Page 61 of Secondhand Smoke
She was against a chest, and arms held her tight to it—one around her shoulders and the other on the back of her head. The loud bumping sound, she realized, was a heart.
Barrett’s heart.
It beat without pause, meeting the rhythm of her struggling breaths and torturous thoughts and images in her mind.
His hand on the back of her head smoothed over her hair, strands catching slightly in the metal of his rings, but he made no sound.
They were hiding, she realized.
She heard loud trampling through the forest and the scratchy reception of a radio echoing off the trees.
She scrunched her eyes so tight they ached in her skull as she recalled that radio scratch while she was half-conscious, hanging upside down with blood dripping from her brow.
Her hands came up to Barrett’s shirt, and she gripped fistfuls of the fabric into her fingers, clinging to him to stay right-side up.
The officer said something into the radio, and soon the sounds of his steps faded away.
“Tell me it isn’t real,” Nell hissed into Barrett’s shirt because sheneededto hear it even if it wasn’t true. “Please, tell me it isn’t real.”
No matter how hard she clenched her eyes, the image still sat in her head. The smells, the pain, the quiet, followed by the sirens.
Get it out. Get it out. Get it out.
“It isn’t real,” he whispered. The soft brush on the back of her head started again, slower but surer of itself. A soothing coolness from his rings seeped through her hair. She focused on it. “It isn’t real.”
The farther the officer got, the more time that passed, the slower Barrett’s heartbeat became.
Her breath followed, and she kept her head against him to use it as a guide, sucking in and out in time with his pulse to keep herself on track toward what was a healthy pace. The more it mellowed, the more her mind cleared.
She stayed put until it felt like clarity surrounded her the same way his arms did.
Ages passed.
They did not need to stay there, hiding behind the tree. The threat was long gone, but she knew that if she pulled away from that steady, strong, living beat she would lose her sense of reality again.
So she gripped his shirt harder and closed her eyes in the dark.
He made no move to push her away from him, even as time passed, and she heard nothing else but a breeze and his breath and his heart.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to him. She hadn’t even realized his hand was still softly brushing the back of her head until it stopped. She wished it hadn’t.
“Why are you apologizing now?” His voice was low, the bass rumbling through his chest and vibrating pleasantly in her ears.
“I know you don’t want me here.”
He stilled, breath caught in his chest. His heart, on the other hand, jumped.
She wanted to look at his face, but she knew that if she pulled away now, she wouldn’t be able to go back to the same position. The advantage would be lost, and so would her sense of grounding.
“What in the hell gave you that impression?”
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“That’s not—” He cut himself off with a disbelieving laugh, and the hand on the back of her head lifted off.
She reluctantly pulled away, knowing she couldn’t stay there forever—as much as she wished she could.
His hand sifted through his shaggy waves as he shook his head. His attention jumped to her when he realized she was watching him. His throat cleared, and his lips tilted at the corners as he looked down at her.
