Page 84 of This Life and All the Rest
I know exactly what night he’s talking about. The beginning of my spiral. The start of my self-destruction. My stomach swirls with the need to vomit.
I know, but I still ask, because I’m teetering, and I deserve to fall.
“When?” I force out.
“Right after you didn’t come back for school. You practically disappeared, and no one could get ahold of you.”
I choke on a sob. I fist my hands to calm the trembling and breathe through the intense pain ravaging my body.
My chest hurts. My head hurts. My heart...
“But you didn’t answer my emails,” I whisper, grasping for something, anything, to make this make sense.
“I didn’t exactly have access to my email while being treated for drug addiction, Lennon,” he says softly. “And when I got out, my school email was locked. I never thought to try and get back in it.”
When I finally look back at him, his eyes are pleading and glassy with unshed tears.
“I came back for you,” he chokes out, “and I found you in that alley, and I relapsed. I went on a bender, and when I finally came out of it, I had your dad pull some strings, so I could enlist in the Marines.”
He walks toward me, and this time, I don’t back away. I let him cup my face gently, his blue flame eyes boring into mine.
“I enlisted because, after my relapse, I knew I still wasn’t good enough for you. I enlisted because it was my last-ditch effort to make something of myself.”
He leans forward and presses his forehead to mine.
“I never gave up on us,” he breathes out. “Even after you did, I didn’t. Because you belong with me, Lennon Capri. You always have and you always will.”
I close my eyes, let his words wash over me, and when he kisses me, I let him. I feel my heart shatter, my eyes burn.
And then I feel seventeen, and I cannot be that girl. I swore to myself I would never be that girl again.
Macon has always been so good at deceiving me in the past. Climbing through my window and whispering promises only to break them later. Calling me pathetic after saving his life. Kissing me and holding me only after breaking me down so gloriously.
He lies and I listen because I want so desperately to believe him.
I can’t think straight around him. I never could. I cling to him when I should push him away. I say yes when I should say no. I forgive him and forgive him and forgive him, when all I should really do is forget him.
“I can’t do this with you right now,” I choke out, turning my head and dropping my hands to my side. “I need to think.”
I push past him and leave the storeroom. I hear his footsteps behind me.
“Don’t,” I beg. “You’ll only make it worse.”
I take two more steps, then against my better interest I turn back to him.
"I'll be back, okay? I just need to think this through first.”
He nods slowly, and when I walk away again, he doesn’t try to follow.
TWENTY-THREE
London, 4 Years Earlier
My legs bounceas I wait to exit the plane.
My neck aches, and I have to piss. I pop another stick of gum in my mouth and chew furiously. For the hundredth time, I pull up the address on my phone.
I found Lennon’s address by calling her new art school and pretending to be Trent. It was easy to track her down, considering how seamlessly she cut us all off.
