All The Ways You Saved Me Part 8

Had anyone recognized me? Did they manage to snap a photo?

G.o.d, I hoped not.

Tension snaked up my neck like a slow creeping vine, settling in the base of my skull in the form of a throbbing headache. Footsteps approached, shoes crunching on wet sidewalk. I turned toward them and found Ian holding out my purse toward me.

"So, you're that Bianca Easton."

"Guilty." I covered my face with my hands. Taking a deep breath, I locked my eyes onto his. "It's not a secret. I was going to tell you, I just . . . well, I got a really upsetting e-mail from my parents, this afternoon, and the last thing I wanted to think about tonight was them. No one really knows I'm here in New York. I'm supposed to be keeping a really low profile so no one finds out and it doesn't reflect badly on my father, so when everyone was looking at us and I thought they might be taking a picture, I kinda . . . panicked." It was a good thing I ran out of words because my lungs were completely deflated and screaming for air. I dragged in a breath and tried to ground myself. "Sorry."

"Hey, you don't have to apologize. It can't be easy being who you are, and it's not like you know me all that well." He shrugged. "You want me to get you a cab, or are you walking home?"

I considered it, weighed how much my feet might hurt afterwards against the desire to avoid any carsickness, which would surely linger until I finally went to bed in a few hours. "I think I'll walk."

"Can I walk you home then?"

The shadows around me seemed to lengthen, the darkness deepening into a sinister unknown s.p.a.ce. I gave myself an internal shake. What was I even thinking, considering walking home alone, at night, in New York City? Idiot.

"That'd be great, thank you."

"No problem."

With my heels on, we were nearly the same height, though not quite. Still, he measured his strides to mine so that we kept up a comfortable pace. I let my hands hang loosely by my sides, leaving the option freely open to him should he decide he might want to take hold of my hand.

It seemed my optimism knew no bounds.

"Does that happen to you a lot?" He asked, his deep voice seeming out of place amongst the noise of the street. "The seeing-yourself-on-TV thing, not the you-running-from-a-restaurant-like-an-escaped-zoo-animal thing."

His humor caught me off guard, and I snorted before I could stop myself. "That bad, huh?"

"It's not the worst I've seen."

I gave his arm a light shove, trying not to notice how firm it was underneath my fingertips. "Don't think you can get away with saying something like that and not elaborate. C'mon, let's have it."

He raked a hand through his hair, dropping one hand in the front pocket of his jeans. "I was out one night with my friends and some girls-"

"A date, you mean?" I kept my eyes straightforward as I said it, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible.

"No." He shook his head. "More like a setup, at least on my part. We were having a pretty decent time, everyone was having some drinks. One of the girls must have been pre-gaming pretty hard, or maybe she was just a lightweight, but she was sitting next to me, trying to . . . get my attention." He shot a look at me, then cleared his throat. Sure, his attention. "Out of nowhere, she hurls, right in my lap. I didn't even have a chance to move."

I clapped a hand over my mouth, whether to stifle my laughter or cover a gag, I wasn't quite sure. "Oh my G.o.d."

"No, it gets better." The corner of his mouth curled up in a reluctant smile. "Her friend, who was, at the time, straddling my friend, either sees or hears her, and so she loses it. Throws up all over the side of his face, his neck, down his s.h.i.+rt." A shudder worked its way through him, and he swallowed heavily, pinching his lips together. "By far, the most disgusting thing that's ever happened to me."

I couldn't hold it back anymore, the laughter bubbled up, fizzing like a shaken can of soda, and bursting out from behind my hand. "I'm sorry. That is one of the most horrific things I've ever heard."

His smile came easier now, resting effortlessly on his face. "It wasn't a picnic, I can tell you that."

I blew out a breath, and let the silence settle between us. This time there wasn't any awkwardness hidden in it, just a welcomed comfortableness. I s.h.i.+fted my purse from one shoulder to the other, stretching my neck to the side to try and work out the kink and ease the pounding in my head. It kept right on throbbing, pulsing in my temples like a second heartbeat.

"To answer your question from before, about me popping up on the TV . . . I really don't know if it's a common occurrence. I don't watch TV, or read the newspaper, or pick up magazines."

"Never?"

"Never." I ran a hand over my arm, then dropped it back down to my side. "The media has never been a particular friend of mine."

