Page 28 of Endless Love

To make sure no one else hurts her.

With a heavy sigh, I reach for the key and walk quietly into the room, doing my best not to wake her. As I reach out to turn off the light, I take one long, lingering look at her face, soft and beautiful as she sleeps.

Even with the badly dyed blonde hair.

—

Charlotte is backto giving me the silent treatment when we leave the motel in the morning. Her hair is in a messy bun atop her head, and I have to fight the urge to reach out and run my fingers down the back of her neck, where I know her skin feels like silk. Even harder is resisting the urge to wrap my fingers around the nape of it, pull her towards me, and kiss her like I did last night.

She’s a constant temptation. A penance for everything I’ve done. And as we head down the highway in silence, I try to think about Vegas. About my contact. About what I’ll do after this.

Anything other than how much I want to touch her.

The routine is the same. Gas station stops and long stretches of silent highway. We have better food today, thanks to our grocery store run, and I can tell Charlotte is happy to have some fruit and something not cooked in grease. Seeing the smile on her face when she eats a handful of strawberries makes me feel like I’d rob an entire grocery store blind, if that’s what I needed to do to keep her smiling like that. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile since I took her from her apartment.

It makes me feel like I’d give anything to be the one who makes her happy.

That feeling persists as we drive through Minnesota, every time I glance over at her. She watches as the landscape changes as we drive into South Dakota, and I see her sit up a little, her eyes widening at the spray of color across the trees.

“I love fall,” she says softly, and then she laughs, a sound that’s as ironic as it is bitter.

“What?” I look at her curiously, and she laughs again.

“Every year, for as long as I can remember, I told myself I’d get out of the city this time of year and go on a road trip. Somewhere remote, where I could look at the leaves and nature and just have some quiet for a little while. I thought about conning Jaz and Zoe and Sarah into going with me, or sometimes I thought about just going alone.” That laugh again, the irony thicker now. “I never once thought about asking Nate along. And now look at me. On a fall road trip with a man who connedmeinto it.”

There’s that stab of pain in my chest, harsher this time. It hurts more and more when she says things like that, with every passing day, and I know why. It’s because, with every one of those days, I’m falling more and more for her—and also losing her, all at the same time.

But I think I have an idea of how to make her smile again. Just for a minute.

I don’t say anything about it. I just wait until we’re well into our drive for the day, and then spread out the atlas on my lap again, looking for the roads I’ll need to take. Charlotte says nothing as I take an exit, probably assuming we’re stopping for gas or food or headed for some out-of-the-way motel that will help shield us from my brothers and the FBI—provided they haven’t figured out that we’re going to Vegas and just headed straight there to ambush us. Which, ordinarily, would be correct.

But this time, I keep driving. Further out, towards one of the national parks I’ve been to before. The landscape changes,wilder, but still full of color, emblazoned with the reds and yellows, and oranges of fall. I turn onto a small side road and park in a tiny, barely-graveled lot, getting out to unhook the wires so the car will shut off.

Charlotte is watching me warily from inside the car. Her gaze keeps flicking from me to her surroundings and back again, and I can’t help but wonder what she’s thinking. I don’t think it’s anything good, and I feel that jab of pain in my chest again.

I open up her door. Her hands are clenched in her lap, and I hold out one of mine. “Come take a walk with me?”

One of Charlotte’s eyebrows rise, slowly, but she gets out of the car without taking my hand. She walks past me, towards the thin trail that’s just barely visible, and then pauses, looking back at me. “Are there bears out here?” She sounds uncertain, glancing at the path and the brightly-colored woods.

“Actually, not really. Not many of them out here any longer.”

“But there’s got to be some predators, right?” She looks at me for a moment too long, and I have an uncomfortable feeling that it’s a jab at me. “Is this safe?”

“There’s some snakes and mountain lions. But I’ve got a gun.” I pat my hip. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Mountain lions?” Charlotte pales slightly, and I walk towards her, resisting the urge to touch her. I want to, badly, but I have a feeling it would upset her, and I don’t want that. I want this moment that I’ve arranged with her as badly as I want to give it to her.

“You kept saying, every time we were out together, how you wanted to be more spontaneous. Less worried about the danger of things. Less of someone who needed to plan and think about every outcome.”

I wait for her to sayand look where that got me.But instead, she bites her lip, and nods.

“Alright.”

I haven’t forgotten when we went walking together before, when she still didn’t know any of the truths about who I am. When she hinted that she wanted me to push her up against a tree and have her there, and I told her that wasn’t going to be our first time. But I don’t make any allusions to that now, even though the thought hangs in my head—all of the things that I still so badly want to do to her. I don’t want her thinking about all of that right now. If she’s going to think about anything at all, I want her to think about what could be, not what was.

It’s a beautiful walk. The air is crisp and cool, and not far into it, Charlotte shrugs on the denim jacket that she bought on our little shopping trip. I see her hand twitch once, as if she’s on the verge of reaching for mine and stops herself, and I try not to think about what it would feel like if she actually had reached out to hold my hand. What that would mean.

“Is it really a good idea for us to be out just walking like this?” A chilly wind whips past us, and Charlotte pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “We’re on the run, right? Shouldn’t we be, you know—runninguntil we absolutely have to stop for the night?”

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