Page 63 of Brazen Mistakes

I lean in for a lingering kiss, wanting to keep these feelings alive and bright for as long as possible.

But the farther we get from the mansions and the adrenaline, the easier it gets for the hollow worry to slink back in, stealing my joy, my lightness.

I can see how someone could get addicted to this. I can see howIcould get addicted to this.

And that’s the scariest bit of news I’ve gotten so far this week.

Chapter 23

Walker

There’s a knock on my door before seven, when I only finished working on the masks at two, yanking me out of a dream that was just about to get interesting. With a groan, I poke my toes into my slippers and shuffle to the door.

Clara’s leaning against the frame, black circles under her eyes, slight hollows forming in her cheeks. “Hey,” she says, a grin strung across her face like a piece of poorly stretched canvas.

I immediately bundle us both into my bed, wanting to fix her, but knowing I can’t.

It makes me want to do crazy things, this need to make things better for her, to repair her life so she can sleep, and eat, and smile without it looking like it physically harms her.

”Couldn’t sleep?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“I did for a bit.”

“Did you eat anything when you got back with Jansen?”

The silence is answer enough.

“Are you just not hungry?” I press, not knowing what else to do.

She turns, dark eyes meeting mine in the blackness of a winter morning. “Can we just, I don’t know, not talk?”

My guts twist with the switch, her request to do the one thing she wouldn’t let me get away with a month ago. “Are you sure that’s the solution?”

Her forehead presses against my chest, and I can’t help but pull her closer. “Not for forever. I know that. But just for now. Until things calm down? Until I have time to sort through all the shit in my head and make it turn into words?”

I bite my lip. She’s falling apart in front of me, and I don’t know what else to do. “Do you think things are going to calm down? We’re all going to graduate by summer while still building this business. And Trips’ family being what it is, I’m not sure you’re going to be safe after this one party. Trips says he gets his stubbornness from his dad.” I pause, not sure about what I want to say. But it needs to be said. “I guess I’m asking if we should set a date to talk. I’m happy to give you time to process, Clara. But I can’t just wait and worry forever. You’ve been there. It’s the not knowing that sucks.”

A shuddery breath rocks through her rib cage. “I get it. How about the Saturday before the semester starts?”

Weeks. Almost three of them.

I’ve never been so grateful to have fallen for a girl at the same time as my friends. Because no matter where or how she crumbles, one of us will be there to catch her, to piece her back together.

Without them, I would push this, ask for her to reconsider living with the horror that’s literally eating away at her, stealing her sleep and her hunger for anything besides the euphoria of a good afterglow.

But with them? I can worry. I will worry. But I won’t worry alone. “Okay. If that’s a deadline you can live with, we’ll go with that.”

Her ribs collapse under my palms as she exhales the last of the air she had in her lungs. “Thank you.”

She rolls into the little spoon position, slotting her body against mine, and I wrap myself around her, staring at the dark splotches on the easel across from us. In daylight, it’s a study of Clara’s curls, more impressionistic than I usually play with, focusing on color and movement rather than accurate reproduction, but right now, it looks like smears of black on white canvas. “How was boosting cars with Jansen?”

Her chuckle melts some of the worry away. “I don’t even know how to explain it. I’ve never felt so simultaneously watchful, fearful, and powerful before. It was like I was yanking all the instinctual bits of myself to the surface at once.”

“So a rush?”

“Such a fucking rush.”

“Do you think you’ll go with him again?”

---