Alyssa Marie Walters was rapping to Eminem. And she was fucking incredible. She put her all into it, hand gestures, facial expressions, giving it everything she had. She was so wild and beautiful in that moment. Free.

When the chorus came up, she looked at me, and I started singing again, high-pitched and terrible.

Then, she rapped again, nailing every word.

When it came to the last verse, the hardest verse she had to rap, she took a deep breath. She locked eyes with me, and before she started, her shirt collar rested between her lips. She nodded once. I nodded once. She dropped the collar, and started rapping the final verse directly to me.

And it was fucking sexy.

Her body swayed back and forth, she became the words and the words soaked her in, and once she finished, she dropped the microphone, the crowd went wild, and I sang the final Rihanna chorus to her.

When we finished, we couldn’t stop laughing. We wrapped each other into a tight hug, as the people in the audience cheered us on, begging for an encore.

We performed five more songs before we retired to a booth in the back of the bar for a few celebratory drinks.

We stayed most of the night, chatting about anything and everything. We laughed more than we had in a long time. For a while, it felt like it used to.

Her laughs became my inhales. Her smiles were my heartbeats.

I watched her mouth move as she told a long story about something or another. Truth was, I stopped listening. I stopped listening a long time ago, because my mind was somewhere else.

I wanted to tell her how I felt about her, all over again. I wanted to tell her how I was falling for her once more. I wanted to tell her how I still loved her wild hair, and still loved her mouth that was always chattering about something or another.

I wanted to…

“Logan,” she whispered, frozen in the booth. My hands had somehow landed against her lower back and I guided her closer to me. My lips hovered inches away from her mouth. Her heavy exhales were mixing with my deep inhales, as both of our bodies shook in each other’s hold. “What are you doing?”

What was I doing? Why were our lips so close? Why were our bodies pressed against each other? Why couldn’t I break my stare? Why was I falling in love with my best friend all over again?

“Truth or lie?” I asked.

“Lie.”

“I’m not addicted to your smile. Your eyes don’t make my heart race. Your laughter doesn’t give me chills. Your peach shampoo doesn’t drive me crazy, and when you chew on your shirt collar I don’t fall deeper in love with you. Because I’m not. I’m not in love with you.”

Her inhales grew deeper and her exhales were heavy. “And the truth?”

“The truth is I want you. I want you back in my life, in all ways and more. I can’t stop thinking about you, High. Not to escape reality, but to embrace it. You’re my heart. You’re my soul. I want you. All of you. And more than anything right now, I want to kiss you.”

“Lo…” Her voice was shaky. “You’re still the first person I think of when I wake up. You’re still the one that I miss when you’re not beside me. You’re still the only thing that ever felt right to me. And if I were honest, I’d say that I want you to kiss me. I’ve wanted you to kiss me all my life.”

I locked my fingers with hers.

“Nervous?” I asked.

“Nervous,” she replied.

I shrugged.

She shrugged.

I laughed.

She laughed.

I parted my lips.

She parted her lips.

I leaned in.

She leaned in.

And I was reminded of the yesterdays that set my world on fire. We kissed for a long time in that booth, making up for all of the mistakes of our past and forgiving one another for all of the mistakes of our future.

It was beautiful. It was right. It was ours.

But of course with all the highs, always came the lows.

Alyssa’s phone rang, and we pulled away from one another. When she answered, I could tell something was wrong. “What’s up, Erika?”

Pause.

“Is he okay?”

My gut tightened as I sat up straight.

“We’ll be there soon. Okay. Bye.”

“What is it?” I asked as she hung up.

“It’s Kellan. He’s in the hospital. We have to go. Now.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Logan

“What happened?” I asked, rushing into Kellan’s hospital room. Kellan was lying in his bed, IVs hooked up to his arms. “Kel, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I don’t know why she called you guys. There’s nothing wrong.”

“He was walking to the bathroom and he passed out in the hallway,” Erika said, sitting in a chair, rocking back and forth slightly, with her hands tucked under her thighs.

“I came to, right away,” he argued. “I’m fine.”

“Kellan, you couldn’t walk, and you forgot my name.”

Kellan opened his mouth to speak, but a sigh left him instead. He closed his eyes. He was tired. Breaking down more and more each day, and I couldn’t help but wonder when the chemotherapy would start fixing him. It seemed as if it was only breaking him down.

Erika stood up, taking Alyssa and me to the side of the room to talk while Kellan fell asleep. She wrapped her arms around her body, and leaned against the closest wall. “The doctors are running a few more tests. He’s just so tired and weak. The nurse said they can send us home with a wheelchair and it might help him get around, but he said he didn’t want it. He’s being so prideful. But, he needs…” She wiped her hands over her eyes, before resting them on top of her head. “We just need to help him. He’s not the type to ever say he needs help. He’s always been the one who helped others. But he needs our help. Even if he tries to push us away.”

“Anything you need, I’m there,” I said. “Anything he needs.” Erika gave me a tight smile. Her eyes were heavy, too. Sleep deprived. I was almost certain whenever Kellan closed his eyes at night, hers stayed wide awake. “You need help too, Erika. You don’t have to do everything. That’s why I’m here.”

“It’s just,” her voice trembled as she glanced back to Kellan. “It’s just time to start realizing that things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better. That scares me. I’m terrified. Logan, if anything happens… If anything happens to him…” She began to cry, and I pulled her out of the hospital room, into the hallway, and wrapped her into a tight hug. “I can’t lose him. I can’t.”