Melody steals my thoughts once again, her previous words to me lighting me up like a moonbeam. I reply with surety, “What you put there.”
A palpability hovers between us, a striking sense of clarity, and I think this is it, I finally got through to this guy, and I can crawl off this fucking bridge and go home to wallow in my own personal misery—but then I hear it.
Her voice.
It’s Melody.
“Parker!”
My body swivels along the ledge, turning to face her, to see her, to drink her in beneath the glimmering night sky. Our eyes lock from a few yards away, and she’s hysterical, trying to run to me, but she’s being held back by a beefy cop.
“Melody.”
Her name is only a whisper on my tongue, a tender breath, and I know she can’t hear me, but I say it anyway. It calms me.
I’m calm.
Milo follows my stare. “That your girl?”
“I really fucking hope so.”
“Hell, man, you—”
The moment he spins back to face me, everything goes to shit.
The air leaves my lungs when Milo slips, losing his footing. He scrambles to keep his grip on the rail as my one arm instinctively reaches out for him, but I miss, and he fumbles, and then he’s freefalling face-first into Delavan Bay as my heart sinks to the bottom of the water before he even hits the surface.
Motherfuck.
Everything happens in slow motion, or maybe it’s a split second, I’m not really fucking sure, but all I know is that I’m left with another choice.
Melody shrieks, clawing her way through the wall of cops, who let her go in order to race down the bridge towards the other side of the bank.
“No! Parker, don’t you dare!”
She’s running to me, sobbing and desperate, and all I want to do is climb back over the railing, scoop her into my arms, and kiss away her trails of tears.
But I don’t.
All I do is smile.
Then I let go of the guardrail and jump in after him, while Melody’s horrified cry follows me all the way down to the dark, icy water.
Redemption is a bitch.
—THIRTY-EIGHT—
I’m on that downtown street all over again, my lungs perforating, my limbs staggering, my heart skyrocketing with unbridled terror.
“No! Parker, don’t you dare!”
It’s more than a request, more than a plea. It’s the ultimate demand.
My truest wish.
He holds my stare for a second, only a second, as I lessen our gap and sprint towards the guardrail, where the man I love is dangling fifty feet above the water. I see the battle on his face. The struggle. It’s only a flash before his eyes spark green and gallant, and then…
He smiles.
I had waited months to see that smile. There was a time when I would have done anything to watch it bloom across his handsome face, planting new, healthy roots inside of him.
But right now, it slices me straight to the marrow, a grisly blade between my ribs.
They say a look says a thousand words, but I only see one.
Goodbye.
An ugly cry expels the moment Parker lets go, plummeting into the bay, only a blink before I reach him. “No! No!”
Devastating hysteria possesses me, something wretched, and my body moves on impulse, legs violently shaking as I start climbing over the railing with zero regard for anything but jumping in after him. Autopilot, tunnel vision, chaotic instinct—it infiltrates my blood, infecting me with a desperate sort of mania.
Before I can leap, two solid arms wrap around my midsection, pulling me back, up and over, like I’m nothing more than a feather. Weightless.
Cobwebs.
My heart thunders in protest, legs flailing as I try to escape the stranger’s grip, but he continues to drag me away from the rail. “No! Let go of me!”
“Whoa, whoa, calm down. I’m an officer. There’s an embankment around this way—follow me.”
I don’t even spare him a glance.
I just start running.
My ballet flats pound the pavement with a furious gait, bruising my soles, and my lungs contract with burning, painful breaths. My throat stings, my muscles ache, and my heartbeats eradicate me from the inside out as I blindly rush down the verge towards the water’s edge.
Groups of people hover, while medical personnel try to hold them back, and before I can even think about diving headfirst into the water, someone calls out, “We got ‘em!”
Oh, my God.
I case the bay with wild eyes, spotting two figures in the water a few yards down, just as EMTs meet them, assisting them back to land.
With a strangled cry, I race forward, pushing through bodies and arms and whispered chatter. “Parker!”
He’s wading through the water, sluggish and unsteady, dragging the other man with him.
He’s moving, he’s walking, he’s breathing.
He’s alive!
A paramedic takes the man from his arms, carrying him to the grass, as a second one pulls Parker up over the edge, until he collapses, coughing and sputtering.
“Parker!” I shout, my knees aching with every swift, furious step. Rocks and pebbles dig into my feet through the thin soles, but I don’t stop running until I reach him. “Parker, God… oh, my God…”
He lifts up for a moment, then falls backwards, spitting out mouthfuls of water. “Melody…” he chokes out.
My body launches itself against his, uncaring of anything but feeling his beating heart pressed into my chest. Sobs leak out of me when his arms snake around my back, clutching me tight. “I thought I lost you. I thought you were gone,” I weep into the collar of his drenched t-shirt.
Parker wheezes, buckling onto his back as EMTs sweep in to check his vitals. He weaves his hand through my hair, trying to hold me as close as he can while rejecting the medical attention. “I’m fine,” he grits out, still coughing. Still gasping. “I’ll be fine.”
He’s soaked and shivering, the bay water seeping through my thin dress as I cling desperately. Tears continue to spill from my eyes, adding to the moisture, and I pepper him in frenzied kisses. Parker’s chest expands and deflates with every deep, arduous breath, and my lips trail from his neck to his jaw, until they meet with his.
I kiss him.
I kiss him hard, my tongue tearing through his lips, hungry to taste his warmth for myself. It’s evidence, it’s fact, it’s proof—he’s alive.
Parker pulls back to catch his breath, another waterlogged cough rattling his lungs. “Fuck, that sucked,” he says hoarsely.
His ribs hiss, his chest whistling. My terror mounts higher, drenching me in worry as a paramedic tries to shoo me away, ambushing Parker with blood pressure cuffs and oxygen. The other man lies motionless a few feet away, surrounded by medics, while stretchers are rushed through. It’s a harrowing scene, causing a surge of nausea to roll through me.
Parker coughs and chokes, spitting more water into the grass, and I go pallid.
Is he okay?
Is he drowning before my eyes?
My vision twinkles with stars, tiny particles of light, and I feel myself teetering, a dizzy spell galloping through my brain and making my temples pulse and throb. “P-Parker… don’t leave me…”
The air crackles with daunting energy, something forbidding, and I feel Parker’s fingertips dig into my waist as he lifts up on his haunches, his face blurring before me as the background noise turns to static.