Jennifer Armentrout - Don’t Look Back

A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down. My palms were raw. Changing slowly into a tank top and sleep shorts, I saw that my knees hadn’t fared much better. At least the whole falling-down part was real.

In a daze, I brushed my teeth twice and then crawled into bed. There I stayed, forcing my eyes closed. Mom visited me once. She didn’t say much, but her manicured nails were chewed down to their beds.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, moving to the door.

I said nothing.

“I … I love you, honey.”

There was nothing for me to say. The words were on the tip of my tongue. Fighting or not, memories or no memories, I still loved her, but nothing came out. She stared at me with weary, sad eyes and then left.

She thought I was capable of killing someone. No leaps of imagination were required to assume she also thought I was crazy.

Scott stopped in just before ten, but I didn’t speak to him, either. I pretended to sleep, and then I did sleep. Sleeping didn’t require thinking. Thinking led to questioning my mental state.

Sometime later, something soft caressed my nose. The scent reminded me of spring and early summer. I pried my eyes open. One of Del’s roses was right in my face, but the tan fingers around the glistening stem didn’t belong to my boyfriend.

Carson’s cocky grin went up a notch. “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.”

“Are you really here?”

He lowered the rose. “Yeah, I’m here. Why would you ask that?”

Explaining that I was experiencing vivid hallucinations probably wasn’t the route to go. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, and once my brain caught up with the fact that he was really here, there was a fluttering in my chest. I decided to go with, “What are you doing here?”

He leaned against the headboard, stretching out his long legs. Shoes were off, revealing plaid socks. “I wanted to see you. You gave us all a scare, Sam. Again.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, sitting up. A wave of dizziness rolled through me as I clutched the comforter to my neck. Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was only a little past ten in the morning. “Skipping school?”

“Yep.” He laid the rose on his thigh and then folded his arms behind his head.

“How did you get in here?”

The cocky grin was back, and I had trouble keeping my eyes on anything other than his totally kissable lips. “Dad is working in the game room, installing new floors. I waited until your mom left and snuck in.”

I stared at him.

A bit of indecision crawled into his deep azure eyes. “Scott knows I’m here.”

I didn’t have any words for the rush that was building in me, swelling with each breath I took. Emotions swirled and whipped like soaring birds, thrilling, hopeful, and so, so confusing.

“I … can leave if you want me to.”

“No,” I said quickly. “No. You don’t have to leave. I’m just surprised.”

His eyes met and held mine. “Your parents wouldn’t let anyone see you.” He paused, looking away. Some of the casualness leaked out of his posture, tightening his biceps. “Scott’s worried.”

My fist dug into the comforter with disappointment. “So that’s why you’re here? Because my brother’s worried?”

Carson’s head snapped in my direction. His brows were low, expression serious. “Sam, I’m here because I was worried.”

“Oh.” My cheeks flushed as I lowered my gaze to his lips— damn it . “I’m okay.”

“Are you?” The serious look was still there as he searched my face intently.

I nodded.

Slowly, he lowered his arms and reached out, carefully running his fingers over the nasty bruise on my forehead. “What happened?”

The brief butterfly touch sent shivers over my skin. “I had a car accident.”

His look turned droll as he placed his arms back behind his head. “I got that much.”

I bit my dry lip as I glanced at the seat. The contents of my purse were still there. No note. No guy in the backseat. And there was a good chance there had been no man in the woods.

Throat dry, I peeked at him. “Stay?”

Carson arched a brow. “Not going anywhere.”

My mind was confused by how happy that made my heart and body. Nodding, I threw off the comforter, climbed off the bed, and headed into my bathroom. I brushed my teeth and washed my face quickly. When I walked out of the bathroom, Carson was where I’d left him. I grabbed a bottle of water off the desk and took two aspirins instead of the pain meds. I started to ask if he wanted anything to drink, but he had an energy drink on the floor beside the bed.

His eyes followed me back to the bed, and just then I realized I was only wearing a pair of tiny sleep shorts and a thin tank top. I had a feeling the old Sammy would’ve slowed down or swayed her hips, but I hurried to the bed and slipped under the quilt instead of the covers, flushing from head to toe.

Carson chuckled.

“Shut up,” I muttered.

He twisted onto his side, facing me, eyes sparkling with mischief. “What? I like the look.”

I rolled my eyes and snuggled down. “You’re here to talk about my pajamas?”

“No, but it’s not a bad conversation starter.” Carson scooted down so that he was stretched out beside me. With just the patchwork quilt between us, it felt so strange to be lying in bed beside him. Strange but good. “You going to tell me what happened?”

“Did my brother tell you anything?”

Carson smiled faintly. “No.”

The urge was there, like it had been with Mrs. Messer on Wednesday. I wanted—needed—to tell someone, and there was the level of explicit trust with Carson. And he was here because he cared . Del could’ve snuck in if he was really concerned. That wasn’t fair, and I knew it, but it was the truth.

Carson was here.

Here even after I spent a good five or six years being a tool to him. He’d already seen the worst of me. My faults were exposed to him like live wire.

I drew in a shallow breath. “I think I’m crazy.”

It seemed as if Carson was expecting me to say a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them. His eyes narrowed. “You’re not crazy.”

The sincerity in his voice brought a lump to my throat. “You don’t understand what’s been happening to me.”

“Then tell me,” he said, eyes locked on mine.

And so I did. I told him everything—the notes, everything that had happened at the lake and then in the car. I even told him about my mom’s suspicion and—the worst thing of all—the hallucinations. When I finished, so much pressure lifted off me. Nothing was fixed or better, but I felt as if I could finally breathe for the first time since I came to, walking that lonely, unfamiliar road. I expected him to pat me on the head and then run from the house.

Carson did neither.

“You’re not crazy,” he said vehemently.

“I’m not?” Tears that had been building finally spilled over, coursing down my cheeks. “I really can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not real anymore.”

He inched closer, chasing the tears away with his thumb. “Look, there’s got to be an explanation for a lot of these things. You said Scott saw the first note, right? And I saw you with the yellow piece of paper in bio that one day. Those notes existed.”

“But what about the one in the car? I didn’t even have my purse with me, and I would have sworn that it was there.”

“Look, I’m not ruling out stress. When my … when my mom died, my dad thought he did so many things that he didn’t do. Once he left the car running and blamed me for it. He even wrote notes, like to-do lists, and then forgot he did it.” He caught another tear, wiping it away. “And you said the guy was kind of like a black blur?”