His shoulder b.u.mped mine. "Sounds like there's a story there."

"Not half as funny as yours, I'm afraid." I gave him a rueful smile.

"Hey, my story was not funny, it was horrific. Scarring."

I appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood, but it fell flat. "Oh, this was scarring alright, just not in the way you mean." I sighed. "My junior year of high school was . . . well, to say it was hectic would be like saying the Grand Canyon is just a teensy hole in the ground. Between SATs, tennis, dance, piano, AP tests, Student Council, and a half million other things, I ended up running myself into the ground. I wasn't sleeping nearly as much as I needed to, and I was lucky if I grabbed a yogurt for breakfast and had anything more than a granola bar the rest of the day." I took a deep breath in and let it out, staring down at my feet. I pretended I was suddenly mesmerized by the way the thin leather straps of my wedges crisscrossed my ankles. "I guess someone noticed I was losing weight, and before I knew it, there was a rumor circulating about how I was anorexic. It spiraled, got picked up by some reporter, and next thing I knew, the story was everywhere. My parents were livid, not that I wasn't pretty p.i.s.sed off myself. Our publicist had a h.e.l.l of a time spinning the story."

Pulling my eyes up to his, I found him watching me, the relaxed smile a distant memory. I shrugged. "It could've been worse, I know that, but now I just steer clear. I'm sure there have been stories since then, but-"

"If a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it . . ."

"Exactly." I pointed to my building as we walked up in front of it. "This is me." I snaked my hand up to the back of my neck and tried to surrept.i.tiously work out the knot that lingered there.

Ian's eyes followed my movement. "Hurt your neck?"

"Yeah, I think I did some permanent damage sleeping on your floor the other night." I smiled up at him, but if anything, the corners of his mouth took a nosedive.

"Let me." He reached out toward my neck, and I turned so that my back was to him. His fingers traced along the edge of my scalp as he brushed my hair to the side, and everywhere his fingertips grazed my skin, gooseb.u.mps p.r.i.c.kled. I hoped he couldn't notice how just a casual touch made my skin s.h.i.+ver.

Kneading his fingers into my neck, he worked them slowly up its length. When he dug his thumbs in the base of my skull, I gave a little groan and swayed toward him. He smelled like rain and cologne with just a faint hint of beer, and more than anything, I just wanted to relax into him.

I didn't.

I kept s.p.a.ce between us, small though it was. I'd meant to finesse my way into asking about the issue of his not dating, to nibble at the edges before chomping down on the gooey center. Sometimes, the direct route is the best one to take.

"Ian, why don't you date?"

His fingers stuttered, then stopped altogether. "Bianca," he said, his voice trailing off at the end, the words steeped in a mixture of warning and frustration. It was like he pulled out a giant flas.h.i.+ng sign and planted it in the ground-danger ahead, turn back now, do not pa.s.s go, do not collect two-hundred dollars. He blew out a breath and it coasted over my skin. "I just don't. Can we please leave it at that for now?"

For a minute, there was nothing but the whoosh of traffic-the sound of tires on wet asphalt, the distant honking of horns, the grinding of breaks long overdue to be fixed-that rose in a chorus around us.

"Sure." I stepped away from him, already missing the touch of his hand the moment that it dropped away. I forced a smile on my face, but the tortured look on his made my heart ache for him. I could speculate for days on end what would make him give up on dating, companions.h.i.+p, love, but while the scenarios were endless, the root of the problem was the same-heartbreak, betrayal, pain. A lot of pain.

Climbing onto the first stair of the entranceway put me at an advantage, and I was able to look down at him for once, rather than up. I lifted my hand and rested it against his cheek. His eyes were pinned to mine, his body frozen underneath my touch. "Letting the fear of something rule your life, isn't any way to live. It's just . . ." I lifted my gaze up to the few stars that managed to push their brightness through the light pollution. This was a lesson I'd only just learned myself, but even in the two months that pa.s.sed, I felt the truth of it straight down to my marrow. Reigning in my swirling emotions, I closed my eyes and took a breath of warm night air. "It's just treading water, standing in place, letting the world carry on without you."

As I leaned toward him, his eyes flared, his pupils widening to the point that they nearly eclipsed the lighter gray irises. I brushed my lips against his cheek, an inch left of where I really wanted them to be. "Thank you for a really great time tonight."

