“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t fix anything. Avari’s right—I can’t save you. But I saw Thane tormenting you at lunch, and I couldn’t wait for evidence that may never come through. That psychotic bastard shouldn’t be anywhere near you, and he damn well shouldn’t be the last thing you ever see.” He glanced at the gloves lying between us on the floor, and when he looked up again, the fierce ache in my heart swelled until I thought it would burst, and that falling feeling was back, like I might never regain my balance. So I did the only thing I could think of to bring the world back into focus and make sense of the waves of confusion lapping at me from all sides. I stood on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck.
Then I kissed Tod.
15
Tod’s arms slid around me like they were always meant to be there, and that sense of belonging was so strong that it took me a second to realize what I was doing. And to remember I wasn’t supposed to be doing it.
I stepped back and stared up at him, and one hand went to my mouth automatically, like covering it up would erase what I’d just done.
“I’m so sorry…” I took another step back, drowning in confusion and guilt, and in the giddy, reckless joy that threatened to overwhelm them both, in spite of my best effort to deny it. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
What the hell am I doing? And why didn’t it feel wrong? Vaguely I was aware that we were both fully visible, in the middle of the school, and those were just two of the many problems with what had just happened.
“Did you mean it?” His eyes churned urgently now, a collision of hunger and uncertainty. “Was that real, or were you just granting my last wish?”
“That was your last wish? A kiss?” Most guys would have wished for…more.
“I could have kissed you months ago, but it wouldn’t have meant anything. I wished for you to see me. And want me. So…did you mean it?” Fragile hope peeked out at me from behind the smug self-assurance I now recognized as his mask. As armor, against a world that no longer claimed or understood him, and suddenly I realized he wasn’t breathing. He was just waiting. For me.
“Yes,” I said, and some unnamed tension inside me eased. “I see you, Tod.”
And in that moment, I saw nothing else in the world.
Tod kissed me, and I fell into that kiss like Alice into Wonderland, headfirst and flailing, heart pounding the whole time. The world spun around me and still I fell, and I only crashed down to earth again when someone called my name.
“Kaylee?” Nash said, and I jerked away from Tod so fast I nearly tripped over the rubber gloves at my feet.
Nash stood at the end of the hall with Sabine, his phone in hand, like he was about to dial. Or like he just had. And before I could even complete that thought, my phone buzzed with a text message, probably a check-in from Nash, who’d thought I was watching Emma and Beck.
Shit! Emma…!
Nash stared at me, his expression cycling through pain and anger so fast I could see the tempest churning in his eyes from down the hall. “You said you weren’t… You said there was nothing…” Then he stopped, like the words had gotten tangled up in his mouth, and he couldn’t spit them out straight.
“There wasn’t,” I said, struggling for a deep breath against the tightening in my chest. “It just happened. I’m so sorry.” Tod had risked his afterlife to give me peace, and suddenly I saw what had been there all along. But the timing could not have been worse.
“I told you he’d do this.” Nash turned his fury on Tod. “How could you do this?” he shouted, storming toward us without waiting for an answer, and a door squealed open around the corner as some after-school club heard the very public fallout of my not-so-private life.
I stepped into his path, trying to hold him back from Tod with both hands on his chest. But Nash just kept coming, and I had to walk backward with him.
“Sabine, a little help?” I called over his shoulder, but she only crossed her arms.
“Nah, I think I’m gonna sit this one out.” Blatant satisfaction glittered in her black eyes, like she’d known about Tod the whole time. Like she’d been waiting for this.
“Nash, please calm down,” I begged softly, mortified to realize the Mathletes could hear us now. They wouldn’t know exactly what had happened, or who Tod was, but rumors would fly the next day—Wednesday. Not that it would matter. With any luck, by Thursday my death would eclipse even the worst of the gossip. “Let’s go outside and talk.”
“It’s okay, Kaylee,” Tod said from behind me, and I could hear the strain in his voice. “You can let him go. He has a right to be mad.”
Nash finally stopped trying to push past me and glared at his brother over my head. “Don’t tell me what I have a right to feel. And don’t talk to her like she should listen to you. You don’t get to talk to her, and you damn sure don’t get to kiss my girlfriend!”
My cheeks burned. So much for no one knowing what had happened…
“Nash…” I said again, trying to get his attention. “We didn’t plan this.”
“You might not have, but he did,” Nash whispered fiercely through clenched teeth, either because he’d realized people were listening, or because he couldn’t manage any more volume. “He hates me, because I lived and he died.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tod said softly behind me, and I turned to look at him, drawn by the complex threads of emotion woven through his voice. I’d seen Tod mad, and I’d recently started seeing something else when he looked at me. But this was neither of those. Or maybe it was both. It was guilt, and loyalty, and anger, and fierce, protective love, all so tangled up I couldn’t tell them apart, and I doubted he could, either.
Tod was wrestling with more human emotion than I’d ever seen from him or any other reaper, and for one horrifying moment, I was afraid that it was too much for him. That after only two years dead, he’d lost the ability to process so much at once.
I wasn’t sure I could process it all.
“The hell I don’t!” Nash shouted, and my focus volleyed between them. And vaguely I was aware of the spectators inching closer, trying to hear. “You’re trying to take Kaylee so I’ll be as miserable as you are.”
“Oh, hell, let him have her!” Sabine said, and several of the Mathletes laughed, but Nash and Tod didn’t even look up.
“Nash, listen to me,” I said, fighting for his full attention. “I’m so sorry. But your happiness doesn’t depend on me.” It shouldn’t, anyway. It couldn’t, because no matter how this little disaster ended, he’d be without me forever in two days. And I really needed to know that he could handle that.
He frowned down at me from inches away. “What does that mean? Is this what you want?” he demanded, gesturing behind me at Tod. “You want him?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. What did I want? Did what I wanted even matter, with so little time left in which to want it?
“You call it, Kaylee,” Nash demanded, when I didn’t—when I couldn’t—answer. “Me or him?”
Tears burned in my eyes, and I could barely see past them. Everyone was watching me. Waiting. Listening. And most of them had no idea that no matter what I decided, it would all be over in two days. Which was why I’d tried so hard to make sure Nash would be okay. Because we’d been through a lot together, and I did care about him.
But wasn’t it a little easier than I’d expected, thinking of him and Sabine together after my death? Didn’t it mean something that I kept forgetting about him when I was with Tod? And that I was embarrassed, but not really disappointed every time sex with him failed to happen?
Had Nash and I ever really gotten back what we’d had in the beginning, or had I just held on to him out of habit? Or some misplaced sense of loyalty?