WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
Leslie shook her head and forced herself to face Dev. “It was. You know it
was.”
“Les—”
“You almost died, Dev. Because of me.”
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• 78 •
WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
CHAPTER NINE
The fog had rolled in off the water, as it often did in the mountains, and the
combination of the haze and the pain and the beer made it so hard to focus on
the narrow sliver of blacktop that ? ickered in and out of Dev’s sight. Her side
ached like a bad cramp from running too hard and too far, the beer rolled
around in her stomach in search of a way out, and she hurt. God, how she hurt.
The echo of Leslie’s words shredded her heart. She’s nothing to me. She’s
nobody.
Dev blinked back tears, but her vision was no clearer. She burned with hot
shame and guilt for what she’d done. She hadn’t meant to. She hadn’t meant to
kiss her. Not even to touch her. No. Not true. She could admit it now, couldn’t
she? After what she’d done. She’d wanted to touch her. For so long. She
hadn’t thought of anything else for months except seeing Leslie, being close to
her, stealing accidental touches.
She thought of nothing but her smile. Not true. Stop lying. She thought about
her eyes, how soft they got when Leslie was telling her some special secret. She
thought about the curve of her lips, the way they parted in surprise and grew
moist when she laughed. She thought about her breasts, the way they rose
beneath her T-shirt and swayed just a little in her bathing suit.
Dev choked back a groan and revved the engine harder. She knew the road by
heart, she didn’t need to see it. She leaned into the turns, so low her knee nearly
dragged over the road surface. Admit it. Tell the truth. She’d thought about
Leslie’s breasts, and her hips, and what lay between her thighs. She’d thought
about touching her there while she’d touched herself. At ? rst she hadn’t
understood, had pretended not to recognize what she felt. But after a while, she
couldn’t pretend that the
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RADCLY fFE
ache in the pit of her stomach and the hot hard longing between her legs wasn’t
because of Leslie.
Tears streamed from her eyes. She’s nothing to me. Distantly, she heard the
sound of an engine roaring. Bright lights slashed into the fog, blinding her. She
torpedoed into the ? rst curve of an S-turn hard and fast, ? ghting to keep the
big machine upright. She hurt. She felt sick.
The roaring sound was inside her.
Metal screamed over the pavement, showers of sparks ? ared like ? reworks
on the Fourth of July, and she was burning. Burning with shame. Burning with
pain. Burning with the unspeakable agony of loss.
Dev bolted from the truck and made it as far as the trees at the edge of the
parking lot before she vomited. Shivering, she leaned with one arm against the
rough bark and fought down the next swell of nausea.
“Oh my God, Dev!” Leslie skidded to a stop a few feet away, afraid to touch
her. “Dev, what—”
Not turning around, Dev waved her off. “Go away. I’m okay.” She didn’t feel
okay. She felt like her legs might give out. She hadn’t felt anything like this since
she’d come to in the hospital three days after the accident. Even then, her body
had been so wracked with pain, she hadn’t felt the excruciating wrench of
betrayal until weeks later. Then it had seemed unending.
“I’m sorry,” Leslie said miserably. “God, I didn’t mean— If I’d known, I
wouldn’t have told you.”
“It’s not because of what you said.” Dev wiped her mouth on the back of her
arm and slumped onto the grass a few feet away. She leaned against another
tree and closed her eyes. “Bad memories. It’s been a long, long time since it’s
been this bad.”
Leslie caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She wanted to cry.
Nothing, nothing ever made her want to cry. Not for years and years.
Not like this, not from some place deep inside her where it felt as if wounds
never healed and wrongs were never righted. She hurried down to the truck and
pawed through the cooler Dev must have placed in the back earlier. She pulled
out a soda, popped the top on her way back to Dev, and knelt down close to
her. “Here. Coke.”
“Thanks.” Dev opened her eyes, took the soda, and drank half of it down. She
caught a glimpse of Leslie’s eyes, huge and ? lled with sorrow. Leslie was pale,
and Dev wanted to stroke her cheek, wanted it
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WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
as much as she had ? fteen years before, and just as then, she knew she
couldn’t. “Don’t go back there, Leslie. Don’t hurt for the past.”
“I let you ride off on that motorcycle,” Leslie whispered. “I knew you shouldn’t
drive. I knew it was wrong. I let you go.”
“I climbed onto that bike, Les.” Dev ? nished her soda and crushed the empty
can in her ? st, resting it on top of her knee. “There’s nobody responsible for
that except me.”
“I hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
Dev shook her head. “You don’t need to apologize for not feeling the way I felt.
You didn’t do anything wrong.” Dev took a deep breath and hoisted herself up.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going back to the cabin and get cleaned up. Why don’t
we postpone our trip to the lake.”
“Of course.” Leslie stood, reminding herself they were adults now and what had
been between them had ended on a dark night during the last moments of their
innocence. “Are you all right? I can walk you back.”
“No.” Dev shook her head with a small smile. “I’m okay. I apologize for the
little scene. That’s not normal for me.”
Leslie laughed humorlessly. “I don’t quite know what’s happening, but I haven’t
felt like myself since the moment I arrived.”
“Well, don’t let me add to your troubles. I never blamed you then.
I certainly don’t now.”
Leslie watched her walk away, wondering if Dev realized that before she’d
jumped from the truck she’d been crying. Tears that fell in silence, bridging the
years as if they’d never passed. Leslie had wanted to brush them from her
cheeks, but she’d been afraid to touch her, knowing instinctively that Dev was
