Page 55 of Daring You

“Astor,” I say, and I enunciate her name. “If you blow open a hole, all the other termites are gonna come crawling in. Ryan won’t be safe.”

“I know. I know that. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand that’s why I’m going crazy?” She strides away, then whirls on me. “Why do you care so much, anyway? What’s a retribution murder case with a surviving toddler got to do with you?”

My jaw hardens. “The kid means shit to me. It’s you. I’m worried for you, and the people you’re about to piss off if you do this.”

“You said that before,” she says quietly, searching my eyes. “Like you have experience with the wrath of drug cartels or something. There’s nothing to indicate they’d go after me.”

“What do you think Ryan’s parents thought?”

“That’s not the same.” Astor waves it off, like being raped, brutalized and tortured could never happen to her. “I’m not exposing any of the cartel’s secrets. Or members.”

My mom…Rose Delaney’s face, rises from its depths, through the black of memories. Her mouth, twisted open. Her torn summer dress. Her arms, streaked with blood, reaching out to me, her words the opposite of her actions.

Run, Ryan. Run, honey! RUN!

I screw my eyes shut and turn away from Astor.

“Ben?”

I feel Astor come up behind me, her voice back to normal decibels.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

With surprising tenderness, she lays a hand on my arm. On my scar.

As if realizing what she’s done, she abruptly lifts her hand.

“I…I know I don’t sound normal.” She clears her throat. “I’m sorry for that. I’m forced to admit I’m going through a lot right now, but I’ll be alright. You don’t—I mean, thank you for coming by. For checking up. You didn’t have to, and I appreciate it.”

Finally I turn to her. She flinches, as if my stare contains fire. Maybe it does.

“You’re taking on too much,” I say roughly. “And you’re throwing yourself into a shitload of danger, even though you don’t know it. I’m asking you to stay away. For your own safety, Astor. For your family. Stay. Away.”

This close, I can see her shades of blue. Depthless and bright, they mesmerize as they try to discern my shadows.

“Your concern is duly noted,” she says without breaking our stare. “But I’m a big girl, and what you saw a minute ago isn’t how I’ve been approaching this.”

“You can hide your emotion with business all you want. I know you. And I know that once you do this, you’ll never be the same again.”

“So, a different Astor will rise from the ashes, then,” she says matter-of-factly.

“She’s already been burned too many times,” I say.

Her hand, still holding my arm, spasms ever so softly. Like she’s remembering I have touched fire and come out of real ash.

Abruptly, she backs off. “All right.”

“All right?” I repeat.

“I’ll back off,” she clarifies, but I know a but when I see one. “If you tell me why it means so much to you that I do.”

“I thought I just did.”

“Yes, my safety.” Astor nods. “That’s bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you were so concerned with my safety,” she says, and forms the word like it’s bitter on her tongue, “You would’ve done a lot more than what you chose to do in my dorm room six years ago.”

I suppress a growl. “You can’t keep coming back to that, Astor—”

“I sure as fuck can. That morning? When you left me alone and exposed? You weren’t too concerned for my protection. Especially when the photos circulated. That fact weakens everything you’re telling me now. It’s not me you’re trying to protect. So, what’s the truth? Why do you want me to stay away?”

I want to tell her that every footstep out of her dorm room was weighed with demons, the ones telling me to run and the ones telling me to stay. That leaving her there made me the worst kind of man. That those midnight touches, having her, kissing her, was the only gap in time where choosing to keep Ryan Delaney buried and Ben Donahue aboveground was a wavering decision.

Astor’s attention flicks to the spaces on my body where my burns lie. “Do you know something about that fam—?”

I do the only thing I can think of. A desperate, spontaneous, wanting thing.

I kiss her.

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