Down World by Rebecca Phelps (beach read TXT) 📗

a terrible mistake. Maybe that night hadn’t meant anything to him. Maybe he had completely forgotten about it. That made two kisses in a row with guys who clearly weren’t into it. What was wrong with me?

“You don’t want to?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“Of course I want to.”

I almost thought I saw him blush in the darkness of the living room. I turned and headed upstairs. I could sense him following me, though I was too nervous to look back.

Once in my room, I sat on the edge of the mattress, waiting for him to do something. He took off his shoes and came to sit down beside me. We sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment, and to be honest, I didn’t really know what was supposed to happen next. I just knew I didn’t want him to go.

I lay down, and he did the same, tentatively at first, but then pressing up closer to me. He put his arm around my waist.

I couldn’t help but laugh, imagining the young boy he had been once. Remembering a time he and Robbie and I had played Twister in the basement, falling all over each other and laughing until our sides ached.

I didn’t have my brother anymore. But I had Kieren. I realized that the feeling that overwhelmed me in that moment was probably something very close to love. And I found myself thanking God—if there was in fact a God—that he was with me.

“Kieren,” I said, feeling his warm breath on my cheek, and holding him tight.

“Yes?”

“I forgive you.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, his face buried below a tuft of hair, and I was beginning to wonder if he had heard me. But then I felt his whole body shudder. He was crying. I held him as closely as I could, putting my arms around him and letting him cry into my neck.

“Shh,” I whispered, not sure how to comfort him. I kissed his forehead, and then the top of his head. I kissed his cheeks, and finally his lips again.

It should have felt strange, but it didn’t. It seemed inevitable, somehow. Like this was something we had always had between us—we’d just been too young to know it. I could have kissed him all night.

After a moment, I felt his hand come up under my shirt, and I flinched away. “Sorry.” I straightened my shirt, acting more by instinct than decision.

“No, I’m sorry,” Kieren said, rolling away from me a bit.

We stayed that way, lying next to each other in silence for a moment. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t seem to want to leave either.

“Are you mad?” I asked.

“No, no,” he insisted, turning back towards me and kissing me gently on the lips again. “No, of course not.”

He sat up on the mattress, and I watched his long back curve against the glow from the windows. A part of me felt like I was playing grown-up, and I’m sure he knew it. But in that moment, I would have done more with him if he’d asked. And so I was a bit relieved that he wasn’t asking.

“Will you stay here with me?”

He turned and smiled down at me. “As long as you’ll let me.” He stroked my side with the back of his hand, almost absentmindedly.

I began to laugh, the gentle touch of his fingers hitting that part of my sides that always got me.

“Still ticklish?” he asked, a mischievous look coming over his face.

“Don’t you dare,” I giggled, pushing his hands away. The smile on my face must have lingered for quite a while after he stopped, because he just kept staring.

“What?”

“I’m happy,” I said. For the first time in months, I felt safe and I felt right. More so even than I had when I was with Brady. More than I had since my mother got sick. Maybe even since Robbie left. “I just wish . . . ,” I said, and the words were seeping out of my mouth of their own volition. But then my brain caught up with them and wanted to take them back.

“You wish?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to say it. But Kieren knew me, and he knew what I wished. He had always known.

“You wish Robbie was here,” he finished my sentence for me. And I couldn’t deny that that’s what I was thinking. “M, I heard what that lady said. That Robbie needs to come out of DW.”

I weighed my thoughts, not wanting to ruin this beautiful moment with Kieren, but knowing that he needed to know the truth.

“Tell me.”

I shrugged a bit, not sure how he would take it. “It’s like you said,” I admitted. “He has to come out of the train portal. And there’s no way . . .” I cleared my throat, which was suddenly quite dry. “There’s no way he can do it alive.”

He nodded, not seeming surprised, and put his head back down to be level with mine. We stared into each other’s eyes for a bit.

“You promised me you wouldn’t do anything crazy,” I reminded him.

“I know,” he said, as though he had already been expecting my protests. A smile crossed his lips, but I couldn’t read what he was thinking. “Do you still have the penny I gave you?”

I laughed and took it out of my pocket. “Why did you make this for me, anyway?”

He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I don’t know. I had seen some older kids from the high school doing it once, and I thought it looked cool. I think I was trying to impress you.” His face flushed pink with the confession.

I put the penny back in my pocket, my cheeks burning and probably turning the same color.

“It wasn’t until . . . until Robbie went in . . . that I realized that that was a special part of the train track. Maybe those kids I had seen knew something about it. I don’t know.”

“You said it would protect me.”

He nodded,