Page 74 of Say You Love Me

“Like infinity without the ‘in’?”

I nod again.

“Strange name. I like it.” He walks back to the seat in the garden and looks over at me. “Come.” He pats the slats of wood. “Sit with me.”

I look around at the others in the garden. Everyone is walking and talking. There’s an array of people here, mostly the cliché sort you’d imagine finding in places like this. Bored housewives. Lonely bachelors. Overworked businessmen and burned-out career women. But there’s something different about the boy on the seat. Something genuine.

I keep my arms wrapped around me firmly as I lower myself beside him. He shuffles closer, pressing his thigh against mine. Pulling a smoke packet from his pocket, he shakes it until a cigarette pops out.

“Want one?”

I shake my head. “I don’t smoke.”

The boy called Rylee laughs. “Believe me, you will by the time you leave here. Smoking is the only addiction they allow inside these gates. Nothing else makes it in. Not even coffee.” He shoves the packet closer. “You may as well start now.”

I shake my head again, but my eyes stay locked on the cigarette.

“Here.” Rylee places one between his lips, lights the tip, inhales deeply before holding it out to me. “You can try mine.” His voice is tight and high as he holds in his breath.

Slowly, I reach out and take his offering. I hold it between my fingers like he did but it seems wrong and strange. Bringing it to my lips, I inhale and then splutter out a cough. But the rush that swirls through my head is intoxicating and for the first time in what seems like forever, I smile.

“See?” Rylee laughs as he pulls another cigarette from his pocket and places it in his mouth. “I told you.” His words are mumbled as he brings the lighter up and ignites the cigarette.

Leaning back against the slats of woods, Rylee’s arm stretches out behind me. “So tell me, infinity without the ‘in’, what did you do to get yourself landed in here?”

chapter thirty-five

NOW

~

HUDSON

Her scream shatters the silence of the night. I start to run, my feet pounding the ground as quickly as my heart pounds against the confines of my chest.

“Finity!” I yell, but my call gets swallowed by the width of the lake. “Finity!” I yell louder but it’s pointless. She doesn’t answer.

She said she was going for a cigarette. Her last one ever. It was her last connection to the memories, her last connection to the events that devasted us and tore us apart. After half an hour I came to look for her. I knew where she’d be. It was like my feet were drawn to the place we first met.

The pounding of my footsteps grows louder when I reach the docks. I can hear her now, her sobs, her strangled wails. What did he do to her?

“Finity?” I slow to a stop as soon as I see her. She’s huddled on the edge of the docks, her fingers gripping the wood as she peers into the dark depths.

“Finity?”

Her eyes snap to mine. Her gaze is wild and desperate but at the same time, there’s no shock, no surprise. I’ve seen that look before.

“Finity, what did you do?”

“Rylee fell,” she’s quick to say. “He—” She sobs. “He just fell. One minute he was standing there and the next he was falling. I tried reaching for him, I really did, but it was like he slipped through my fingers.”

I peer into the depths. There’s nothing there. No Rylee. No floating clothing. No bubbles of air. I start to peel the clothes from my body.

“Where did he go in?”

Finity gets to her feet and places her hands against my chest. I push her away, nothing but the need to remove my clothing and dive into the water to find him pulsing through me.

“Where did he go in?” I yell.

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