Page 124 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

“Selene,” Alyssa called to me, but I didn’t answer.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed and had been watching me with increasing concern for approximately the last hour.

I didn’t want to explain what was wrong with me, however, because she just would have scolded me and told me I should just stay away from a guy like Neil.

That he was too complicated, too troubled, and too lots of other things as well.

“I have to hurry, Alyssa,” I said shortly, glancing around so I could avoid meeting her eyes or revealing how hurt I was about my impending departure.

I looked around my room and saw it as clearly as if it had been written on the walls: the hopes, the expectations, and good intentions…they were all faded now.

I had failed in my attempt to save Neil, but he had failed as well. He lacked the courage to let himself be saved.

“Selene, your silence is really worrying me,” Alyssa announced, getting to her feet. I shut my suitcase and took it off the bed, setting it down on the floor.

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.” I smiled weakly at her and put on my light-colored trench coat, leaving my hair loose around my shoulders.

“I still can’t believe you’re leaving.” Her voice broke a little, and it made me sad to hear her feeling so down.

“Alyssa, you can come visit me whenever you want.” I moved closer to her and put my hands on her shoulders.

“We’ll stay in touch. What’s a two-hour flight, anyway?

” I smiled, but that only seemed to make things worse, and soon Alyssa was on the verge of tears.

I hugged her tightly and held her for a very long time.

Then, I pulled away from her and grabbed my suitcase because it was time for me to go.

“Ready?” When I got down to the living room, Logan was standing there with the aid of his crutches. He gave me a glum smile and Alyssa quickly went to him to allow him to lean on her.

“As I’ll ever be.” I pulled my suitcase along behind me as I said goodbye to Anna.

“We will always be here for you if you need us, Miss Selene. It was a pleasure meeting you.” She pressed a kiss to my cheek with a maternal warmth that made me blush, and I walked past her to see the melancholy faces of Matt and Mia.

“You are a wonderful girl. Come back soon; I’ll be waiting for you.

” Mia pulled me into a heartrending embrace that I hadn’t been expecting.

I felt almost suffocated in her arms, but at the same time, I knew how sincere her kindness was and had always been.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and gave her all the time she needed to come to terms with my abrupt decision to leave.

“Selene, I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you’re leaving.” Chloe also showed unexpected warmth. She embraced me and I smiled at her, advising her to stay safe and keep her grades up.

“Are you sure you want to take a taxi? We can take you to the airport,” my father suggested for the umpteenth time, but I shook my head.

“No, don’t worry about it,” I answered firmly.

Then, just as he took one step forward to hug me, I took one back to avoid any physical contact with him.

His eyes couldn’t hide the devastating sorrow that he felt in that moment, while mine remained cold and detached even in the face of heartbreaking emotions.

I went to the front door and opened it out onto the front stoop, followed by Logan and Alyssa. I hadn’t been expecting Neil to come and say goodbye to me, so I felt my heart lurch when a black Maserati drove through the enormous main gates and down the driveway toward the house.

Everything inside me suddenly switched on, as though my soul had been abruptly awakened. My knees trembled and an overwhelming feeling of turmoil had me swaying on my feet. Alyssa and Logan exchanged knowing looks before turning their attention to me.

“Maybe it would be best if…” Logan began.

“We gave you some privacy,” Alyssa finished.

“Call us when you get there,” she added, giving me one last hug.

Logan hugged me as well, saying with certainty, “We’ll come to visit you.”

“I’m counting on it.” I broke our embrace and gave him an honest smile, trying to hide how ill at ease I truly was.

Occasionally, one encounters special people with the power to reach deep inside with only a smile, a hug, or a gesture of kindness. Logan and Alyssa were those kind of people, and I would carry them in my heart forever.

“Selene.” Neil’s baritone startled me, making every cell in my body vibrate. I looked him from head to toe: the sun made his wild hair and golden eyes even more brilliant.

But I immediately wrapped my fingers around the handle of my suitcase and kept walking, brushing right past him.

“You told me everything you needed to tell me last night. I have to go now, Neil,” I said as I hurried away from him, knowing that this would be the hardest part.

I would never see him again. I would never get to drink him in the moment I woke up with his eyes still all sleepy and his lips swollen, ready for kissing.

I’d no longer be able to watch him bite into a protein bar or smell his shower gel or feel his constant presence.

I would never argue with him about his lovers and then allow him to make me forget it all with his kisses.

I would no longer get the chance to share spaces with him or share anything at all. Not friends or family…certainly not a life.

“Wait.” Neil reached out and took me by the wrist.

I turned to face him and his mouth dropped open slightly, as though he were about to tell me something.

Instead, he closed his lips and chewed anxiously on the inside of his cheek.

We stared fixedly at one another for a few seconds, which felt somehow infinite.

If I could have stopped time right then, I would have.

