Rachel Vincent - My Soul To Take

“Kaylee, please sit down. That’s not what I meant.” His voice was soft. Soothing.

My hands began to relax, and I inhaled deeply.

“Please,” he repeated, and it took every bit of self-control I had to make myself back up and sink onto the padded bench.

With my hands in my lap.

We sat in silence until conversation picked up around us, me staring at the table, him staring at me, if I had to guess.

“Are you okay?” he asked finally, as the waitress set food on the table behind me, and I felt the tension in my shoulders ease as I leaned against the wooden back of the booth.

“I don’t need a doctor.” I made myself look up, ready to stand firm against his argument to the contrary. But it never came.

He sighed, a sound heavy with reluctance. “I know. You need to tell your aunt and uncle.”

“Nash…”

“They might be able to help you, Kaylee. You have to tell someone—”

“They know, okay?” I glanced at the table to find that my fingers were tearing the shredded napkin into even smaller pieces. Shoving them to the side, I met Nash’s gaze, suddenly, recklessly determined to tell him the truth. How much worse could he possibly think of me?

“Last time this happened, I freaked out and started screaming. And I couldn’t stop. They put me in the hospital, and strapped me to a bed, and shot me full of drugs, and didn’t let me out until we all agreed that I’d gotten over my ‘delusions and hysteria’ and wouldn’t need to talk about them anymore. Okay? So I don’t think telling them is going to do much good, unless I want to spend fall break in the mental-health unit.”

Nash blinked, and in the span of a single second, his expression cycled through disbelief, disgust, and outrage before finally settling on fury, his brows low, arms bulging, like he wanted to hit something.

It took me a moment to understand that none of that was directed at me. That he wasn’t angry and embarrassed to be seen out with the school psycho. Probably because no one else knew. No one but Sophie, and her parents had threatened her with social ostracism—total house arrest—if she ever let the family secret out of the proverbial bag.

“How long?” Nash asked, his gaze boring into mine so deeply I wondered if he could see right through my eyes and into my brain.

I sighed and picked at the label on a small bottle of sugar-free syrup. “After a week, I said all the right things, and my uncle took me out against doctor’s orders. They told the school I had the flu.” I was a sophomore then, and nearly a year away from meeting Nash, when Emma started dating a series of his teammates.

Nash closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. “That never should have happened. You’re not crazy. Last night proves that.”

I nodded, numb. If I’d misread him, I’d never be able to walk tall in my own school again. But I couldn’t even work up any irritation over that possibility at the moment. Not with my secrets exposed, my heart laid open and latent terror lurking in the drug-hazy memories I’d hoped to bury.

“You have to tell them again, and—”

“No.”

But he continued, as if I’d never spoken. “—if they don’t believe you, call your dad.”

“No, Nash.”

Before he could argue again, a smooth, pale arm appeared across my field of vision, and the waitress set a plate on the table in front of me, and one in front of him. I hadn’t even heard her approach that time, and based on Nash’s wide eyes, he hadn’t either.

“Okay, you kids dig in. And let me know if I can get you somethin’ else, ’kay?”

We both nodded as she walked off. But I could only cut my pancakes into neat triangles and push them around in the syrup. I had no appetite. Even Nash only picked at his food.

Finally, he put his fork down and cleared his throat until I looked up. “I’m not going to talk you into this, am I?”

I shook my head. He frowned, then sighed and worked up a small smile. “How do you feel about geese?”

After a breakfast I didn’t eat, and Nash didn’t enjoy, we stopped at a sandwich shop, where he bought a bag of day-old bread. Then we headed to White Rock Lake to feed a honking, pecking flock of geese, a couple of which were gutsy little demons. One snatched a piece of bread right out of my hand, nearly taking my finger with it, and another nipped Nash’s shoe when he didn’t pull food from the bag fast enough.

When the bread was gone, we escaped from the geese—barely—for a walk around the lake. The wind whipped my hair into knots and I tripped over a loose board in the pier, but when Nash took my hand, I let him keep it, and the silence between us was comfortable. How could it not be, when he’d now seen every shadow in my soul and every corner in my mind, and hadn’t once called me crazy—or tried to feel me up.

And why not? I wondered, sneaking a glimpse at his profile as he squinted at the sun across the lake. Was I not pretty enough?

No, I didn’t want to be the latest on his rumored list of conquests, but I wouldn’t mind knowing I was worthy.

Nash smiled when he noticed me watching him. His eyes were more green than brown in the sunlight, and they seemed to be churning softly, probably reflecting the motion of the water. “Kaylee, can I ask you something personal?”

Like death and mental illness weren’t personal?

“Only if I get to ask you something.”

He seemed to consider that for a moment, then grinned, flashing a single deep dimple, and squeezed my hand as we walked. “You first.”

“Did you sleep with Laura Bell?”

Nash pulled me to an abrupt halt and arched both brows dramatically over long, beautiful boy-lashes. “That’s not fair. I didn’t ask you who you’ve been with.”

I shrugged, enjoying his discomfort. “Ask away.” I wouldn’t even need any fingers to tick off my list.

He scowled; he obviously had another question in mind. “If I say yes, are you going to get mad?”

I shrugged. “It’s none of my business.”

“Then why do you care?”

Grrr… “Okay, new question.” I tugged him into step again, working up the nerve to ask something I wasn’t sure I really wanted the answer to. But I had to know, before things went any further. “What are you doing here?” I held our joined hands up for emphasis. “What’s in this for you?”

“Your trust, hopefully.”

My head spun just a little bit at that, and I stifled a dazed grin. “That’s it?” I blinked up at him as we stepped onto the pier. Even if that was true, that couldn’t be all of it. I donned a mock frown. “You sure you’re not trying to get laid?”

His grin that time was real as he pulled me close and pressed me gently against the old wooden railing, his lips inches from my nose. “You offering?”

My heart raced and I let my hands linger on his back, tracing the hard planes through his long-sleeved tee. Feeling him pressed against me. Smelling him up close. Considering, just for a single, pulse-tripping moment…

Then I landed back on earth with a fantasy-shattering thud.

The last thing I needed was to be listed among Nash Hudson’s past castoffs. But before I could figure out how to say that without pissing him off or sounding like a total prude, his eyes flashed with amusement and he leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose.

I gasped, and he laughed. “I’m kidding, Kaylee. I just didn’t expect you to think about it for so long.” He grinned, then stepped back and took my hand again, while I stared at him in astonishment, my cheeks flaming.

“Ask your question before I change my mind.”

His smile faded; the teasing was over. What else could he possibly want to know? What they served for lunch in the psych ward? “What happened to your mom?”