Page 114 of Not Quite Dead Yet

The door opened and she stumbled out.

Billy was sitting on the couch, Jet’s notebook open in his lap.

‘Oh good, you’re out.’ He glanced up, then back down at the page. ‘So, I’ve been thinking. If we think the person who started the fire did it because they were trying to kill you, and it’s likely the same person who attacked you on Halloween, then that means we –’

Something about Billy’s face did it, took Jet all the way down, no hope of coming back up, of stopping it.

She started to cry.

The tears hot and fast, chest seizing around them.

Billy’s eyes stretched too wide, hurting to see her hurt. He put the notebook down, stood up.

‘What’s wrong?’ he said, voice soft. Not prying, just asking. Poor, sweet Billy.

Jet sniffed, tears pooling at the crack in her lips as they parted.

‘I … I can’t hold my towel up with one hand,’ she cried.

Billy stepped closer.

‘Is that really why?’ he asked, even softer.

‘No.’ Jet shook her head, snatching her breath between, building up to it. Those words. ‘Billy,’ she said, little more than a wet whisper. ‘I don’t want to die.’

That did it, broke her all the way.

Not just tears anymore, a howl in the back of her throat, breaking into sad little couplets as she tried to breathe through it. She couldn’t. The air couldn’t get past her heart.

‘I don’t want to die.’

Billy closed the distance between them in two strides, wrapping his arms around a wet and shivering Jet.

He took the towel ends out of Jet’s hand, and she let him.

He crossed his arms around her back and held the towel up for her.

‘I’m scared,’ Jet cried, her arm free, hand pressing up against Billy’s chest, her forehead joining it, the tip of her nose. ‘I don’t want to die.’

She cried.

Her wet hair dripped and her nose streamed, and the tears doubled up, chasing each other but there were no winners, all soaking into Billy. Her sobs shook both of them, but Billy stood firm, his hands strong and warm against her damp, exposed back.

Jet cried, balling her fist, a handful of his shirt.

Billy bent down, resting his chin against the top of her broken head.

Then his nose.

Then his lips, pressing one kiss into her hair, staying there, his hot breath down her cold neck.

Jet cried.

And Billy stood there and took them all, holding up her towel.

Thursday

November 6