Being Me (Inside Out #2)(90)

Ryan comes out of nowhere and grabs me, pulling me back. Mark yanks Ava against him and she screams bloody murder, fighting against him like some kind of possessed person, blood pouring down her face.

Chris comes to his knees, and he has blood pouring from a gash in his head, too, but he’s got a steady hand on the gun and it’s pointed at Ava as he shouts at Mark, “Get that bitch out of here or I will shoot her!”

Mark drags Ava away from us and police cars screech into the drive. “Don’t move!” a police officer screams at Chris, holding a gun on him. “Drop the weapon.”

My eyes meet Chris’s and hold as he drops the gun and I feel the short distance between us like punishing desert miles. He had secrets he kept from me. I went to Mark for answers. Police swarm the yard, blocking my view of Chris, separating us. We are worlds apart, damaged beyond our bodies, perhaps beyond repair.

? ? ?

Swarms of EMT and police officials surround us and I cannot see Chris, but I am assured he is fine. I don’t feel like he is fine. I don’t feel like anything will ever be fine again. It’s only after Ava is taken away, and I see Chris talking to police across the lawn, that I can breathe again. Only then do I let myself be ushered to an ambulance to be checked out.

It’s there, with a kindly older gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair checking my vitals, that Chris finds me, as he appears at the door looking battered and bruised. The idea that he could have died tonight to save me, because I came here, overwhelms me.

“How’s your head?” I ask, noting the rather large bandage on his forehead.

“I need stitches but I’ll live.” He flicks a glance toward the EMTs. “How’s she looking?”

“Bruised up but she’ll live, too.”

Chris and I stare at each other, and my heart twists at what passes between us, with the certainty we are still worlds apart. The EMT clears his throat. “I’ll be right back,” he says and quickly exits the vehicle, clearly reading our need for a few moments alone.

Chris climbs into the ambulance and sits down next to me. “Blake called. Ava confessed to killing Rebecca.”

My hand balls between my breasts with the impact of this news. “How? When?”

“We have no details, thanks to an attorney who arrived and shut her up, but I suspect we will in the next few days. The private eye you had the encounter with at the storage unit turned over some journals he took from the unit. He’s had some past trouble and wants no part of being connected to a murder. He seems to think they’ll be helpful.”

“More journals,” I say. “More people reading Rebecca’s private thoughts. Like I did.”

“Because of you, she can be properly put to rest. And Ava can be put away before she hurts someone else—like she almost hurt you tonight.”

I turn to him, wishing away the space between us. “You saved my life.”

His reply is slow, his expression shuttered, closed off from me the way he is. “Yeah, well, this time I got protecting you right. Apparently I haven’t done so well in other cases.”

“That’s not true. I just—”

“Had to hear the truth from Mark because you didn’t believe it from me. I know. I get that.”

“You didn’t tell me about Rebecca until I discovered it on my own.”

“I get that, too, but what I can’t seem to get is the fact that you were willing to take his word over mine.” He scrubs his jaw and rests his elbows on his knees. “You say I shut you out when life gets hard. Well, you seem to run to Mark.”

“No, Chris. It’s not like that. Not even close to that.”

“You want honesty, Sara. I’m giving it to you. I knew you’d go to him. That’s why I let you leave the apartment so easily. And I swore if you went to him, it was over between us.”

I am weak all over, trembling from the possibility that he means this. “No, Chris. Mark has nothing to do with us. It hurt that you hadn’t told me everything about Rebecca, and I was still raw over last week.”

“I know. I know, Sara. We are just so damn good at hurting each other.”

“What are you saying?” The question comes out barely there, my voice lodged in my throat with my heart.

“I don’t know what I’m saying. I know I died a thousand deaths tonight when I thought Ava was going to shoot you. I would have died for you tonight; that’s how much I love you.”

“But sometimes love isn’t enough,” I say, repeating his words from back at the club. “Is that where we’re at again?”

“I’m not sure I’m the one who has to answer that question this time, Sara. I think you do.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Excuse me.” I look up to find a police officer at the back of the vehicle and will him away but it doesn’t work. “Ms. McMillan, if you’re up to it, we’d like you to come inside to answer some questions.”

“Of course. Now?”

“That would be the preference.”

Chris climbs out of the ambulance and offers me his hand. I slide my palm in his and warmth spreads up my arm, but the space between us, the damn space, is thick and cold, and I fear it is becoming more impenetrable by the second. I don’t want to leave him. I want the people to go away and leave us alone.