Page 164 of Unforgettable

“Fuck. Are you at the school? Amanda’s school?” He whispered louder the second time, and my stomach dropped.

I opened my mouth and stuttered a response. But I couldn’t form even one word before the call ended, and I was left staring at the blank screen.

There were no coherent thoughts in my head as I immediately redialed Adam’s number and searched for my keys. I spent the entire time it was ringing searching the kitchen until I finally found them under a pile of junk mail. The keys jingled in my hand the moment the call went to voice mail and the automated voice told me the mailbox was full.

I hit redial again. Locking the door behind me and wedging the phone between my shoulder and my ear, I checked my pocket for my wallet.

With all my belongings, I sprinted down the stairs and across the sidewalk to our covered parking spots. A heaviness fell over me when I saw Reed’s empty spot right beside mine.

But I had a one-track mind—nothing was going to prevent me from getting to that school or them. Whatever was happening, I didn’t care. Something was wrong, or something had happened, but why Adam was calling me, I didn’t know.

Nothing made sense. And for every small piece of information I had, I had an infinite number of questions.

I whipped the truck into drive and squealed the tires, trying to speed out of the parking lot. A quick left and a right turn later, and I was dialing Reed’s number. Chanting to myself and quietly praying for him to “pick up, pick up, pick up,” I blew through an iffy yellow light and glanced in the rearview mirror for red-and-blue lights.

“You have reached the voice mailbox of—”the stupid fucking automated voice announced through the Bluetooth speakers.

“Fuck!” I yelled and hit Amanda’s name. Each ring was a knife to my chest. Each second there wasn’t an answer, I felt further away from them. This couldn’t be happening again. Not again.

I wouldn’t survive it for the third time.

And like it never existed in the first place, all my hope vanished when I pulled into the school parking lot.

FIFTY-FOUR

Reed

“That’s not happening,”Amanda said in a threateningly low tone. She took a step forward like she was going to physically fight him on it, but I stuck my arm out.

“I realized you didn’t have the money, no matter how well-off your parents are,” CJ said, ignoring Amanda’s immediate refusal on my behalf. “That you wouldn’t have access to cash like that and also wouldn’t be able to get it even if it was your brother’s life on the line. But one of the annoying assholes you keep around has immediate access to even more than I need.” CJ turned to me. “You were useful, after all.”

“No,” Amanda said again, but I continued to block her path.

Annoyed, she glanced down at my arm pressed against her stomach and then back up to me. There was an unwavering fight in her eyes I’d seen so many times before. But the longer we stood there and listened to CJ give half-truths and minimal information, the longer she was in danger.

She noticed the resolution and decision play out over my face.

“You can’t be fucking serious? You’re actually thinking about giving him the money? Reed, I can’t let you get more involved than you already are. This is my brother,myfamily shit.Iwill handle it.”

I shook my head and shifted her farther behind me once again. She tried to fight me off, but my hands were steadfast on her shoulders.

“It’s okay to ask for help or at least accept it when it’s offered,” I said quietly, so hopefully only she would hear. But the room was eerily silent. Even the air conditioning in the school had shut off, so the mechanical hum couldn’t be used to buffer the silence.

“And it’s okay to let me fight my own battles,” she tossed back through gritted teeth.

“This isn’t your battle.”

“Although listening to the two of you bicker is the highlight of my night, I’d really like to get a move on,” CJ piped up from across the room, but my attention didn’t waver from Amanda.

“You’re impossible,” she said. “Why can’t you just let it go? Let me figure it out.”

There was only one reason why I did anything for her, and I’d known it for so long that it’d ingrained itself into every part of me.

Without thinking much past her standing beside me, staring up at me with emotions warring across her features, I whispered, “Because this is part of letting me love you. That’s why.”

And I didn’t wait to see her reaction or hear her response. I didn’t expect her to say it back to me, especially in that moment with CJ almost close enough to hear our every word.

I turned back to CJ, who didn’t show any signs of having heard my confession—I’d assumed if he had, he would have made a comment or a stupid remark. Instead, he impatiently glanced at his watch and then lifted his eye to me in an unimpressed glare.

---