Harvey moves quickly, and the hand holding the knife starts sliding against Aiden’s neck. I don’t even think. I see a flash of red and suddenly there’s a loud bang, a man yelling in pain, two bodies collapsing to the ground.
Lowering the gun I just fired, I rush over to Aiden, yelling his name over and over and over.
“I’m okay,” comes his voice, and I’ve never been so happy and relieved and scared at the same time.
He sits up and rubs his hand across his throat. The knife cut him on the side of the neck, only about an inch long and not deep from what I can tell. Throwing my arms around him, I sob into his neck, not caring if I’m hurting myself or him, just needing to hold him, to make sure he’s okay. He wraps his arms around me and holds me close, and I can feel his elevated heart rate, beating in unison with mine.
Mason and Julian are there as well, making sure we’re okay, telling us that help is coming, that’ll we’ll all get to go home.
“Where the fuck did he go?” Julian asks, looking around the wooded area.
I sit back and turn to where Harvey fell, but he’s no longer there. I did shoot him in the side of the stomach, so he wasn’t dead when he dropped. We all look up when we hear the SUV peel away before we can do anything about it.
“Are the cops really on their way?” Aiden asks.
“Yes, we called them when we saw him run you off the road,” Mason confirms.
Aiden turns back to me, taking the gun from my shaking hands and wiping it down on the part of his shirt that’s not covered in blood.
“Listen to me, Thea,” he orders, low enough that only I can hear. “I want you to get out of here. Go home, get cleaned up and go to the hospital if you have to. Tell them you fell down the stairs or something. But you were never here, got it?”
What? Why is he telling me to leave him right now? “What the hell, Aiden? Why would I do that?”
He finishes wiping off the gun and grabs it with his hands, smudging his blood all over it in the process.
“I shot him in self-defense. Why are you wiping my prints off?” I ask.
He aims the gun in the opposite direction of us and fires once at nothing.
“What are you doing?!” I demand, seriously concerned. Are his injuries worse than I thought? How hard did he hit his head?
“Gun residue.” He gestures to his hand then drops the gun. “Just in case.” He looks me in the eye, talking clear and straight so that I understand. “You didn’t shoot anyone. I did. You were at home where you fell down the stairs. Right, Julian? You were with her?”
Julian shoots Aiden a curious look but nods slowly, not knowing why Aiden is sticking to this story but dedicating himself to it anyway. “Saw the whole thing. You know how clumsy she is.”
I can’t believe this right now! Why are they doing this?
Aiden puts the gun down and helps me stand up, wrapping his arms around me in a tight hug.
“I just got you back,” he whispers lowly in my ear. “This is going to be on the news, and I’m not risking Tony seeing you and trying to take you away from me.”
My heart beats heavy in my chest, a pit forming in my stomach.
“I want you far away from this, okay? It’s my mess, let me deal with it. I love you,” he says, his eyes raw and staring straight into my soul.
I nod at him, tears clouding my vision. “I love you too.”
He kisses me. It’s rough but soft, and scared but confident all at once, but it makes me feel like I’m lighter than air, like I can do anything and be anyone, and it wouldn’t matter because Aiden loves me.
“Go,” he commands when we pull apart.
Mason hands Julian his wrench, then plops down in all the blood and starts rolling around.
“What are you doing?!” I ask him, horrified that he would do such a thing.
“It’s obvious that Aiden wasn’t in that car alone. I’m already all busted up from our fight yesterday, anyway.”
He looks at Aiden and nods, and Aiden nods back at him.
“Come on, Amelia.” Julian grabs my hand and leads me up the hill toward his truck.
Looking back at the two boys sitting on the ground beside a wrecked car, I feel nothing but love and appreciation for both of them.
We get in the car and Julian hightails it out of there, taking backroads instead of the main ones, trying to put as much distance between us and the crime scene.
As we drive away, the distinct sound of sirens shriek in the background.
The End
Acknowledgments
As always, the first person I want to thank is you, the reader, the person who picked up this book and gave it a chance. Thank you so much to my readers, fans, friends, and Violets. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have realized that writing is something I enjoy doing, and this story would not have existed. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for following me on this journey and for allowing me to follow my dreams. I will forever be grateful for your love and support.
Thank you to my mom, Carmela, for being the greatest mom to ever walk the planet, for always believing in me, and for being my biggest fan. Thank you for reading to me every night without fail before bed, and for teaching me the power of a good story.
I’d like to thank my dad, Bruno, for supporting me unconditionally, for always believing in me without fail, and for letting me take your Challenger for “research purposes.” Thanks for answering all my dumb technical questions like “Can I hit someone with a toilet tank lid without it breaking?” without any context, and still not thinking that I’m crazy. You’re the greatest.
Like the first book, I want to acknowledge my brother, Michael. You literally did nothing and still don’t know what this story is about, but I love you anyway.
Thank you to my boyfriend, Mario, and his family, for being so supportive and for being my number one fans. If there was a record for the most copies of She’s With Me purchased by a single family, I’m positive you guys would hold it. I’m so grateful to have you all in my life.