It looked like it took all he had just to nod his head. I hurried up the stairs, letting the door swing closed behind me. Inside my apartment, I made my way over to the window, drawing back the curtain so I could look down at the street below. Ian was gone, the sidewalk empty, but for the periodic swath of headlights as they swept across the darkened cement.

Chapter 16: Ian.

8 Years Earlier "Ian, you're starting to scare me."

I tightened my hold on Maggie's shoulder, the sharpness of her collarbone digging into the tips of my fingers. With a little pressure, I steered her to the right, around a looming boulder that poked out of the ground like a giant middle finger. "Relax, Mags, we're almost there."

She wrinkled her nose, which was just peeking out from underneath the makes.h.i.+ft blindfold I'd wrapped around her eyes. "Easy for you to say, you can see." She grumbled something about corpses and the woods, the fine layer of frost making the leaves crunch beneath her boots.

"Alright, just another two steps. Good." I spread out the worn red and black flannel blanket over the cold surface of the rock, then directed Maggie to sit on it. Fumbling with the knot of the blindfold, I whisked the cloth away.

Maggie blinked her eyes and quirked her head to the side. "This is what you dragged me out of bed at four o'clock for?"

I glanced at my phone, checking the time. "Just give it a little. You'll see."

She lifted one imperious eyebrow at me-or at least she tried. Maggie was incapable of lifting one eyebrow without the other, so when one went up, so did the other. I tweaked her nose, and she scooted closer so she could snuggle up against my side. Dropping an arm around her shoulders, I rested my chin on the top of her head, and we waited.

It started so slowly that at first it was like nothing really changed. The dark heaviness of the early morning gave way to a faded gray that seemed to make the air lighter. Purple came next, a deep one like grape jelly. It rode the waves of the lake below us, spreading out until it coated everything we could see.

Maggie sat up straighter, my arm falling from her shoulders.

The sun crept up from the horizon, announcing its arrival with vivid hues of orange and pink and gold that seemed to blend together, bleeding into each other like a watercolor painting that had just a touch too much water. We sat there in the stillness, just breathing it all in. The air was chilled, and our breaths puffed out from between our lips in little clouds, but when the sun's rays finally hit my face, it was like being doused in warm bath water.

All around us the forest came to life, the wildlife rousing to the subtlest of alarm clocks. As the birds began to chirp and a squirrel nearly scrambled over one of my boots, Maggie turned back around toward me, her hair frizzing out around her face like a bird's nest, and her cheeks a rosy pink.

"I take it back, this was totally worth it. How'd you even find this place? Is it like this every morning? We have to come back, but next time I have to bring my sketchbook and some canvas. We can come back, right?"

I laughed at her. "Of course we can come back. This is my place. My dad and I found it this one time we were hiking, and now I come back when I need to get away, when I need the quiet."

"When you actually need to hear the thoughts in your head?" She tapped a turquoise-painted fingernail against my temple.

I wrapped my fingers around her hand and held it in mine. "Exactly." Turning my gaze back to the lake, I watched as it rippled in waves of gold. "I wanted to show the girl I love the place that I love." My throat shrunk, like someone slipped a noose around my neck as soon as I blurted the words out. It wasn't an accident, I'd been planning to say it, but while I waited to see her reaction, my heart slammed against my ribcage like a prisoner pounding on the bars of his jail cell.

Her entire body went still, freezing in the frozen morning so that she practically blended into the scenery. She tilted her head back, her eyes searching mine. "Did you just say you love me?" Her eyes crinkled at the corners, smiling up at me though her lips had yet to make a move.

"Yeah." I swallowed around the lump in my throat. "I did."

Leaning on her hand, she lifted herself up and the cold tip of her nose brushed against mine. Her lips touched mine, once, twice, her eyes never fluttering shut, holding mine in a captivating stare.

She took a breath, her lips finally curving in a smile. "I love you too."

The rush I felt at that moment was nearly indescribable-joy and hope and love all collided in a fiery explosion that warmed me from the inside out. Snowflakes flurried down from the sky above me, sticking to the tips of Maggie's eyelashes and dusting her hair.

