December Boys (BxB) | ✓

Chapter 46 - One Time Too Many

I told Lily about Axel.

I told her about Fort Violet, about the closet, and about how Axel had smelled like some kind of romance novel. My hands had shaken as I recounted the incident at school, and how we'd scaled the building like we were thieves in a spy movie. I'd hesitated when my story reached October 14th, and Axel's trashed apartment. I left out the hug and the words we'd exchanged, feeling they were too personal to speak into existence.

I told her about all the nights spent editing and working, and about where I'd ended up on Halloween. I closed my eyes at the embarrassment.

And Lily had listened. She didn't laugh. Not even once. When my voice trembled, she said nothing, and when I avoided certain topics, she didn't ask. It was almost like I'd been speaking to an empty room, except the relief that spread through my chest would not have appeared without a listener.

It had been cathartic.

When at last I'd landed on the kiss, and my subsequent escape, Lily had spoken up for the first time. There had been no trace of mockery in her voice.

"But you love him," she said, brow furrowing. "Why did you run?"

Because it's what I do. I don't know how to stay.

There had been no real way to tell her. After all, I'd run from her too, even when staying had been the only decent and true alternative. It was like I was wired to free. Low risk, high risk, Nao Summers was out of there regardless.

We had spent the rest of the night chatting, rendering my plan of sleeping null and void. We went quiet only when her dad woke up and sent muted sounds echoing through the large house. When his Porsche had swung out of the driveway and headed for the city, Lily had opened up her laptop.

"I should probably go," I'd said, regretting both the words I'd said and the ones I hadn't.

"Wait." She had turned the screen my way, temporarily blinding me with the harsh light. "I think you should have a look at this."

When my sight recovered, I had found myself staring at a bunch of open word documents. They were filled to the brim with walls of texts.

"What am I looking at...?"

"They're letters," Lily had said, voice even. "They've been showing up in my inbox every day, ever since..."

Love letters. Love declarations. Secret confessions. Lily's email had been flooded with them for weeks. Sweet words of eternal adoration, creepy observations about her hair and activities... Everything was in black and white on her screen. Finding words had become a challenge as I skimmed through the content.

"You have a stalker?" I'd mouthed. "Have you gone to the police? Lily, this is crazy!"

An annoyed expression made it onto her face. "I'm dealing with it," she said. "But aren't you forgetting something?"

"What?"

"Operation Nao," Lily had said, and her face had fallen into an easy, but bitter smile. "Don't you think it's odd that you're being targeted like this while I get these letters? Don't you think there's a connection?"

A light had flicked on inside my mind then, just like it did with Axel and my own realizations. A new light fell on the situation, revealing additional possibilities. Possibilities I needed to address.

"Shit," I'd said, mind racing. "I need to tell Seth— If we find out who your stalker is, we can—"

"What about Axel?"

A flash of a kiss. A flash of warm skin and wet lips. My mind had fizzled out and gone home ages ago.

"I'll just have to cross that bridge when I get to it."