Free Back to Life by Mellie George Page B

deciding, so I made the decision for him
and told him to go. I wish every day I hadn’t…” I stopped, feeling tears
stinging my eyes.
    “Hey,”
Liam said, wrapping his arm around me. “Rory, you don’t have to say any more.”
    “I
have to get this out,” I whispered. I’d held it in for so long, and I was never
going to get past it by ignoring it. I felt like it was choking me. Marissa was
right. I couldn’t change anything by pretending it never happened. “After he
left, I decided to go home. I got my coat and was headed out the door, when I
heard sirens going down the road and there was a crowd gathered about two
blocks away. I usually wouldn’t get involved, but I was curious. I followed the
sound of the siren and when I got there…I saw him.” I stopped. My bottom lip
was quivering.
    “Rory?”
Liam asked, still rubbing my arm.
    “It
was Mason. He’d been mugged. Someone mugged him while he was running off to
help that bitch. They shot him, Liam, and left him there to die. He bled to
death on that street in front of my eyes because that woman threatened his job.
I hate her, Liam, I hate her,” and I could hold the tears back no more. Fat,
salty tears began to pour from my eyes.
    “Oh,
Rory, I’m so sorry,” he said, and pulled me into a hug. We just sat there, me
in his arms, and he held me while I cried. I cried four years worth of tears,
and he held onto me for each one that fell.
    Once
I was all dried up, I pulled away from him, and looked at his shirt. It was completely
wet. “Oh, Liam, look at your shirt. You’re soaked,” I said, sniffing.
    “Hey,
don’t even worry about it. It’s okay,” he said, and he took his hand and wiped
one of my wet cheeks with his hand.
    Suddenly,
I felt embarrassed. I wiped my other cheek and looked down. “Oh God, I must be
a mess. I’m sorry to break down on you like that.”
    “You
aren’t a mess, Rory. If anything, you are even more beautiful.”
    “I
am?” I asked, puzzled.
    “Of
course you are. You put up this tough front, but you showed that you can be
vulnerable too. That’s a good thing. I just feel so terrible for you. What
you’ve lost…I can’t believe you kept something like this bottled up all this
time,” he said.
    “It
was just too hard to face, so I locked it away.”
    “Did
they ever catch the guy?”
    Sniffing,
I said, “No.”
    “I’m
sorry, Rory.” We sat in silence for a moment. “So, that’s what you were afraid
to tell me?”
    I
tensed up inside. Actually, it wasn’t. Mason’s death was only half of what I
wanted to tell him, but he was being so sweet and caring that I couldn’t bring
myself to say anymore. I was afraid the rest of the story would make him run
from me and never look back, and I was beginning to like him. I nodded and
lied, “Yes.”
    “Oh
Rory, you shouldn’t be afraid to talk to me like this. I want you to tell me things
because I like you. A lot.”
    I
sniffed again. “You do?”
    He
nodded. “Forgive me, and please don’t be mad, but there is something I have to
do,” he said, and before I could speak or even think, he moved his mouth to mine
and kissed my lips softly. It was just a quick, closed mouth kiss, but the feel
of Liam’s lips on mine was like an electric volt and the kiss was like a
current that ran straight through me. I felt like someone just turned on a
switch inside me, shining a light in the darkness that had consumed me for so
long. It was the sweetest and most terrifying kiss I’d ever had. At that point,
I hadn’t kissed anyone in four years, and the thing that scared me the most was
that it didn’t scare me. Liam’s lips on mine felt right. He pulled away, his
eyes still closed. “Wow,” he whispered.
    “What?”
I asked, nervous.
    “Your
lips taste as good as I dreamed they would.”
    I
felt a tug in my belly. Swallowing hard, I said, “You’ve dreamt about me?”
    “Yes,
many times. I, however, wouldn’t be a gentleman if I elaborated on that,”