“You’re ok.” All I could think about was the relief I felt that Bo was here with me, alive and well, talking to me in my bed.
“Thanks to you,” he said, rubbing his finger across my brow. “You saved my life.”
I shrugged. “It was my turn.”
“You risked too much.”
“Nothing’s too much for you.”
“Lucius told me everything.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’d do it again.”
“I wouldn’t let you.”
“You might not have a choice.”
Bo rolled onto his back. His weary sigh cut through the silence. “That’s why I’m leaving.”
“What?” I bolted upright in the bed and turned toward Bo.
“I’m no good for you. I should’ve stayed away.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I care too much for you to stay, to continually put you in danger.”
“Everyone’s in danger, they just don’t know it.”
He nodded and rolled his eyes. “You’re in more danger than most.”
“You’ll- ,” I began, choking on the words as I tried to spit them out. “You’ll be gone soon anyway. At least stay with me until then.”
“Every day that I—”
“Please, Bo. Do this one thing for me. Stay until the end.”
“Ridley—”
“I know it will hurt you to be away from me. But what about me? You don’t know what it will do to me if you go. You don’t know how the human half of a bond feels. But I do.”
Bo stared into my eyes. I could see the war waging inside him. He was torn, not wanting to hurt me either way, but knowing it was going to happen regardless. I could also see his resolve weakening, so I pressed on.
“Don’t deny me this, Bo. At least give me the rest of your life. It’s not like I’m asking that much.”
It was bizarre, using his imminent death as a valid point in an argument, but I’d use whatever I had to in order to get him to stay.
“I just don’t—”
“And if you go, you’ll never find out who killed your father.”
Bo shot me a look that said Dirty trick, but I was not the least bit apologetic. If it would get him to stay, I’d remind him of his mission every day.
“Ridley,” he started, sighing again.
When he didn’t continue, I knew I’d won. At least for the time being.
“Plus,” I said, snuggling back down beside him, resting my head on his chest. “You need to graduate.”
Bo laughed and the rough rumble made my heart swell.
“Because school is so important at this stage in my life.”
“I’m sure your mom would like to see you graduate. It’s a maternal thing.” Even as I mentioned it, I realized that I knew very little about their relationship.
“Actually, you’re right. She’s really the only reason that I enrolled in school to start with.”
“See?”
“I think it’s her way of retaining some semblance of normalcy. It got me out of Southmoore, too, which is what she wanted. She thought distance would make a difference, that I’d get interested in a new life and forget about finding Dad’s killer.”
“Sounds like she barely knows you,” I quipped.
“She doesn’t, not really. She was never home much before. She was a lot…different back then. She and Dad weren’t exactly happy. I think she’s got a lot of regrets.”
“And if you left now, it would just hurt her even more. All the way around, it’s just best for you to stay.”
Hmm was Bo’s only response.
********
By lunch on Friday, I was fully recovered and Bo was still in my life, so I was calling it a good day. Savannah was prattling on about our double date and even that didn’t dampen my mood.
“We should totally go see that scary movie, Insidious. Oh, and then” she gasped excitedly. “We can go do something completely reckless like break into the marina and hijack a boat.”
“What?” If I thought she wasn’t serious, I’d have laughed. But, sadly, I knew she was dead serious. I was discovering that Savannah was fearless, too.
“You’re frickin’ nuts,” Devon claimed. His tone said he was serious, but his eyes said he’d follow her to the ends of the earth.
“It doesn’t have to be a yacht. It can be a little boat. A dingy or a blow-up raft. I don’t care what it is, just as long as it will get us out into the water.”
“Why?” This was Bo’s question. He wasn’t opposed to the idea, so long as there was a good reason behind it.
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. What kind of rebellious hoodlums had I inadvertently befriended?
“Because today’s the fourth anniversary of my mother’s drowning and I want to set a lantern out for her. She loved the water more than anything.”
None of us had a comment for that and I knew that tonight we’d be breaking and entering. I felt a little bud of excitement unfurl in my stomach. Doing something completely crazy was out of character for me, but my character was changing pretty rapidly. I wanted to do as much living, reckless and otherwise, as I could squeeze in before Bo left me.
As always, thoughts of his condition sent a stab of pain through my heart. I slid a glance in Bo’s direction as he talked with Savannah and Devon. He laughed and shifted his eyes to me. He winked and my stomach fluttered in response.
It seemed incongruous, a cruel twist of fate, that I could love someone more and more each day, and yet already be mourning his passing. As my love grew, so did the dark cancer of his illness. It was eating away at me, gnawing at my soul.
I’d begun to hate seeing lunch period come to an end. I’d found more genuine friendship and camaraderie at Savannah’s table than I’d ever known, and Bo was always there. He was relaxed and happy and I basked in his unmasked affections. It was like a sun-drenched capsule of near-perfection that I never wanted to leave.