

I turn.

Over and over.

And when an hour’s passed and nothing has changed, I give up, remove my earphones. I expect nothing but the sounds of rain. I get leather on concrete again.

“Idiot,” I mumble and make my way to the back door again. Mists of rain cover my entire front, but I don’t care. “Jace, you’re going to get sick!”

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