Page 106 of Tides That Bind

I don’t hear Harper breathing anymore. My racing heart has been muted. All I hear is Nate saying that over and over.

“I…I can’t.”

There’s the slightest flinch of Harper’s body after I reject her is another thing I’ll never be able to forget.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as she twists away from me, hopping up and over the backside of the couch.

The metalof my keys cut into my hand as I race out of the kitchen with Riley hissing my name behind me.

He’s able to keep quiet with Lucas sleeping upstairs. But me? I want to scream. That’s why I have to get out of here.

Flinging open the door, I scamper out, my bare feet scratching the floor of the back porch, but I don’t care that I’m not wearing shoes yet again. I only care about being anywhere else than home.

It’s when I nearly trip on the first stair that I grab onto the railing to keep myself from falling. But I do fall. Right back into my dream where I could feel the smooth metal of the guardrail of the bridge I’m eager to grab right now with my hands, desperate to lean over and scream into the abyss that is the dark water below.

In my dream, I felt more, like the way the air rushed out of me as I jumped off the bridge and after the car, following Nate and Riley. In the pitch black of the bay water at night, I could see nothing, even though I felt it all, like the burst, rubber tire against my foot. The sharp, broken glass that managed to still frame the window didn’t cut or scratch me, and even if it did, nothing would’ve stopped me from getting to Nate. Ifelthim even indarkness. I clutched his large hand with neatly trimmed nails and callous-padded fingertips. They are hands I’d know in dreams because, in reality, I’ve known them in my heart and soul.

But in my dream, they didn’t hold onto me. They pushed me away.

And when I turned in my confusion, I found I finally could see underwater.

I saw Riley.

I saw Riley, as if he could glow in the dark, some sort of underwater beacon of light I’m drawn to as I drown while asleep.

And I’m drawn to him awake, breathing at full capacity.

The door opening behind me is enough to snap me out of it. I jump down the rest of the stairs and head to my car.

“Harper.”

His voice steals my breath.

“Where are you going?”

“Where Ineedto be.” I make it to my car in the driveway. “Stay with Lucas.”

When I grab the handle to open the door, Riley presses his hand from behind me against it, forcing it shut. In my struggle, I drop my keys and dip down in the small space between him and my car, but he beats me to them.

“What are you doing!” I watch with anger as he hurls my keys over the fence and into the neighbors’ yard. But I don’t wait for his answer. I eye his Jeep, his apartment where his keys are and abruptly step to the side to go get them.

But Riley grabs my shoulders, pressing me against the car door.

He breathes heavily. “You’re not going there. Not now. It’s not safe to go to the bridge at night.”

I struggle in his hold. “What does it matter to you?”

There’s enough light fanning across us from the back porch that I see the flash of anger in Riley’s eyes.

“You. You matter to me.”

His words threaten to buckle my knees and bring me to the ground where I know I’ll end up in a puddle of confusion that seeps out of me. Because I believe I matter to Riley. Iwantto matter to Riley, but in a way that makes sense where he wants that too.

“It’s not safe to go up on the bridge at night. And not when you’re upset.” He squeezes my arms. “Think about Lucas.”

I go from drowning in confusion to enraged in a split second, fueled by rejection, by heartbreak, by the bone-aching loneliness that has swept me up for months.

I’ve only been thinking about Lucas. If I didn’t think about Lucas, I would’ve told Riley to go jump off that bridge after he left.

---