Thank you to my grandparents, zias, zios, cousins, neighbors, family, and friends who have always supported me. Yes, it’s kind of awkward having all your family and friends read a romance and imagine the kissing scenes being read in your voice, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My first-ever book signing was basically one hundred of you guys crowding an Indigo store and it was the best thing ever; it meant so much to me.
On that note, thanks to all the Toronto readers, Wattpad staff, and everyone else who came out to my one and only book signing. It was literally one of the best days of my life and I’ll never forget it.
To the Wattpad community and Wattpad Stars, thank you for always being such a great support network, always being so quick and willing to help a Wattpad Star in need, and for always being available for a writing sprint. Also, thanks to all of the Stars and fellow Wattpad published authors for sharing my books with their audiences—you guys are the coolest.
The first draft of this book is so different from the awesome version you’re reading right now, and that’s because of the input of my amazing editors. Thanks to Adam Wilson, for pointing out all the plot holes and overall story notes, and to Rebecca Mills, for being the absolute best copy editor around. And of course, thank you so much to Deanna McFadden. Your help, notes, suggestions, and input have been absolutely invaluable. This story was able to reach its full potential because you were here cheering me on and helping me hone my craft. I can’t wait to work with you all again on the next book.
Thank you to my talent manager, I-Yana Tucker. I legitimately could not imagine my writing journey without you. Not only are you the best talent manager, but you’re probably my biggest cheerleader. I always thought you were exaggerating when you told me you talk about She’s With Me all the time, but people from Wattpad tell me that you honestly do talk about it all the time! Thank you for being a champion for me and my work, and for planning the above mentioned amazing book signing! I’m so grateful to have you through th
is experience.
Also, a big thank you to everyone at Wattpad HQ and Wattpad Books—editors, publicists, marketing, graphic designers—involved in working so hard to make my book ready for publishing and promoting it out in the world.
To all of you, and everyone I probably forgot, thank you for believing in me. I’m so grateful to have all of you in my life, and it’s because of you that I was able to make Stay With Me a book I’m so proud of.
Read more
Still with Me
EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT
1
When I was in elementary school, I thought being normal was probably the worst thing I could grow up to be. I must have been six or seven, and we had to pick what we wanted to be when we were older from a list of preapproved careers to do a project on. They didn’t have the option I wanted, so I picked doctor and went home to complain.
My dad was thoroughly confused when I explained that I didn’t want to be a doctor or lawyer or teacher, but I wanted to be a hairdresser exclusively for gorillas, who also juggled part time in a traveling ukulele band.
He tried throwing logical facts at me, but I was undeterred by the fact that gorillas probably don’t need hairdressers, or that I didn’t know how to juggle or play ukulele, and that no one even wanted to see a juggling ukulele band in the first place.
Then he hit me with the that’s not a normal career path speech. I replied, in my cutesy, little kid way, that being normal sounded boring, and I’d much rather have interesting things happen to me, even if they made my life harder. Now, looking back, I would do anything to slap six- or seven-year-old me silly, and eat my words out of existence.
My dad wanted me to have a normal, boring life without any hardships. I scoffed at the idea. It’s funny how in the end, he was the one who set into motion a chain of events that ensured my life would never be completely normal again.
There have been multiple attempts to end my life made by two different men, all within the last year. There’s Tony, the man who’s quite possibly a real psychopath, and the reason I’ve had to move three times and change my identity each time in order to keep myself safe.
Then there’s Aiden’s biological dad, Andrew Kessler, who’s ruthless and clearly has no problem getting someone to murder a teenage girl in order to send a message to his estranged son, who threatened to blow the whistle on his true, shitty past.
My mother is having an affair with the father of one of my best friends, and I have no idea if or how I should tell Mason. Plus, there’s the whole Mason’s most likely in love with me thing that I really don’t even want to think about addressing right now.
Annalisa’s half brother, Luke, is going to stand trial for murdering Aiden’s stepfather, which he claims he doesn’t remember doing because he wasn’t sober at the time, and Annalisa is just now realizing that she can’t bear to not have Luke in her life.
Noah and Chase are in a weird, we’re friends but not really stage because Chase walked in on Noah in bed with the love of his life, Charlotte, who really doesn’t know if she even likes either of them as more than friends.
My middle (and favorite) finger is dislocated from punching Ryan, Aiden’s now ex-stepbrother, in the face, my nose is swollen and bruised from walking into Mason’s elbow, and there are a bunch of cuts and bruises on my body from Aiden’s dad’s attempt to murder me.
And to make all of that worse, I’m being relocated as soon as the agents assigned to my case finalize our new location and identities. King City is the one place that feels like home, where I have friends I love and a boy I love. But Aiden already knows all about me, and I decided to break some small rules so that I don’t have to completely give him up, namely the no contacting anyone from your old life rule. But what my mom and the agents don’t know won’t hurt them, and I’ll be supercareful. When the time comes to leave, I won’t feel like my heart is being ripped out; I’ll still have Aiden.
But in the meantime, while I’m still here in King City, not only do I have Kaitlyn and Ryan trying to make my life miserable, but my best friends are all in the middle of their own drama, and I have two grown men trying to kill me.
