Page 126 of The Casualty of Us
“Oh shit,” he interrupts, sitting up quickly. “She told you?”
“Yeah!” I shout angrily. “She fucking told me, Ollie! What I want to know is why didn’t you?”
“She asked me not to.” His shoulders slump. “We weren’t in a good place and—”
“All. Summer,” I grit out, heart jerking around erratically at the realization that she could have fucking disappeared into thin air and I wouldn’t have even known where to start looking. “All fucking summer I thought to myself…don’t worry, Ollie’s got her.” His face falls, and my stomach twists at my own stupidity. Again. “When she was distant over messages, I told myself to give her space. Reminded myself that O needs time to work things out.” An empty sound leaves me, and I inhale sharply before hitting him the only way that won’t piss her off. “And when I got that sick feeling in my stomach sometimes, I told myself I was being ridiculous because she was with you.” I pause, seeing it land the way I want it to before adding. “That she had to be okay because you would tell me if that wasn’t the case.”
“Hold on.” He stands up with his face tensing. “You can’t put that on me. I’m not your go-betwe—”
“You know how I feel about her.” I shake my head. “You know that I would be—”
“But that’s not my business!” he shouts, frustration filling his face before he grumbles quietly. “I’m trying to make it not my business, dude.” His shoulders fall again in the silence thatfollows. “You have no idea what she’s been like this summer, so a little less judgment would be nice.”
“I’ll stop judging when you tell me why she looked like no one had fucking held her for months when I got there.”
His mouth falls open at my bleak summarization, and maybe that’s the heart of it—why I’m so pissed, because I trusted him with the person who holds my own and who’s supposed to share his, and he let me down.
“I…” His gaze drifts, hands clenching at his sides before he exhales. “I fucked up.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “How?”
“We were already kind of in a weird place at the end of school.” He looks down quickly. “And then when she got the first note, I just…” His gaze lifts back to mine with fear flitting through it. “Freaked the fuck out.”
That I can understand.
Because every part of me wants nothing more than to never leave her side again but— “I still don’t understand why you two are fighting.”
“She started going there every day.” He pauses, voice coming out in a dead way that lets me know this is not a new topic of conversation. “She fucking runs in the park where they dropped her off, come rain or shine.” A pained sound leaves him. “So yeah, we had a few problems this summer.”
Even with the mental picture that has my heart just about bursting, though, I still manage to guess… “You pushed her to stop.”
“I did.” He nods, brows lowering. “Because I could see she wasn’t going to let it go, and it fucking terrifies me.” The pause that comes next fills the space in between us with both of our fears before he clears his throat. “So I fought her on everything, and it blew up in my face.”
“I could have told you that,” I snap, my stomach twisting harder with the same knowing and repeating his own words back to him. “She’ll never let it go now.”
Thinking through every interaction I’ve had with her over the past twenty-four hours and seeing them through this new shadowy lens.
“You’re going to get one of us killed.”
And the thought of someone taking her from me…I can’t handle it. Can’t even handle thinking about it. It’ll be hard enough if she chooses that because I’m just not the person she wants in the end. But to have someone trying to steal that choice out from under both of us has me wanting nothing more than to wipe the fucker from existence.
Especially after last night.
Every little sound she made for me strung together in a harmony that quickly became my new favorite song, sealing whatever remained of the deal. At least for me.
“He can’t have her.” I lift my gaze back up to his with the warning, not really sure when I dropped it but making it very clear. “He can’t fucking have her, Ollie.”
“I know.” His face fills with what I think is concern, but he still nods. “I know, dude. I got you.”
And my next breath keeps me right in hell this time, the only difference being how I’m contradicting myself. “She won’t stop either.”
She isn’t capable of it. I know that too.
Not after what he’s already done to her, and I can’t blame her for that when it’s one of the things I love most about her. That fierceness. The way she has to solve every problem that piques her interest. She just plain isn’t built that way.
But they’re two trains headed to the same place, set on a collision course.
“We have to manage it,” I mutter, heart stumbling again and barely resisting the urge to yell at him. “And you need to fix your shit.”
