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Worry looked down on me from Remi’s face. The crowd was silent, waiting for my raspy breath.
The band rushed off, all trying to get help from anyone who could give it.
“I remember you,” I croaked. “I remember everything. I remember being on stage at a show like this. Being with you afterward. I remember you taking me to them and leaving without me when I begged you for help.”
Tears fled my eyes, not wanting to be inside me with all the pain. It hurt my heart. My breaking heart hurt too much.
And then it stopped.
Everything stopped.
The pain.
My heart.
They say when you’re about to die, your life flashes in front of your eyes, it’s true.
Chapter 42
Catharina—aged eighteen
Ilay on my stomach. My feet kicked into the air. The squeaky mattress below me wasn’t too comfortable, and it didn’t smell the best, reeking of the dampness that crept around each vicious spring, but my gratitude for having a bed for the second night in a row was still heavy.
Anything beat the hard ground under the trees in the local park.
Rhylie didn’t like it out there, and her crying after she’d thought I’d fallen asleep kept me awake.
I turned the page of the magazine I was reading—a gift from the lady three beds over. I didn’t know her name. I just knew her as Mommy. That was what her three small children called her as they rallied around her bed, all demanding her attention. The smallest one was the cutest, with her long curls trailing down her back, bright orange, like mine.
I gave her and her siblings a moment of my attention before returning to the glossy pages in front of me. I flipped a page and turned the magazine to get a better view of the centerfold.
A dreamy sigh slipped through my lips.
“He’s so beautiful.” My fingertips glided over the printed image of Remington Cole. I traced the open leather jacket he wore, brushing abdominal muscles with a featherlike approach.
His tanned skin glowed, his eyes twinkled, and my fantasies convinced me that the smile on his lips was just for me.
“It’s edited. No one looks like that in real life,” my sister told me from the bunk above mine. Her bed and her attitude cast a shadow over me. “And I bet he’s an ass. Arrogant, just for being hot.”
My head swayed from side to side. Absolutely not. Not my Remi.
“You don’t know him,” I mumbled, thinking she wouldn’t hear.
But she did, and she retorted, “Neither do you.”
“My soul does.” I fingered his features again, wishing I could touch his skin, all soft beneath my probing fingers.
Rhylie sighed loudly.
But I didn’t pay her any attention.
The lady a few beds away stole it, currently telling those three children not to repeat the word ass when one of them asked what it meant. She was trying to keep them sweet and innocent. She didn’t want them to end up like their father, who, conveniently enough, sounded like the world’s biggest ass. She also didn’t want Rhylie’s oppression rubbing off. But I’d put up with all her negativity. Always. She balanced my overly-happy persona out perfectly.
All that said, I rolled my eyes, refusing to agree with her opinion on Remington Cole.
“I bet he’s perfect.” I smiled. “Edited or not. Inside and out. Perfect.”
I knew Rhylie was rolling her eyes now, too. Oh well, better than her staring at the damn ceiling all day and all the cobwebs that dwelled in the corners of this dank hostel.
