Page 45 of Summer's Edge

TWENTY-TWO

Edge

It’s five AM. The MC’s assembling at six at an abandoned rest stop about five miles out of town. Only the inner circle is going and the twenty-five members whose loyalty is beyond reproach. We’re to go there separately, so as not to alert the rat. I’m supposed to be on my way. But I can’t leave Summer’s warm bed. Or her.

She’s awake too, looking at me with her gorgeous green eyes that look brown in this half-light. Brown and sad.

“It’s time,” I say, more to convince myself than her, and sit on the edge of the bed.

My clothes are in a heap by the foot of the bed where she ripped them off me just three short hours ago. They seem to be miles away and I have no energy to stand.

She rises too and wraps her arms around me, her warm, soft body pressed against my back.

“Do you have to go?” she asks.

“Yeah, I do.” And what’s more, I want to. I just can’t seem to move.

“Please come back,” she whispers into my ear. “Because I think I love you.”

The words make my whole body tense up. Because she said what I’ve been thinking too. And because it’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard.

I free myself from her arms and stand up, facing her.

“You know we have no future, right?” I ask.

“We can have any kind of future we want,” she snaps, her eyes now merciless, angry, but still kinda sad.

“You want someone who will be there for you, someone who will take care of you, not someone who just likes to fuck you,” I say, the words sort of sticking in my throat. “You don’t want me.”

“You just want to fuck?” she asks, much of the force gone from her voice.

“Yeah.”

I don’t look at her as I say it. I don’t look at her while I dress as quickly as I can. I don’t look at her because then she’ll see the lie.

But I can’t have her waiting for me. I can’t have her wanting things that she can never have.

“I’m going now,” I say and still don’t look at her as I walk out of the room.

She catches up to me by the front door, the light of dawn making shadows play across her curves.

“You’re heading to battle so I forgive you for saying all that nonsense back there,” she says. “But take this.”

She presses something warm and sharp into my palm.

“It’s to remind you of me,” she adds. “And to make sure you come back to me.”

I open my palm. She gave me her heart shaped pendant, the one she never takes off her neck. “I can’t take this.”

“Yes, you can,” she says. “You have the key to my heart, so it’s yours.”

Even if I wanted to, I can’t argue anymore.

So, I just squeeze the pendant tightly in my fist, so tightly it cuts into my flesh, kiss her one last time and leave.

She doesn’t try to stop me again. If she did, I’d probably just stay and fuck everything else.

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