That One Moment (Lost in London #2) (27 page)

11:11

I
lie awake, checking my watch nervously and waiting for 11:11 to approach. Vi is asleep, draped completely across my chest. Her bare breasts soft and supple against me. I watch her back rise and fall with each breath, relishing in the feel of her faint heartbeat pattering against me. I play mindlessly with her drying blonde hair that’s fanned out on the grey sheets.

Exhausted from our exertions on her bed, in her shower, and then on her bed again, she’s been out for nearly an hour now. But her last noises weren’t those of sexual ecstasy. They were the sexiest fucking noise I’ve heard come from her lips yet: her giggles over some daft joke I made about rude rabbits.

She fell asleep so easily, so trustingly.
Nothing troubles Vi
, I think as I’ve been lying here, watching her and trying to figure out how I can slip out of bed. I hate that I have to leave her. I hate that my body forces me to feel the tick of 11:11 like the timer on a really hot oven. Like if I don’t get up and deal with whatever is cooking inside, everything will go up in flames.

Aside from our first night together after the gala, I’ve managed to avoid being around her at 11:11. But there is no way I could connect with her the way I did tonight and still manage to leave her flat. I ache for her closeness. For her comforting warm breath against my body. A possessiveness seizes over me at leaving her alone in this big bed. She shouldn’t be alone. Ever. She is mine to care for.

But with the time creeping closer and closer, I feel myself growing tenser and tenser. I attempt to slide out from beneath her, but she stirs. I freeze, hoping she’ll fall back asleep, but my prayers aren’t answered.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she croaks with a raspy, sleepy voice and looks up at me, rubbing her eyes.

“I just need to pop outside for a second,” I reply honestly. I can’t tell her I’m going to the loo because I’ve got it in my head that what has to be done needs to be done outside.

“Pop out where?”

“Just to your patio. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” I jostle her a bit more roughly than I mean to, but manage to break free. I grab the towel I used earlier and wrap it around my waist, padding quietly out of her room and hoping to fuck she doesn’t follow.

Bruce is up and trotting out to greet me. “Go back to bed. Lie back down,” I command. He doesn’t listen. He follows me to the door that goes out to the deck. “Go on, old boy.” I shoo him back from the door and close it behind me as I step outside into the cool night air.

London city lights twinkle all around and it’s chilly from the rain, but I hardly notice as I’m too focused on the task at hand. I cinch my towel and glance down at my watch just as it ticks over to 11:11 like a gunshot. I grip the edge of the railing and hang my head low while closing my eyes tightly.

Please take away my past. Change my past. Alter my past. Go back and make the accident never happen. Go back and make it so Marisa didn’t die. Go back and make it so I never tried to kill myself. Go back and take me instead of her.

“What are you doing?” Vi’s voice asks from behind me as I stand up straight, finishing what I came out here to do.

I shake my head, avoiding her eyes, but I know it’s useless. “It’s nothing, Vi. Please, let’s go back to bed.”

“It’s not nothing.” She strolls out dressed in a baggy nightshirt. Her blonde hair is loose and wild around her face, but she still has never looked more beautiful. “Tell me.”

I look at her and feel instant fear over everything exploding all around us if I don’t explain this properly. “It’s just a stupid superstition I’ve done for ages.”

“For how long?” Her brow line furrows.

I swallow hard. “About four years.”

Her eyes blink knowingly. “Since Marisa died.”

I shrug sheepishly. “Told you it was stupid.”

“What do you do?”

I sigh heavily. “I’d rather not talk about it, Vi. You’re going to think I’m crazier than I already am.”

“I want to know.” She walks toward me and leans against the railing beside me. Bruce follows at her heels, shooting me a wounded puppy-dog look over blowing him off just a bit ago.

Sighing, I lean on the railing, choosing to watch London’s reaction to my story over Vi’s. “I just have a little ritual I do every time 11:11 hits. It’s developed into a bit of OCD I guess. 11:11 has always been important to me. I’ve always seen it in my life, represented in one way or another…license plates, mileage on an odometer, final amount on grocery receipts. It just always randomly appears to me.” I cut my eyes to hers. “The floors of people’s flats.”

Her blue eyes turn into saucers and her jaw goes slack.

“Before my attempt, Daphney said it was lucky and that I should make a wish whenever I saw it. So I started doing it. It was better than the eerie sensation I got every time it appeared to me. It became more important after Marisa’s death. Some people pray before bed. I do this.”

An unnerving look fleets across Vi’s face, but she shakes whatever thought she was having away. “So what do you wish for?”

“Vi, really—”

“Tell me,” she insists.

I clench my jaw in frustration. Being open with Vi has never felt like an obligation until this very moment, but I don’t have it in me to tell her no. “I first wish the accident never would have happened. I then wish she never would have died. And since rehab, I began wishing I wouldn’t have slit my wrists. And…” I look down, suddenly shrouded in shame.

“And?”

“I wish I would have died instead of Marisa.” My voice is hard and cold. Cutting. It’s best she knows the darkness that still lives in me.

Her face falls. “Is that really an option you wish for?”

I nod.

“Still?” Her blue eyes are swimming with anxiety.

I nod again.

She swallows hard. “I see.” She turns around, mumbles something at Bruce, and walks back into her flat. Her posture hunched.

My heart fills with despair.

“Vi,” I plead, following her inside. When I touch her shoulder, she turns and flashes her wide, challenging eyes at me.

“What?” she snaps, grabbing her hair and balling it around her fist.

