Page 138 of Between Never and Forever
Though his voice is steady and controlled, I can still hear the relief in it mixed with fear. Red thought we were going to die. He thought Savannah was going to die. He was terrified.
“I’m okay,” Sav calls to him. “Scratched and bruised. Sore as fuck, but nothing terrible.”
“I’m going to get help. Stay there,” he yells, and Savannah gives him a limp thumbs up, then huffs out a tired laugh.
“Where does he think we’re gonna go?” she mumbles, and she’s right.
Getting back into this water is not an option, so until someone comes with a boat or a helicopter, we’re stranded here.
“We’re good,” I shout. “But hurry.”
Red turns and hustles up the riverbank, then disappears into the trees.
“Are you okay? For real?”
I look her over, my eyes surveying every inch of her body. Her suit is torn at her side. There’s a large scrape down her arm and a bruise forming on her cheek. I take my fingers and lightly run them over each of the injuries.
“Do they hurt?”
Savannah’s eyes flutter shut, but she smiles softly.
“I’ve had worse.”
I can’t laugh the comment off. She has had worse. I remember. The bruises on her arms and legs. The boot print on her side. The split lips and bruised cheeks. The emotional trauma. And possibly even more that I don’t know about because she’d been lost to me for so long. When the urge to wrap my hand around the side of her neck comes, I don’t fight it. I do it, and I feel her. She’s cold, shivering, but her heartbeat is strong under my palm. Her breathing is steady. It’s a load of bricks off my chest.
A water droplet slips from Savannah’s eyelashes and trails slowly down her wet cheeks. I follow it until it’s joined by another, then another. When more escape, flowing faster, I realize they’re not droplets of lake water. They’re tears.
“Hey,” I say quietly, bringing my other hand to her neck and cradling her face.
I rub my thumbs over her jaw, caress her cheeks.
“Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay, Savannah. You’re not hurt. You’re okay.”
She whimpers and closes her eyes tighter, shaking her head slightly.
“No,” she forces out on a sob. “No.”
“Yes. You’re okay. You’re—”
“No, Levi. Not me. Notme.”
Her hands grip onto the band of my trunks and she presses her head into my chest.
“I thought you were dead. I thought you were gone, and I’d lost you. You were there—my arms were around you and you were right there and then—"
She hiccups into my chest, then pulls back and paralyzes me with gray eyes shimmering with tears. Liquid metal. Mercury. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t look away.
“Then you were gone. You were just ripped from me, and I reached, and I reached, and you were justgone. God, I just...I just...You were gone, and I couldn’t get to you. There was literally nothing I could do. I thought you were dead. I didn’t care about me. I wasn’t scared for me. I was scared for you. I can’t lose you like that. I can’t. Not like that.”
I wipe the tears off her cheeks and crush her to me in a hug. I bury my face in her hair, and somehow, it still smells faintly of peaches.
“I know. Me too, Sav.” I love her. I know I do. I always have. I never stopped. “Not inanyway.”
She pulls back and looks at me, brows furrowed and eyes questioning.
“What?”
“I can’t lose you inanyway, Savannah. Not like that. Not like anything. Do you get it? Do you understand?”
