Page 191 of Those Who Are Bound

After a couple of steps, he asked, “How about just the friend contract?”

Now she turned her head to look at him. “You want to be my friend?” It shouldn’t surprise her—he’d just returned from two weeks of rock climbing with hisex-wife. Breaking up, for Jonah, apparently didn’t mean scorched Earth. Even when he’d been broken a little.

He stopped walking and turned to her. “I want you to sleep at night. I want you to feel like you can talk to me.”

“Even after…?”

Jonah tilted his head. “Even after.”

“How?” she asked, wondering how he could even look at her, because that night… it looked like he might not come back from that, to be honest.

Taking a deep breath, he turned, walking forward again. “Distance and perspective. I’ll tell you about it someday. But right now, I want to know why your sleep is disturbed so much that Killion is aware of it. You’re talking to him about it, at least.”

Elliott shook her head, looking away, absently noting what appeared to be college-aged kids posing with the Benjamin Franklin statue bench on the corner. “He heard me. My deck doors were open.” She heard his sigh, read his frustrated concern into it.

“Are you talking to anyone?”

She shook her head. “It’s just…” She shrugged. How could she explain that the few people in her universe—Becks—weren’t sympathetic on that level? To be fair, she hadn’t mentioned her nightmares, either. “I created the issue. I need to deal with it.”

“What issue?” he asked, stopping again.

They were standing on the broad corner now, near the statue.

Elliott watched the laughing group of kids with their different poses; it was surreal to have this conversation with a man she’d rejected but was desperately infatuated with while watching people lead normal lives. But, she said, “I caused a man to die. I was responsible for his death.”Not the first time.

“Jesus, Elliott.” He pulled her into his embrace. “Is that what you’ve been thinking?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” She angled her head back to look up at him. “If I hadn’t behaved the way I did that morning, if I hadn’t made him late by making him wait for me, he wouldn’t have been going so fast. He was in a hurry. If not for me, if our worlds hadn’t collided, he would be alive today. I did that to him; I killed him.”

Jonah grasped her face, leaning down to stare fiercely into her eyes. “You were a passenger on his bike. He was a seasoned rider. His speed, his time, these are all things inhiscontrol, not yours. That’s on him, not you. There’s nothing you could have done. Being late is not an excuse for being reckless. He was the one who putyouin danger by being irresponsible.”

She teared up. “But he’s dead.”

“I’m sorry for that.”

“And his family probably hates me for not being dead.”

“You have no control over how they feel. But if they do, it’s misplaced. You weren’t driving. This isn’t yours to take on.”

“But—”

“No buts. I’m a rider, Elliott. My passenger is my responsibility to keep safe, no shits given to anything else. As much as you like to be in control, this time, you weren’t.”

She nodded as much as she could in his grip. This was the first time they’d talked about the accident, she realized, and she informed him, “I don’t remember what happened, or where he ended up, but when we went down, I rolled. Through all the interviews, I never asked, but maybe he didn’t or couldn’t. I did. I remembered what you said. It was, like, theonlything I heard: you telling me to roll. Loud and clear, over everything else:roll, roll, roll.” Her lower lip quivered.

A look of astonishment came over his face. He straightened, releasing her. He took a few pacing steps away, then turned back, looking at her imploringly. “You say you don’t believe in the power of prayer, but—”

Moment burst.

Wiping at her unshed tears, Elliott scoffed, “That wasn’t a miracle, Jonah. That was me remembering instructions you had given me at the time I needed to remember it. Why else instruct me?”

“You heard my voice; a singular voice,” he insisted.

Exasperated, Elliott shot back, “When you slide on ice, you turn into the slide—that’s not a miracle, recalling that instruction. You use it when you need it. I did the same.”

He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated with her interpretation. Well, she was as frustrated with his. Impasse on this one. “I’d meant it as a thank-you, not so you would get all churchy on me.”

His side-eye indicated that the comment wasn’t appreciated.

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