Dust to Dust Read Free Page A

mother gave to me once upon a time. When I lost the jade piece, I was devastated—it felt like I was losing Mom all over again. I told Nick about it, and he bought the amber heart to remind me that other people loved me too.
    A notion, maybe a memory, settles behind my eyes. Nick took this pendant while I was in the hospital; he held on to it so he could have a piece of me. I remember seeing him with it . . . I remember. . . .
    I shake my head. I’m making things up again.
    â€œI took it after . . . ,” Nick starts. But he pauses. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter now,” he says. “This heart is yours again.”
    He smiles at his own cheesy words and I grin back at him.
    â€œThank you.” I open up the clasp so he can put it around my neck. I want it close to me.
    After he fastens it, he kisses the top of my head and I lean into him with a sigh. “I’m so tired,” I say.
    â€œDon’t overdo it.” Nick looks around pensively. “I probably shouldn’t even be here, Cal.”
    â€œYou should,” I tell him. “That’s not what I meant. I want you here. I love you here.”
    We snuggle into position on my double bed—Nick sitting upagainst the headboard and me resting my head on his chest. Since I’ve been home from the hospital, Nick has snuck in to be with me whenever he can make an excuse to his parents. I fall asleep more easily with him near. Without him, my dreams are filled with dark echoes of the imagined world I created, the Prism—it’s foggy and uncertain, a glimmering gray space that feels part peaceful and part menacing, like a place among the clouds where both warming sun and threatening thunderstorms hover. But with Nick, I’m not in the clouds. I’m firmly on the earth.
    Today has been a good day, and I smile as the pill takes effect. No more phantom sensation, no more paranoia about a world that doesn’t exist, no more false memories—just two sixteen-year-olds alone in a bedroom. I look up at Nick with sleepy eyes and whisper, “Kiss me.”
    He does, more passionately than I expect. His familiar lips move over mine and he reaches to touch my hair and the sides of my face as his tongue explores my mouth. It’s the first time since the accident that he isn’t treating me like I’m fragile, and my body responds to the delicious touches as his hand moves down the front of my soft cotton nightgown, brushing my chest and working its way to my hips.
    My mind flashes for just a moment to another world, one where touching was discouraged, where connections were supposed to be more than just physical. But with Nick’s breath in my ear, his hands on my body, that thought is quickly dismissed. I’m tired of the weird ways my brain is wandering; I want something normal and grounded—I want this.
    Nick pulls me closer, and I wrap one leg around his back so I can to be as near to him as possible, my breath ragged in between kisses. My nightgown slips up to my waist and when he runs his hand up my thigh, my entire body lights up with sensation. I haven’t felt this kind of touch in so long.
    A moan escapes me and I kiss him harder, so ready to feel alive again, ready to take things even further than we ever have—I wanted to go all the way before the accident, but Nick held back. Maybe tonight’s the night. I put my hand under his shirt and trace the hard contours of his back as Nick lowers his lips to kiss my neck, pressing his body against mine so I can tell how much he wants this too.
    But when I move my other hand lower, Nick pulls away suddenly, standing up and looking at me with confused eyes.
    â€œWe shouldn’t,” he says. “I’m sorry, I—this could hurt you. You’re not ready for something this . . . physical.”
    When we stop, I feel half disappointed and half relieved as the passion I felt drains out of me. I flop