All Falls Down by Ayden K. Morgen Page B

locked on me, drawing me in to utter madness.
    I can't find the willpower to stop it.
    We stand there for the longest, not saying a word. We're just staring. Memorizing. The little scar by his lip. The way his eyes sparkle beneath the lights lining the walkway. The little piece of hair on top of his head that stands straight up and waves to and fro with each shift of wind. He truly is beautiful.
    "I have to ask you something," he says suddenly.
    The hand I didn't even realize I'd lifted toward his face drops at the sound of his voice. I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. I finally give up on speech and just nod. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately.
    "Do you love him?" he asks after a moment. His expression is the most serious I've ever seen. It all but scorches me as he waits for an answer, focused solely on me.
    And for a minute, I'm completely lost.
    Do I love who? I wonder. And then realization dawns.
    Toby. He's talking about Toby.
    "No," I whisper. My throat is raw, but oddly, it makes the denial that much more emphatic and certain sounding. And that's just fine with me; it's nothing but the truth. I don't love Toby. I haven't in a long time.
    "Thank God," Jared whispers, and then he's pulling me back into his arms, up against the hard warmth of his chest.
    He feels more like home than anything else ever has. His heart thumps hard beneath my ear, and I wonder again what I'm doing. What we're doing. I want to ask him about Lexi – turnabout is only fair play, after all – but I can't force the question out. I'm not sure I'm ready to hear the answer yet. If it's a yes, I think I may hate him for it. And if it's a no? Well, I think I may hate me for that.
    God… why is life so fucking hard?
    Listening to the way his heart pounds beneath my ear, I can't help but remember exactly when it stopped being easy and started hurting.
    I'm walking toward the guesthouse, my backpack slung over my shoulder when I hear Caitlyn behind me. "Savannah?"
    I stop walking and turn around, a smile hovering at my lips. It never fully forms when I catch sight of her expression. She's beautiful – as fair complexioned as her daughters – and has the most gorgeous blue eyes I've ever seen in my life. They always sparkle. Even when she's angry, they sparkle like sunlight dappled across seawater.
    They aren't sparkling today.
    They're wide – full of apologies and regret. Rimmed in red.
    " What's wrong, Caitlyn?"
    My throat is tight and my hands are numb. My body already knows that something dire is coming and is preparing to absorb the brunt of whatever agony she's about to lay at my feet. She doesn't say anything for the longest time though. She just stares at me with those sad blue eyes.
    And then she opens her mouth. "Melinda moved out this morning."
    Nothing she says after that one sentence makes sense to me. It's all just random strings of words, put in some order that just can't be possible. They're Grecian, ancient Roman… some language I don't understand.
    " I'm so sorry," she finally says.
    As that apology leaves her lips – lips that have no need to apologize, lips that aren't at fault – the air is sucked from the world around me. It's like God turned on some giant vacuum and sucked me down the rabbit hole. Everything spins and I can't breathe.
    " Savannah?" she says again.
    Her form is blurry and black around the edges, like it's been charcoaled onto paper and then smeared through the center. I see the sisters though. They're standing on the steps of the mansion. Kit and Lexi have their heads together with little Maddi standing between them. Their arms are around one another and all three are staring at me. Crying.
    My mom is gone. She's really walked away from me.
    The pain hits me then and it doesn't stop.
    Not even when I finally hit the bottom of the rabbit hole and everything goes black.
    I shiver in Jared's arms, remembering that day. No matter how much time passes or how much I change, that memory is indelibly