feels so good against mine. So nice. So right. “I wanna hold your hand forever,” I murmur.
Her breath hitches, and I think she says, “Sleep, Austin,” but her voice, along with the rest of the world, fades to black.
chapter sixteen
All I’m gonna say is that Nyquil should be illegal. The goblins are still picking away at my brain when I pull into Marisa’s driveway on Thursday night. Luckily, the other crap that held me hostage in bed all week is gone. (Trust me, being in bed all week isn’t as awesome as it sounds.) I grab my Chem book, hop down from the truck, and walk up to her front door, ready to get my study date on.
The thing is, I’m finally starting to understand this Chemistry stuff. But this gives me even more of an excuse to come to her house. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
I press the doorbell and wait. Wait. Wait some more, because apparently the Marlowes have this thing where they’re blissfully ignorant of doorbells or something. The door finally opens, with Dr. Marlowe manning its entry.
I nod to him. “Evenin’, Doctor.”
He steps to the side. “Evening, Austin. Marisa’s in her room. Head on up.”
Life lesson: you never question miracles, and a dad telling you to “head on up” to his daughter’s room? One of the most miraculous moments. “Thank you, sir.”
He closes the door as I jog up the stairs. Sure enough, light spills from Marisa’s room and into the hallway. I peek inside the room, where she’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, writing in a notebook. I knock on her door, which is half-open, and smile when her head pops up.
“You look much better,” she says, closing her notebook. “Plague is gone, right? No more goblins?”
“Plague is gone. Goblins are stickin’ around, but at least I’m conscious. And Nyquil-free.” So I won’t be asking to hold your hand forever. Don’t worry.
Her mouth curves up as she walks toward me. “I’ll go grab some snacks.” Squeezing my hand, she reaches up to kiss my cheek. “Make yourself comfy. I’ll be right back.”
As her footsteps trail downstairs, I do just that by kicking off my boots and plopping onto her bed. I take off my cap and put it on her nightstand, which knocks a stack of books off in the process. Crap. I bend over and pick up the mixture of school books, weird girl books with prom-queen-looking cover models, and notebooks. She’s, like, a book hoarder. After everything else is safely (and not nearly as neatly) back in place, the purple notebook she was just writing in lies open on the floor.
I shouldn’t read her personal stuff. That’s the first rule in the history of rules: never read a girl’s journal, or diary, or even her freakin’ notebook. But the scrawled writing across the first page practically screams at me as I pick it up.
I’m slipping again. Nothing’s helping. Nothing.
I don’t know what to do.
My heart races as I glance to the doorway. What the hell does “slipping” mean? Not literally, I’m assuming, considering it’s kind of hard to slip and write at the same time. But it’s not like I can ask her what it means, because then she’ll know I was reading her stuff, and then I’ll be the one mysteriously “slipping” down the stairs with a pissed-off girlfriend at the top. And I value my pitching arm a little too much for that to be a possibility.
Footsteps pound up the stairs. I slam the notebook closed and place it on top of the pile. Marisa appears in the doorway, cute and happy and sweet as ever with that smile that drives me wild. And all I can think about is what I read on that stupid piece of paper. This is what I get for being a nosy ass.
“Hey,” she says, crossing the room with our bowl of popcorn. “You okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
My mouth opens, but no words come. Come on, words. You can do it. Speeeeeak.
I got nothin’.
She sits next to me on the bed, the springs squeaking beneath us. She cringes, and finally, a laugh bubbles up in my throat. It’s ridiculous and creepy and borderline psychotic, but it’s better than silence. She nudges me over until I’m in the middle of the bed, and when I look into her eyes, all I see are scribbled words and scars etched into her skin. And I hope to God they’re not connected.