I shouldn't be in her fucking bed.

And still, I didn’t move an inch.

I couldn't get my feet to move me in the direction of common sense.

Because this girl was in my veins. I knew that sounded contrite, but it was the truth. I'd known it when I was five years old and I knew it now. I was connected to her in a way that Rourke or any of the guys could never understand. Hell, screw the guys; I didn’t understand it myself.

All I knew was I ran into a burning house because the fear of losing her from my life was worse than the fear of losing my own damn life.

Even at ten years old, I knew I couldn’t live without this girl, and when she was taken from me, I stopped living and went into fucking auto pilot mode.

Molly thought that I had gotten on just fine without her these past eight years, when the truth was anything but. I hadn't been fine since I was ten. The only way I'd managed to survive what I saw that night was countless sessions of therapy and hypnotherapy. I practically had to train my goddamn mind to forget about her. It was the only way I could cope with her absence.

And now that she was back?

Right here in my arms, sleeping softly and looking like something God almighty himself had brought down from heaven and placed on my chest?

Well, I hadn't felt so alive in years.

Kissing her last night was something I hadn't planned on doing. Feeling the burning pain of her rejection when she pushed me away wasn't something I had planned on feeling. Still, I didn’t regret it, and knew that I never would.

I wasn’t sure what my feelings for this girl meant, or whether they ran deeper than a regular emotional attachment. I wasn't sure if they were veering away from platonic and moving closer to sexual, but they were hotter and more potent than anything I'd ever experienced before.

I guess the only way I could explain it was that Molly Peterson eclipsed me. It was something she had been perfecting since childhood and now, at eighteen, had down to a fine art.

In other words, I was in some deep shit.

29 Daryl

Several hours later, we were downstairs, attempting to put right the apparent tornado we had made the night before, and I was quickly losing the will to live.

"What the hell did we do to this carpet?" I asked, vacuum in one hand, as I dragged the couch out of the way, only to reveal yet another huge red stain on her father's white carpet. "Aw Christ, Molls. I found another one."

"It was the wine!" Molly wailed, dropping to her knees with disinfectant spray and a dishrag. "Ugh – I can't! The smell of alcohol is too much –" Gawking and heaving dramatically, she pinched her nose with one hand and scrubbed the stain with the other. "My father is going to kill me."