Free Wild Chase by L.A. Bressett Page A

frowned and shook his beautiful head,
    “Trust me. I’m nowhere near ready to leave.”
    The lump in my throat forced its way back to the point where it almost hurt, but I played it off the best I could, brushing my hair back and glancing around the car.
    We both sighed at almost at the same exact time, our eyes meeting as we both laughed softly.
    “It’s almost 11:30 and I’m sure your parents are going to be wondering where you are,” Avery whispered in the dark.
    “Yeah, I should probably get in there,” I whispered back, completely denying my heart what it really ached to say.
    He nodded and opened his door slowly. I followed suit as I quietly shut my door behind me and watched as he walked around to me.
    Avery rubbed the back of his neck before his dragging pace quickened and he bound around the front of the car. In a flash, his large, masculine frame was pressed against me, both hands cupping my face, tilting it to look up at his. His thumbs brushed my cheeks while his cloudy eyes looked into mine, searching my face for something. I knew exactly what he was looking for, but it didn’t change anything. He was leaving, and this wasn’t supposed to be happily ever after. This was a fling, and it was over. A tear rolled down my cheek and onto his fingers as I fiercely fought to keep any more of them from falling.
    I watched him chew on the inside of his cheek for a moment before he sighed and then rested his forehead against mine. I let out a deep breath, not realizing I’d been holding it in. Then I slid my hands over his.
    His lips lightly pressed against mine before he said something that caught me off-guard.
    “Chase Taylor, promise me that you’ll break free of this place one day. Don’t be two different people anymore. You don’t need to be anything more than who you are right now. Just promise me that, please?”
    I didn’t know how to answer that, so instead I just kissed the crazy, beautiful boy in front of me goodbye.
    When the ache in my chest was too much, I finally pulled away and began walking toward my house. That walk quickly turned into a sprint despite my concrete feet, my heavy heart, and the endless tears that streamed down my face.
     

     
    Now, here I sat, getting the ass chewing of a lifetime from my parents for everything under the sun, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than the dried tears on my cheeks.
    I finally stood up and just walked upstairs, right passed the rampage, and collapsed into my bed, replacing the old tears with new ones.
    Saturday morning came fast. The harsh sunlight bearing down on my sore eyes woke me out of my zombie-like state pretty fast. Looking down, I couldn’t believe that I had actually walked into the house wearing Vic’s clothes last night. On top of being late and looking like a ‘prostitute’, my entire character had been prosecuted last night because the people in town had been talking to my parents about the ‘hoodlum’ they had seen me out with lately.
    Swinging my legs over the side of my bed and sitting up, I willed myself not to think about what I really wanted to focus on, or rather, who.
    Somewhere between crying and falling asleep I had come to the conclusion that putting so much attention into something I didn’t even understand would only cause me to go crazy, and really, what good would that do? It surely wasn’t going to stop him from hopping on a plane tonight or change the fact that neither he nor I could figure out what had just happened between the two of us.
    It didn’t matter now. It was all over.
    Out of mind, out of heart, right?
    I shook my head, trying to shake off the sick feeling and the urge to cry that had crept up on me. I then headed for the bathroom to get a shower.
     

     
    After a week, my head felt just as much like a prison as my house did. My parents sentenced me to being grounded for two months and upped my chores tenfold. I didn’t have the energy to put on an act anymore. I didn’t talk to them.