Page 57 of Kiss Me Like I Didn't Kill You

“I’ve got you, ma lune.”

***

When I open my eyes, I’m sitting on the cold stone, my back pressed against the wall. The air is biting.

I glance around, I’m outside, near the edge of the main academy building, not far from the woods.

There’s no one in sight.

I try to make sense of what just happened.

A small carton of juice rests beside my bag. I seize it, tear it open, and drink, forcing myself to breathe between sips.

Ma lune.

The words crash over me, knocking the air from my lungs.

Pain blooms behind my eyes, and a deep ache settles in my chest, as though something inside me has fractured.

Did I dream him, or was he really here, catching me before I fell?

Then it strikes me why I’m in this state at all, and I reach for my bag, fingers trembling as I rummage through it in search of the note.

For a fleeting moment I convince myself I imagined it, but when my hand closes around the folded paper, my chest tightens.

Not a dream, then.

The memories, were they real, or just fragments of my imagination?

I draw in a ragged breath and begin counting to ten, willing my body to steady itself.

Confusion swirls through me. I feel unmoored, as though I’m going mad.

Tears slide down my cheeks before I even realise I’m crying.

And then my sister’s words echo in my head.

A boy was found dead at the party.

The scrawl on the note flashes back in my mind.

MURDERER.

The way I woke up, that day, bloodied and bruised.

The rock in my hand. The body slumped on top of me. All that blood.

My tears will not stop.

The thought coils cold and hard inside me.

I think I killed someone.

Chapter 19