My Soul to Steal by Rachel Vincent

something goes wrong. I want to know that you’re eventually going to be able to forgive me. And I’m not gonna do anything to jeopardize that possibility.” He took a deep breath and held my gaze. “But Sabine needs me…”
    “No…” I shook my head, but he spoke over me, refusing to be interrupted.
    “Yes, she does. You may not like it or understand it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. And right now, I need her, too.”
    “You need her?” My nightmare came roaring back like a train about to run me over, and suddenly I wondered if it was more premonition than dream. I summoned anger to disguise the deep ache in my chest. “In what way do you need her exactly, and do not tell me she scratches the right itch, or I swear I will walk away right now, and this time I won’t look back, Nash.”
    He exhaled again and his features suddenly looked heavy, like he couldn’t have formed a smile if he’d wanted to. “I’m not sleeping with her, Kaylee. I swear on my soul.”
    I would have been relieved by his admission—and the confirmation I saw in his slowly swirling eyes—but I was tooconfused to process much of anything in that moment. “Then why would you possibly need her?”
    Nash closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Then he met my gaze over our forgotten lunches. “I’m two weeks clean, and every single day feels like starting all over. It never gets any easier, but yesterday truly sucked for me. Seeing you and not being able to touch you—hardly getting to talk to you… That made everything harder. Including willpower. Last night, I was one breath away from paying someone to cross me into the Netherworld.”
    I opened my mouth to ask who he could possibly have hired as a Netherworld ferry, but he continued before I could.
    “Don’t ask. There are places you can go. People—kind of—who will do it for the right price.”
    Fresh chill bumps crawled over my skin, followed by a bitter wash of revulsion. I hated it that he even knew things like that.
    “But my point,” Nash continued, “is that I was trying to talk myself out of it when she showed up on my porch. And we just talked. I swear that’s all that happened, but it was enough. She gave me something to think about, other than how badly I wanted a hit, or an hour alone with you.”
    “So she’s a substitute for me?” Suddenly my throat felt thick and hot. Bruised by the words I made myself swallow. How was I supposed to trust the two of them alone together, knowing that? “That’s not fair, Nash. I can’t…”
    “I know. You’re not ready to be alone with me, and I understand that. I deserve it. But I need someone, Kaylee. I need a friend. And in case you haven’t noticed, no one else is exactly beating down the door to talk to me right now.” His wide-armed gesture took in the entire table, still empty except for us.
    “They just don’t know what to say,” I insisted. “People never know what to say when someone close to you dies, and it’s even worse this time, thanks to the rumors about Scott.” Half the student body thought he and I were cheating on Nash and my cousin, Sophie, and that we’d been caught the day of Scott’s infamous breakdown.
    “I know, but that doesn’t change anything. I’ve been alone and sick from withdrawal for two weeks, and when I get back to school, people just stare at me and whisper.”
    “I get it.” How could I not? But I had Emma and Alec to help distract me from Nash’s absence. And even Tod had been coming around more lately… “What about Tod?” I asked, as the thought occurred to me. “Why can’t you just hang out with your brother?”
    “Because he won’t talk to me. I haven’t even seen him since that night. After the Winter Carnival.” When he’d punched Nash for letting Avari possess me over and over. “Since he can’t do anything else for Addy, he’s decided that he’s your white knight, and I don’t think he’s going to forgive me until you do.”
    Wow.