“This is a lot to take in,” she said as they spilled over her lower lashes.
“I know,” he whispered, wiping them away with his thumbs.
“I just…I need to think. There’s so much…” She trailed off and shook her head, and he nodded.
“I know. It’s okay.”
She looked down at him, and he smiled at her, hoping she couldn’t see the sadness behind it.
Leah brought her hand to his cheek, and he leaned into her touch.
“I just…I want you to know that no matter what happens, I know you, Danny,” she said. “I know who you really are.”
He stared up at her, and the vice-like pain in his chest began to soften for the first time since he had entered her apartment. There was nothing she could have said in that moment more perfect than the words she’d just spoken.
Because no matter what she decided after this, even if she chose to walk away and never look back, in a way, she had just absolved him.
She had looked straight through all the horror and the ugliness, and she still saw him.
And when she laid her head back down on his chest, he rested his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes, wondering if there would ever be a man on this planet who was worthy of her.
Leah sat at her desk, spinning a paper clip between her fingers.
She just wanted this day to be over.
Every Tuesday she ran the After-School Help program, or ASH, as the students called it. From two to four thirty, students could come to receive extra help in whatever classes they were struggling with, although most often it was overrun with athletes just looking for a quiet place to do their homework before practice began.
By the time the bell rang after Leah’s last class, it had already felt like the longest day she’d ever experienced, so the two and a half hours she still had to endure before she could go home seemed insurmountable.
She thought work would provide her with a much needed distraction, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t focus on anything except what had happened the day before. She could see everything so vividly—the scene he described, his face as he told her—and she’d spent most of the day on the verge of tears because of it.
The images of Bryan trying to defend himself against three guys—the vicious kick to the head—were burnt into her consciousness, and she hadn’t even been there. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Danny.
She knew if it were her, she would never get over it—watching something that disturbing happen to her best friend.
But Bryan had been more like Danny’s brother.
For a split second, she imagined what it would feel like to watch Christopher suffer that way, and the thought alone was enough to incapacitate her.
And when it wasn’t those images torturing her, it was the memory of that look on his face as he explained everything to her; even worse than the guilt and sadness in his eyes was the defeat, as if he were waiting for her to condemn him, or dismiss him, or recoil from him.
It was absolutely heartbreaking.
He had told her he’d understand if her feelings for him changed, but the truth was, it only reinforced them. Because when he spoke, all she could hear was how he had tried to defend his brother—how he had attempted to protect someone he loved, and he had failed.
He was a good person who made an impulse decision with disastrous results, and Leah just couldn’t get past the unfairness of it all—that Bryan was gone over something so senseless, that Danny would be paying such a heavy price for something that was clearly an accident.
That she was about to lose another person she cared about.
He was the first person she had allowed past her defenses in years, and he was going away. How many times could that happen to one person? How many times would she be forced to endure it?
She didn’t know if she could survive it again.
It made her want to grab two handfuls of her hair and scream, because all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and protect him from what was coming his way. But if she did that, who would protect her?
She already cared about him so much, and it frightened her to think of how much she might feel for him if she continued down this path. Could she withstand that? Letting herself fall for him completely and then losing him? For years?
She couldn’t imagine cutting him out of her life, but at the same time, it would be incredibly foolish and careless to keep going like this. There was no right answer, and thinking of it made her feel disoriented and irritable and completely exhausted.
By the time ASH ended, Leah felt weak, like she might be coming down with the sickness she’d been lying about all day whenever people asked her what was wrong with her. She got in her car, desperate to get home and crawl into bed, but as soon as she started it up, she heard Holly’s ring tone playing from somewhere inside her purse.
Leah threw the car into reverse before she pulled the phone from her bag.
“What’s up?” she said, holding the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she craned her neck to back out of the space.
“Ughhh! I’m about to lose it. Are you done with that extra-help thing?”
“Yeah, I’m on my way home right now. What’s wrong?”
“I need your help. Can you come to Evan’s apartment?”
“Right now?” Leah asked.
“Right now.”
“Why? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m just under a time crunch and I really need your help. Please? I’ll explain when you get here.”
Leah’s shoulders dropped in defeat as she exhaled softly. This day was never going to end.
“Alright. I’ll be there in like fifteen minutes.”
“Oh thank God,” Holly said as she exhaled. “Okay, see you then.”
Leah ended the call and tossed her phone into her bag. She pulled off the road and made a U-turn, hoping Holly would be a better distraction than work had been.
About twenty minutes later, Leah walked up to Evan’s front door, stopping as she heard a muted thud followed by Holly’s chorus of “goddamn stupid-ass motherfucking piece of shit!”
Leah smiled her first genuine smile of the day before she knocked softly.
“Holly?”
“Come in!” she called, and Leah opened the door and froze.
Holly was sitting in the middle of Evan’s living room, surrounded by pieces of black lacquered wood, a bunch of crumpled papers, several panes of glass, a sea of screws and bolts, and multiple screwdrivers. She looked up, her expression pathetic as she blew her bangs out of her eyes with a huff.
“Hey,” she said weakly.
“What the hell is all this?” Leah asked, and Holly dropped her face into her hands and whimpered.
“Evan’s anniversary present.”
“You got him debris?” she asked, dropping her purse on the dining room table before she tiptoed through the living room, trying not to step on anything.
“Our three-year anniversary is tomorrow, and he’s been wanting this entertainment center forever, but since we’re trying to save up to buy a place, he won’t spend the money on himself, so I wanted to surprise him, and I bought it, but I didn’t realize I’d have to put it together, and he’s gonna be home in like two hours, and I’m so totally fucked,” she ranted, swatting at one of the crumpled pieces of paper and sending it flying across the room.
“Okay, relax,” Leah said with a laugh as she sat down next to her. “We’re two college-educated women; we should be able to put this thing together in a couple of hours. I mean, there are instructions, right? We’ll just follow them. How hard can it be?”
Holly looked at her incredulously as she gestured to the disaster on the floor in front of them, and Leah smiled. “Alright, go in the kitchen. Take a break. Get us something to snack on and let me reorganize everything in here.”
“Okay,” Holly said as she stood, stretching her arms over her head before she hopped over the mess in front of her and made her way to the kitchen.