I would have stayed there just like that, rooted to the ground in front of him, getting lost in his golden eyes.

I felt like a fairy sitting paralyzed in the palm of Neil’s hand, unable to take flight, and I realized then that he had been my Neverland, too.

“I just wanted to say goodbye…” He moved closer to me until he was surrounding me with his scent, and I closed my eyes to soak it in. Deep in my heart, I was hoping he’d say something to convince me to stay. But that wasn’t what happened.

Instead, Neil just pressed his warm lips to my forehead and gave me a sweet, chaste kiss before he pulled away with the faintest smile. He shot a glance at the Tinkerbell sweater I wore, just like the night we first met, and his eyes gleamed with an intense but indecipherable light.

“Safe travels, Tinkerbell.” His voice reached down to touch the recesses of my soul for the last time. Then, as my taxi pulled up, he stepped back away from me.

The driver got out, opened the trunk, and stowed my bag inside. I moved around to the passenger door and took a quick look back at Mr. Disaster while he continued to stare at me in total silence.

“Take care of yourself, Neil,” was all I said as I got into the car. I watched him through the window one last time and met his eyes, which continued to bore into mine as he said nothing. As he didn’t ask me to stay.

“We good to go?” the driver asked, tossing a glance at me in the rearview mirror. I looked at Neil again and felt my heart pounding against my chest. A warm feeling spread across every inch of my skin. My eyes were stinging, but I refused to give in and cry.

Not again.

“Yes,” I confirmed in a small voice.

The driver started the car and we pulled away slowly. I turned back to Mr. Disaster and watched him until he had faded from view.

My lips began to tremble powerfully, and as I rested my head against the window, I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer.

What would become of us?

Maybe there wasn’t an us anymore. Or maybe there never had been in the first place.

It felt to me as though I could feel his fingers stroking me, his lips kissing me, his hands traversing my entire body.

I still vividly sensed his presence, like an enchanted dream that was, at the same time, the sharpest torture.

Unfortunately, there was no cure for memories. There was no cure for the past.

There was no freedom from it, either.

I needed to stop thinking about him.

I sighed as I reached into my pocket for my phone so I could text my mother that I’d be home in a few hours.

But then my fingers encountered something that was, from the size and shape of it, definitely not my cell phone.

I wrinkled my forehead in confusion as I pulled out the object that had somehow ended up in my pocket and studied it closely.

It was a transparent glass cube with a pearl suspended inside it.

“What is this?” I murmured, watching the way it glittered as it reflected the sunlight.

This thing didn’t belong to me, and I couldn’t figure out how it had gotten into my coat pocket, unless…

“I just wanted to say goodbye…”

Neil had gotten close to me to kiss my forehead, and perhaps, at the same time, he’d…he’d…

I grinned like a little girl and clutched the small iridescent cube tight to my chest. I would take this gift with me to Detroit along with so many other things about him.

But what no one—including me—knew was that I wouldn’t get back to my city. I would never arrive at the airport, never take that flight. My journey was about to end right there.

“Miss!” the driver called out to me, and there was palpable concern in his voice. I leaned forward to speak with him.

“What happened?” I asked, still a bit shaken up by Neil’s surprise. The driver kept looking behind us in the rearview mirror.

“There’s a car, a black Jeep that’s been following us for about twenty minutes now, but it’s getting dangerously close!” he exclaimed, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.

I turned around to see the vehicle in question, and my eyes went wide when I spotted a figure behind the wheel, his face concealed beneath a white mask. He raised one black-gloved hand and waved sarcastically at me.

“Go faster!” I shouted at the driver, who stomped on the accelerator, causing the odometer to spike. But the Jeep continued to follow us.

It was him.

Player 2511.

How had he known I was leaving?

I gripped the seat and stared out the back window. The Jeep caught up with us quickly and began flashing its brights.

“Please! Can you go faster?” My eyes bounced between my driver and the Jeep, which, in a sudden maneuver, rammed the back of the taxi, sending us into a skid.

And that was it.

It happened in the space of a second.

The whole world stopped.

I heard the driver scream. I saw the too-tight curve.

I didn’t have time for any realizations as the car veered off the road and crashed into the guardrail.

My head was thrown violently against the window and a dull pain began to spread throughout my entire body.

I tightened my fist around the glass cube as my eyes drooped closed.

All at once, it seemed like I could feel Neil’s fingers gliding through my hair, his golden eyes warming like rays of sunlight and his lips curving into a loving smile.

“Would you say the darkness going hand in hand with the moon was strange?”

That’s what he’d asked me and it occurred to me that, if I had a second chance, I would have answered him, “Yes. I would call it strange. As strange as calling a woman Tinkerbell and likening her to Neverland. As strange as slipping a pearl trapped in a cube of glass into her pocket. Everything about you is strange, my disaster, but please keep on making the darkness walk hand in hand with the moon because…because the stars seem to have aligned over you.”