Bad Boy Blues(47)

Before I can say anything to that, Zach lowers his chest onto me. My eyes flutter closed before opening and focusing on his.

“What’s the blue in your eyes?” he asks, shutting up all my questions. His fingers curl up in my strands. “It’s different than your hair.”

My entire scalp tingles. “T-turquoise.”

“Like the ocean.”

“Yes.”

“That was the first thing I saw. After I got out of here. The ocean,” he tells me, sounding almost wistful. “Reminded me of your eyes. Reminded me I was free for the first time ever.”

“Free from what?”

“From this place. From them.”

Yeah, I wasn’t paying attention before, back in school.

Zach was lonely. He was so, so lonely.

Just like I was. In that school.

I unfist my hand from around his t-shirt and slowly, carefully reach up. I sweep the strands of his hair aside and rake my nails down his scalp.

“How long were you down there, in the hole?” I ask.

“All night.”

Horrified, my gaze flies to his. I think Art was in there for an hour and I shake every time I think of those sixty minutes.

Right now, I’m frozen. Can’t even breathe. Can’t even think.

All I can do is look up at him in a dull sort of panic.

“B-but they came for you? Right? They pulled you out.”

“Nora found me. But no, they never came.”

They.

His parents. They never came.

“I was jealous of the kid, can you believe it?” He chuckles humorlessly. “I was jealous that everyone came for him. When…”

No one came for him.

“How could they not come?”

His lips stretch into a cold but also self-deprecating smile. “Because I’ve been expendable. An afterthought.”

I feel a blast of heat in my chest. It takes me a second to realize that it’s anger. On his behalf. It has a different flavor than the anger I’ve felt at him.

It’s a little more potent, more explosive than any other kind of anger.

How can he be an afterthought for anyone?

He’s been my very first thought, my last thought, my only thought, for years. For years, all I’ve done is revolve around him.

Round and round and round.

“You’re a lot of things, Zach, but you’re not an afterthought. You can never be an afterthought,” I tell him fiercely, honestly.

He’s always been my nucleus of everything.

I look at him, his face, the sky at his back.

Yeah, he’s a lot of things but he’s not an afterthought.

A second later, he grips my wrist in an unflinching hold. With a clenched jaw and brutal eyes that bore into mine, he takes my hand off his face.

I’m confused as to what happened when he stands up. It was all so sudden that I crash back down to earth and my mind is reeling.

Zach takes a stumbling step away from me and I manage to sit up. “What are you doing?”

“Getting out of here,” he says in a brusque tone, stumbling again.

I come to my feet and catch his arm to steady him. He shakes off my hold and begins walking again.

“Zach,” I call out, following him. “What the fuck are you doing? You can’t even walk. Let me help you.”

“Leave me alone.”

Two steps before he stumbles once more and I have to grab hold of him again.

“Jesus, what?” he snaps.

“Hey, I’m trying to help you. Do you want to fall to your death?”

“Are you saying you want to save me if that happens?”

We both stare at each other in mutiny. I have no clue how we got here. One second, he was okay, just lethargic, and now, he’s as mean as he is when he’s sober.

“I’m saying that I’m not selfish and cruel like you. You never helped me but I’m going to because I’m a nice person.” He opens his mouth to argue, I’m sure, but I put my hand on his lips to stop him. “And the sooner I help you to your room, the sooner I can get back to sleep.”

Three breaths.

That’s how long he takes to clench his jaw and acquiesce.

I feel it all on my palm. His puffs of air, that hard clamp of his bones, his rough night-time stubble. And from my palm all of it goes down to my belly, making it tug and ache.

It takes us a few minutes to make our way back to the mansion’s service entrance. I enter the code to get access.

The nightlights illuminate the empty hallways. I know I’m courting danger but I couldn’t just leave him there.

Thank God for the sleeping staff.

Zach has enough presence of mind to grab the bannister with one hand whenever it’s time to climb the stairs.

Finally, we’re at Zach’s door. As soon as we enter, he loses all energy and all but face-plants on the floor. Grunting, I push him toward his bed so if he wants to fall, the mattress will be there to break it. When he goes down and crash-lands on the bed, I breathe a sigh of relief and stretch my back.

I cover him with his blanket and then go ahead and take off his dusty, grass-stained boots, too.

As I set them by his bed, I notice his book is lying sprawled much like him, pages open and folded at the ends.

I pick it up and smooth them down. There are pieces of a broken pencil, just a few inches away from the book. I pick them up, as well, rolling them around in my palm.