The Program (The Program #1)(51)

“Obviously my parents had called,” I say to Dr. Warren. “They’d given him the heads-up that I was probably on my way.” I stop talking then, opting instead to relax into the memory. Recognize the moment when James and I knew we were forever.

“I love your son,” I told Mr. Murphy as I backed off the porch. “Not because of Brady or anything else. I’m in love with him.”

James’s father lowered his eyes, and then he shut the front door, blocking me out. I stood there, stunned for a moment. But when I headed back to my car, I heard a whistle. I turned to see James running toward me, backpack over his shoulder.

“What are you—”

His face was expressionless. “Let’s go.” He pulled me to my car, and we got in. I drove away, but James looked like he’d been crying.

“James,” I started. “They said that—”

“Sloane,” he interrupted, staring at me intently. “They can’t keep me from you.”

“Then what do we do?” I asked.

He pointed straight ahead. “Just drive.”

Dr. Warren shifts behind her desk, and I look at her. She nods her head, encouraging me to remember everything.

“James and I ran away,” I tell her. “We went to a campsite with yurts—those tentlike buildings already set up—and James rented it for the rest of the week. No one questioned him because he paid cash and looked older. When we got inside, it was like our own little house. Our own little life.”

I lean back in the chair in Dr. Warren’s office, my body warm from the drugs. I think about how James and I rearranged the bed and table, making it all our own. We wanted to stay there forever. There was a deck of cards, and somehow James talked me into a game of strip poker, only he lost.

• • •

“Are you purposely losing?” I asked him, laughing.

“Sloane, when winning means getting you naked, you better believe I’m going to try my damnedest to win.” He ran his eyes over my T-shirt and jeans. “You could at least take off a sock to humor me.”

So I did, taking it off slowly and then tossing it across the room. James’s face changed then, the playfulness fading. “Sloane,” he whispered, laying down his cards. “I love you. You make me feel right.”

James crawled over the cards on the floor and stopped in front of me, his face close to mine, studying me. “I love the way you laugh. Cry. I love to make you smile.” He touched my cheek, and I grinned instinctively. “Make you moan.”

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach, and I reached to put my arms around his neck.

“Baby,” he continued, “I’m going to live the rest of my life with you, or die trying.”

“Don’t talk about dying,” I murmured, kissing softly at his lips.

“You’re the only person I can ever trust. You’re the only one who’ll ever know the real me.”

• • •

“I know James loved me,” I tell Dr. Warren as tears run down my cheeks. “Because I knew him better than anyone ever could. He always acted like nothing was wrong, that he was tough, but inside, Brady’s death tortured him. James hated his father for trying to keep us apart. He resented his mother for leaving when he was a kid. When we were alone, James could be vulnerable, and I loved him then most of all.” I wipe at my face and glare at Dr. Warren. “We were together because we loved each other. And that’s all there ever was.”

Dr. Warren nods slowly, not jotting anything down, just looking on as if she understands. Or maybe it’s fake like everything else. The room is liquidy around me, dreamlike.

“Take this,” she says, sliding me a black pill. It’s different from the usual yellow one I take, and all at once I’m seized with hope. She’s going to help me after all. A smile twitches my lips, and I lean lazily forward and take the pill, swallowing it gratefully. When I do, she exhales, setting her pen down.

“I’m sorry for all you’ve been through, Sloane,” she says like she means it. “You should take a moment to say good-bye.”

I furrow my brow. “Good-bye to who?”

“James.”

The floor seems to drop out from under me, and despite the drugs slowing my movements, I jump out of the chair. No. No. No. I quickly jam my finger down my throat, gagging as Dr. Warren tells me to stop and calls to the nurse. I have to throw up the pill before they can erase him. James.

But the minute I get the pill back up, the relief is short lived. Marilyn walks in with a needle, poised to strip it all away.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I’M SOBBING AS I STUMBLE FROM DR. WARREN’S office. She doesn’t bother to help me. Instead she tells me that it’s okay for me to cry. I swear at her and run my hand along the wall as I head toward the leisure room.

James. James. James. I know these are my last minutes to remember him, and I stop, letting myself slide down the wall to sit on the floor. I rest my head on my bent knees and hold on to what I can.

I see James, smiling broadly as he rakes his fingers through his wet hair. “Come on, Sloane,” he calls from the water. He’s shirtless, the sun glistening off his skin as he stands in the river. I sit on the grass and shake my head.

James walks out of the water, dripping, as he approaches me. He collapses on the blanket, the cool skin of his thigh pressed against my shorts. “One day,” he says, his eyes squinted against the sun, “I’m going to teach you how to swim. And then we’re going to the ocean.”