Page 222 of Time Stops With You

Normally, I wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve also never had a nightmare while on the pills.

Are bad dreams and sleep walking new side effects of the medication? Should I go back to my doctor and get a new prescription?

Nardi laughs and balances her arms on my shoulders. “You changed the code to the day we met. I figured it out on my third try.”

“That’s how you got in?”

“For someone who’s not interested in me anymore,” she leans forward, “you are very sentimental, Cullen.”

Her perfume wraps around me like a sultry spell, and I am now one hundred percent awake.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I mumble.

“I quit, remember?” She laughs softly. At that moment, I notice the suitcase that’s belly-down on the floor. She must have dragged it in here and tossed it to the side when she saw me having the nightmare. “Anyway, enough chatting,” Nardi says, “I’ll go make us breakfast. I saw all the coffee cups in the sink. You really shouldn’t be drinking so much caffeine with your medication?—"

“Why are you doing this?” I ask tightly.

Nardi stops mid-sentence and holds herself completely still.

Fear pumps through my chest, spurred on by the dream I had of being buried alive and then watching her cry from my resting place inside the grave. “I told you to leave me alone, but you’re still here. You’re still doing whatever the hellyouwant. It’s like you don’t hear me at all.”

Nardi’s expression turns somber. Her eyes shift to the ground and stay there.

“How much longer are you going to force something that isn’t meant to be? How much longer are you going to force yourself on me?” I hiss.

The words hang in the air, sharp as a million pieces of shattered glass. My heart turns to shreds in my chest.

This is the right thing to do. I know it is.

But it doesn’t feel right.

It feels like I’ve become a pile of dog droppings. Especially when I see a tear dangling on the tips of her eyelashes.

Nardi massages her neck. “Um…” She clears her throat, but her voice still sounds hoarse when she speaks again. “Wow. I, uh, I planned to hold on to you no matter what you threw at me, but you really know how to push people away, don’t you?”

Unable to look at her, I stare at the wall across from me.

“I’m going to ask you this question and I need you to be completely honest with me, Cullen. Because I won’t ask twice.”

I clench my jaw.

“Do you really want to leave this world without ever seeing or talking to me again. Is that really, truly what you want?”

I swallow hard.No, no it isn’t. But I can’t keep you next to me, Nardi. I don’t deserve to.

“I think I’ve made myself clear,” I grind out instead.

“Okay.” Nardi bobs her head, her shoulders slumped. “Okay, Cullen. I just wanted to be there for you. But… if it makes youthatuncomfortable, I mean, if my presence causes you so much distress, I won’t ever show up in front of you again.”

She picks up her suitcase.

Every tendon, every muscle, every molecule of my being begs me to stop her.

Nardi pauses at the door and I feel a smidge of hope.

But she only takes a deep breath and then keeps going.

She’s leaving.

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