Page 222 of Pretty Little Lies

My lips part, but I can’t keep saying the word or even thinking it. I don’t understand why it happened, how, all I know is that I rushed over here with Levi on my mind and absolute devastation on the other end of my brain.

“Bay…”

“I’m sorry, Levi, I tried to save him. I don’t know what happened. They all ran into the room, and then they were doing that thing to bring his heart back and I yelled at him to wake up, but he didn’t. He didn’t move. What did I do wrong? Did I stress him out? I didn’t say anything about the house or the girls. I was just talking about hamburgers before?—”

“Bay—”

“What did Ido?!” I carp out because anger is the only thing that doesn’t hurt. “Why does this happen when I’m around? Everything sucks. I wreck things.”

Levi frowns. “No. No, you don’t?—”

“I’m so sorry, Levi. I didn’t mean to.”

“What did you do?”

“I…Emilio came by the room…he was bothering me?—”

“Did he touch Roger?”

I shake my head. “No, I made him leave the room. I wouldn’t even let him speak in there with Dad. And then I saw the doctors and nurses rush the room. I don’t understand—he was fine. Everything was—” Levi pulls me against the bars and wraps his arms around me. The metal blocks full contact but I feel his face brush against my hair, and I just let go.

My tears, the sobs and whimpers, all the pent-up disappointment, grief, and regret.

I can’t believe he’s gone. Why did I do?

“Muncy, let me out of here!” Levi carps out suddenly, stroking my hair in gentle brushes.

“Fat chance,” Muncy bites back from a distance away, again sounding bored out of his mind. “You’re not gonna get out to fuck your girlfriend, you dumbass meathead.”

“He’s fuckin’ dead,” my best friend sneers above me, still petting my hair. “I’m gonna get out, okay? I’ll help—we’ll get this figured out. It’s gonna be okay.”

“Why are you here?”

“Don’t worry about it. I need your head screwed on straight.”

I lift my chin to look up at him, but he doesn’t move, still holding me through the metal bars and I’m met with his black tattoos embedded in his throat. “What happened? How bad?—”

“Ten years, two which would be mandatory or?—”

“What?” I yell-whisper, because the last thing we need is Muncy up our ass about what we’re talking about. “Forwhat?”

“Two minutes, Wallace,” Muncy extolls like an asshole. “Kiss your bitch goodbye and let’s go.”

Levi’s nostrils flare, but he doesn’t steal a glance over my head at him. We don’t have the time. “He’s got me for drug possession.”

“You don’t carry drugs around like that.”

“I know, but he had no problemplantingthem. He’s setting me up and, right now, I’m looking at time and a conviction.”

And unless Juice and Hot Rod are planning a jailbreak, Levi isn’t getting out of here or couldn’t stay in South Shore because Muncy would hunt him down nonstop.

Which means he won’t be around for Dad’s funeral.

He won’t be with Mae and Ellie.

He’s not gonna be with me, period.

Everything that’s happened, that he’s given me, it’s gone.

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