Page 119
Richard’s hand was on the back of my neck. And it was cool, and solid, and sure. He smelled like pine cones and cocoa, and his leather jacket rustled as he sunk to his knees beside me. And then he pulled me into a hug—and I just…I just caved in.
I shook and shook and shook, and my lungs wheezed—but no tears came.
They couldn’t, they wouldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped out. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Richard replied, holding me tight—like he had the day Mom had told me the truth and I’d learned the monsters I’d been frightened of were real.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped again. “I’m so—I’m so?—”
“Shhhh, no. It’s fine. It’s fine.” Richard squeezed me tighter. “No one blames you.”
“They should—” It hurt. Everything hurt. “You should?—”
“You were nine.”
“I was stupid?—”
“You were a kid.”
“I fucked up.”
“You did,” Richard agreed, slicing me in two. “But if you think you’re the only person who’s fucked up, you’re dead wrong. And if you think you won’t again, you’re wrong about that too.” Richard clutched me tighter. “Everyone fucks up.”
“You don’t.”
“Yeah, I do,” Richard laughed, breath leaving him in a tight gust. “I do all the fucking time. Why do you think I’m so anal retentive?”
I frowned, twisting to look at him. His eyes were red. They weren’t brown like I remembered, but everything about him was the same—just bigger, broader, and paler. He may have been a vampire, but he was still the kid I’d wasted summers with. Still the kid who’d made me breakfast because I was scared of the flame. Still my brother.
“We’re brothers,” Richard said, pretty much reading my mind, even though he probably didn’t mean to. He pulled his hand from my neck, and I missed it immediately, watching him blearily, my chest heaving with each ragged breath as he spat in his palm and held it out to me. The same fucking spit shake we’d done when we were little.
A pact.
“Blood is blood,” Richard said, waiting patiently, his red eyes serious. “And I’ll always love you.”
“Even when I suck?”
“Especially then.” I stared at him blankly for a second as memories of our childhood—however short-lived it had been—assaulted my senses.
My heart ached for what we’d lost.
But I could see in his eyes that there was no anger there.
Only relief.
Only warmth.
I looked for a lie, but there was none.
Maybe Richard understood what it felt like to drown better than I’d thought.
So I spat in my palm too, my heart skittering as I stared at him—really fucking stared. The same way I’d looked at Collin. Like I was seeing him for the first time.
I spat in my palm.
When we pressed our hands together, some of the weight on my shoulders fell away. I could breathe a little. And the tension that had sat like a wall between us since I’d moved back into town, finally disappeared.