I kissed her again, one smiling mouth meeting another so that our teeth sc.r.a.ped together. Her lips slipped from mine, detouring to the edge of my jaw where she worked her way from the corner of my chin to where my pulse thrummed out an erratic rhythm just below. She worked her tongue around the sh.e.l.l of my earlobe and whispered, "C'mon."

Popping up to her feet, she held out a hand and I took it. We hurried through the woods hand in hand, me taking the lead when I realized she was heading for the car but was going in the wrong direction. The old Subaru was sitting exactly where we left it, hibernating in a small dirt patch that served as a parking lot.

Opening the back door, she gestured for me to get in. I slipped in first, and she climbed in right after me, straddling me in the backseat.

"Maggie," I said. "What're you doing?"

She shrugged out of her coat, tossing it to the other end of the seat. Her fingers tugged the zipper of my jacket as she answered. "I always said the next time I did this I'd be in love. I'm tired of waiting. I want everything with you, Ian."

I ran my hands up her thighs, letting them come to rest on her jean-clad hips. "Here? Are you sure? Because we don't-"

Her lips were on mine before I could get another word out. I think I wanted Maggie before I even met her. Where this happened was irrelevant to me, but I wanted it to be special for her. I wanted it to matter. I wanted this moment, this memory, to be seared on her soul, so she could never forget, even if one day she wanted to.

I slipped my tongue in her mouth, tasting the light and sweet coffee I'd bought her on the way here in an effort to win back some points for waking her up so early. She tugged my bottom lip between her teeth, giving it a nibble. My fingers crept up over her hips, slipping underneath the hem of her s.h.i.+rt. When my cold fingertips touched her warm stomach, she s.h.i.+vered, gooseb.u.mps tracing a path up her torso.

A tiny blob of orange paint dotted her earlobe. "I never even stopped to ask if this is what you wanted. I mean, I know you want this"-she gave a meaningful glance to the very obvious evidence of that statement-"but your first time should be something special. Maybe it shouldn't be in some c.r.a.ppy old car with barely enough room to move. I want it to be . . . all the things it wasn't for me the first time around." She lifted her shoulder in a half shrug.

"Hey." I cupped my hand around her cheek, pinning her eyes with mine. "It doesn't matter where we are, or whether this happens right now or a year from now. This is special because it's you. Anything else doesn't matter."

Her eyes shone-with love, with tears, with happiness-I couldn't tell. She brushed her lips against mine again, the words "I love you" whispering in the s.p.a.ce between our mouths. Her hands were everywhere, and so were mine-touching, teasing. The heat swirled around us, fogging the windows and making the world disappear.

I'm not sure who moved first, but all of a sudden we were moving together. It was clumsy and awkward, all heavy breaths and stifled groans, with not quite enough room for everything to be comfortable. My knees pressed against the back of the pa.s.senger seat, and her hair brushed against the roof. And for all its imperfections, for all the ways it wasn't the picture of perfection, it was my perfect. And I wouldn't have changed a d.a.m.n thing.

Chapter 17: Bianca.

"So, where are you guys going today?" Harper's voice boomed over the speaker phone from where it lay on the bathroom counter. I ran another section of my hair through the straightener. It was amazing how chopping off nearly a foot of hair cut my getting-ready routine in half. I was down to thirty-four minutes from alarm to out the door.

"Don't know. The only information I have is that we're driving somewhere and won't be back until late tonight. Speaking of, hold on." I laid the hair straightener down and rummaged through the medicine cabinet for my Dramamine. I downed two and stuck a few extra tabs in my pocket for good measure.

"Tell me again what he said at dinner last week," Harper said.

I rolled my eyes in the mirror, running ChapStick over my lips. I'd never been a big fan of lipstick (too bold) or lip gloss (too sticky), so I always defaulted to the simple choices-ChapStick, other lip balms, au naturel. "Haven't we already gone over this like a thousand times?"

"Humor me."

"He said, 'I don't date.'"

"And he looked at your b.o.o.bs?"

"He looked at my b.o.o.bs."

"G.o.d, this guy makes no sense." A horn blared from the other end of the phone. "Stay in your own lane, a.s.shole!" I pictured Harper flipping off the other driver as she sped by. "Out-of-state drivers, seriously, they need their own freaking lanes or something."

Stepping back, I took a look in the mirror-a comfortable pair of jeans hugged my b.u.t.t nicely and a slouchy off-the-shoulder black top bared a hint of my collarbone.