“You have to understand that I battle years’ worth of demons. Demons I still fight inside my mind. I can’t just blink all of that away.”

“Why don’t you wish it away?” she quips, her tone snotty as she chucks her hair behind her back.

“What the fuck is your problem?” I growl angrily, pacing the room. “I stepped outside to do this. I get that it’s strange and stupid, but it’s something I have to do. I’m not sure where you get off acting all self-righteous over it.”

“Hayden!” she exclaims, balling her fists up beside her. “You tell me you’re not weak, but this sounds scary. And I just found out the guy I’m falling for wishes his life away. How is that supposed to make me feel?”

Her words hit me like a punch to my gut. Weakness is representative of all that I want to leave behind. Picturing Leslie’s face the moment she found me after carving into my wrists was the lowest I ever felt. To hurt someone like that…to put her through it all. I hated it. Is making these wishes at 11:11 considered weak? “These wishes make me feel safe,” I croak, not knowing how else to explain myself.

“Safe, how?” she asks, her tone nearly a shrill.

I inhale slowly through my nose and tell her yet another thing I’ve never revealed to another person. “A few years ago, I was pissed out of my mind on both booze and pills. I was driving, like a fucking moron, and I looked down at my odometer and the miles on my car switched over to 1111 just as the clock struck 11:11. It shook me to my core, and next thing I knew, I wrapped my car around a tree and spent several weeks in the hospital.”

“Hayden—” she starts, but I cut her off.

“That was the first time people started throwing the word
suicide
around with my name. That was when Mum started the charity. That’s when I became the fucking family charity case.” I suck in my cheeks and bite down, ignoring Vi’s reaction all together. “This is the one thing that brings me comfort with my recovery, Vi. So I do it.”

A painfully quiet and charged moment passes between us. Her blue eyes look like they are searching mine for something…something I don’t have inside of me to give away. As if surrendering defeat, her soft voice utters, “Okay.”

I blink at her, my eyes squinting in confusion. “Okay?” I ask for confirmation.

She nods woodenly. “Okay.” A sombre, yet helpless look crosses over her face, and whatever it was she thought just then forces me to eliminate all space between us. As I take her in my arms, she looks up at me with watery eyes. “I’m sorry, Hayden. This is hard for me too. This is your journey and I can’t walk it for you…but I hope you know that you don’t always have to fight alone.”

My heart soars and sinks with that one profound statement she just spoke. The look in her eyes as she stares back at me is a look of surrender. As if she’s got no other choice but to give herself to me completely. As if her level of interest for whatever it is we have between us would trump all bad habits, and that terrifies the shit out of her.

Her arms wrap around my waist and I clasp them firmly behind my back. The trembling in her body hurts my heart. “Please, Bunny,” I murmur into her hair. “Trust me to figure this one out. I promise. I just need time.” I kiss the top of her head and wish the vow I’m making to her be true with every fibre of my being.

The next morning, I walk back home, or to Theo’s flat I should say. As soon as I swing open the door, I’m greeted by a beaming Leslie. “Welcome home!” she sings from her place at the dining room table with Jaci. They have several binders spread out all around them.

“I’ll be in touch,” Jaci says with a huff of annoyance, like my mere presence alone could spoil all their work. She stands and bustles past me, pausing to give me a nasty once-over. “Has he been fitted for a suit?”

Leslie nods, “Yep! We’ll get him cleaned up, don’t you worry.”

A painful smile splits on my face as I scratch my whiskered chin. Jaci makes her hasty exit. I lift my brows, giving Leslie an “are you serious” look. She shrugs her shoulders good naturedly while eyeing my clothes from last night.

“Where’s my favourite girl?” I ask, attempting to delay the conversation that I’ve felt coming the last couple of weeks.

“Sleeping upstairs with Theo.”

“Another rough night?” I guess, striding over to the kettle and pouring myself a cup of tea.

“You guessed it. But you wouldn’t know because you’ve been MIA the last two weeks.”

I flinch, touching my right cuff self-consciously. I pour some milk in my tea and walk over to join Leslie at the table. “Sorry about that.”

“No need to be sorry, Hayden. You’re a single, twenty-six-year-old man. And hey, I’ve got Jaci in my corner. That broad may be a crusty, British, upper-lip, tight-ass, but she’s my wish come true.” Leslie’s eyes narrow from behind her mug. “But no one cares about that. Let’s hear it, Hay Day. Did ya get way laid?”

Frowning, I shoot a warning glare at her. “So not funny, Leslie.”

“What? I thought it was funny. I rhymed!” Her sea green eyes are brighter and happier than I’ve seen in months. Maybe Jaci no K is a miracle worker after all. I smile to myself at how Vi can make even the happiest of people happier.

“This is awkward enough without you making it more awkward with lame sexual jokes.” I slice one hand through my hair and prop my head on it, feeling my thoughts scatter all around me. It’s strange that I haven’t been confiding in Leslie about all matters concerning Vi. Since my attempt, there’s an unspoken openness between us that makes Leslie the one I go to the most when I’m feeling troubled. I talk to Theo some, but there’s an ease with Leslie. She was in the trenches with me…She’s my sister in combat. She saved my fucking life.

“What’s awkward about it?” Leslie asks. “I love Vilma. I think she’s perfect for you.” Leslie’s tone is bright and excited, obviously feeling everything I’m trying to
avoid
feeling.

I sigh heavily. “Do you really think this is a great idea? I mean, how could you? She’s a mate of yours and I’m well…fucking crazy.”