Page 55 of Rush: Deluxe Edition

Instinctively, my arm around his shoulders tightened.

“My back was dog meat, so they took a chunk of skin off my thigh and slapped it onto my shoulders, and the infection from that little fiasco nearly killed me. Then they put me in a rehab place upstate for PT. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the hell it was to go through that completely blind. But I did it. I healed up with only a few hideous scars, migraines that feel like my brain is about to explode, and uncontrollable mood swings. My souvenirs. I thought if my sight came back, it would all be worth it.”

But it never did, I finished silently.

“And all the while—theentire timeI was recovering—people told me how lucky I was.Lucky,” Noah spat through clenched teeth, the anger giving him a flare of energy.

I stroked his cheek, not wanting the tension to bring back that horrifying migraine, and he relaxed slightly.

“I waslucky. I could’ve been killed, they said, as if that was some sort of fucking newsflash to me. I could’ve been paralyzed or made a vegetable. I could have had worse brain damage, from either striking the rocks or inhaling half an ocean’s worth of water. I could have lost my leg to the infection, I could have, could have, could have. And all the while, I’m sitting in the dark, wanting to just…screamand never stop. I still feel that way. But I can’t scream enough, so I listen to music too loudly and lie around hating everyone and everything and just feeling oh-so-damn fuckinglucky.”

“You weren’t allowed to grieve for what youdidlose,” I said softly.

Noah’s head came up, a look of pained surprise on his handsome features, as if what I’d said was the last thing he expected. His hazel eyes went right and left, trying so hard to find mine. To make contact.

“How do you do that?” he breathed. “How do you know what to do and say so that I feel…?”

“So that you feel what?”

“Whole. You make me feel like I have a shot at something more than this misery.”

“You do,” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes. “You do, Noah…”

“God, Charlotte. I don’t deserve you.”

“Don’t say that.” I blinked hard but it wasn’t doing any good.

“It’s true.” His hand reached up and found my cheek, his thumb brushing away the tears. “Don’t cry for me. Please, don’t cry. And don’t let me kiss you. I shouldn’t…”

But he did.

I held my breath, my heart clanging madly in my chest, as Noah laid his lips to mine in the most beautifully tender kiss of my life. Just him touching me softly, sweetly, for half a heartbeat until, with a soft moan, he moved in closer to kiss me more deeply. I tasted the warm wetness of his mouth, the sweet softness of his tongue that tasted mine for one precious, brief moment. A heavy warm stone seemed to drop into my belly, and I pulled him closer. To kiss him again. And again. To kiss him all night, because now that we had, I didn’t want to stop.

But he was exhausted. The migraine’s pain had stolen his strength. He brushed his lips over mine once more and then his head fell back to the pillow.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, struggling to keep his eyes open. “I’m so sorry. For every harsh word. For every time I snapped at you, or snarled, or swore. I’m so sorry for all of it, and not because you found me tonight and saved me but because you don’t deserve it…my ugliness.”

“You aren’t ugly, Noah,” I whispered. “You’re in pain. I understand.”

He shook his head against me. “You’re in pain too and you’re not like me. You’re nothing like me. You’re sweet and kind and I’m sorry I kissed you. I can’tinflictmyself on you, Charlotte.” He sighed, and I knew sleep was stealing him away from me. “And the anger…it will come back. I’m sure it will. But I’m sorry for it. Remember that, okay?”

My vision blurred again, my eyes stinging with hot tears. “Noah…”

But he was finished. Finished talking, finished touching me, just finished.

I lay beside him, watching his face relax into the peace of sleep, holding him as long as I would let myself. A long time. Then slowly, so as not to disturb him, I slipped off the bed and crept out. I left the door ajar in case the migraine came back and he needed me.

Downstairs, I moved to the living room sofa like a sleepwalker and sat down. Caramel-colored light streamed in from the front windows, and I marveled that there was daylight left in the sky. It felt like Noah and I had been locked away together for hours and hours. I sat still, stiffly, trying to contain the tempest of emotions that swirled in me. My hands twisted in my lap, and I had to move, to talk, to do something.

A strange panic gripped me. I slipped down to the first floor to my room, my trembling hands grabbing—and nearly dropping—my cell phone. I was going to call my parents and cry with them for Chris. Or maybe call Melanie and tell her that Noah Lake had kissed me, and that kiss had drawn something from me that I’d been keeping locked down tight.

In the end, I called Lucien.

“Allô, cela est Caron.”

“Where are they, Lucien?” I demanded, tears falling unheeded.

“Charlotte?”

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