Nice.
Honestly, Julian’s the only one in this group who has his shit together and is living a relatively normal life, except for the fact that he hangs out with all of us.
After the accident, Aiden and Mason give the cops a pretty convincing story about what had happened, mostly sticking to the truth but omitting any mention of me or Julian. As far as I know, the detectives don’t see any discrepancies in their story.
Harvey, the man who ran Aiden and me off the road and tried to shoot me, wasn’t found, but Aiden didn’t deliver a kill shot, so they believe he’s injured. They ran the prints on the knife that he held to Aiden’s throat, and they were matched to a Harvey Vedenin, who, to no surprise, has been arrested before. It’s also no surprise that Harvey Vedenin is a known associate and bodyguard of Andrew Kessler, which gives validity to Aiden’s story. Of course, there’s no undeniable evidence to actually prove that Andrew Kessler was behind Harvey’s actions, but we know the truth.
Aiden did end up speaking to Vivienne Henfrey, the reporter who made it clear she is not a fan of Kessler’s, and she practically begged Aiden to go on air. He and Mason stayed at the beach house a few extra days to sort everything out, and the rest of us went back home, and Jason and Jackson stayed at Mason’s house.
I watched Aiden on the news from home, my heart exploding with pride seeing his handsome and determined face, sharing a part of his life that I know he’d rather bury so far inside of him that his subconscious doesn’t even know it’s there. I know how hard it was for him to share his past, but he was confident as he told the world about how he is the son of Andrew Kessler, even though Andrew originally claimed to have no children. He explained how Andrew left when his mother was sick and pregnant, and how he hasn’t tried to contact his family since his wife died. But Aiden was on the news, looking bold, brave, and confident, his words elegant and captivating, making the listener hold their breath just to make sure they didn’t miss a single word of his story.
He was the same Aiden as usual—cold, stoic, and deadly beautiful, looking even more intimidating with the bruised jaw and ten stitches on the side of his forehead. But the world couldn’t help falling in love with him, right there and then.
That’s the thing about Aiden. He has that presence and charm, even on camera, and even when he’s not trying, that just makes people gravitate toward him, that makes people like him, makes them want him to like them, even when everything about him screams, Don’t mess with me.
Vivienne took Aiden’s story and old family photos and ran with it, destroying Kessler’s platform and family friendly agenda with it. She basically proved that Kessler is the biggest hypocrite on the planet, and doesn’t actually care or live by any of the issues he was campaigning for. Obviously, Kessler denied everything. His team worked quickly and efficiently at his response and recovery from this new revelation of information, and as far as I know, has no plans of dropping out of the race for governor.
We were all together when we heard Kessler say he has no intention of dropping out, and Charlotte asked, “He’ll never recover from this, right? People will think he’s an awful person or a phony or a hypocrite and won’t elect him if he chooses not to drop out? Right?”
Annalisa snorted when she replied. “Well, you never know—worse people have done worse things in this country and have still been elected to high places of power, so …”
We all deflated a bit after that, knowing it was true, but at least he’s under more public scrutiny, and won’t make any attempts to take my or Aiden’s life anytime soon.
Hopefully.
Now it’s Monday morning, and we have to go back to school and face the gossip mongers who have nothing better to do than gawk and stare at us. It doesn’t help that there are all sorts of rumors already swirling around before we even head to school.
A f
ew days before school, Makayla Thomas, Kaitlyn’s best friend, saw me at the grocery store, and told everyone that my face is fucked up from botched plastic surgery. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when Charlotte told me about that rumor. Of all the things Makayla could’ve come up with, she went with the most basic and uncreative thing. But still, this means everyone’s going to try to get a look at me, but that’s nothing in comparison to what Aiden’s going to face when he steps in the building.
He doesn’t open up; it was a miracle when I got him to tell me the most insignificant detail about himself, and that was when he liked me. Having a bunch of stupid teenagers openly staring at you and stage whispering as you walk by isn’t something I think he’ll especially enjoy. I haven’t seen him since the accident because he just got back last night, but I wouldn’t blame him if he decided to skip the next few days.
As I walk into the school with Annalisa beside me, I already feel the stares on me. I fidget with the necklace that Aiden got me for Christmas, feeling calmed by its weight. It’s a pocket-knife disguised as a necklace that has a secret button to press to release the blade. Obviously, I know I shouldn’t be wearing it to school, but I didn’t wear it the night Aiden and I went to meet with Vivienne Henfrey, and we were run off the road and almost killed. I could’ve really used it then, so I decided I’d much rather have it on me now, just in case.
Annalisa holds her head high, a scowl on her face, staring down the people who gawk at us without shame until they bow their heads in submission. If I wasn’t her friend, I’d be terrified of her.
We round the corner to get to my locker, and I stop short. At my locker waiting for me is Aiden. It’s been almost a full week since I’ve seen him in person, and a sense of peace comes over me at seeing him standing there, waiting for me, looking at me like I just made his whole week. Everyone else and their stares and whispers at seeing me or Aiden fade away as I walk over to him.
Stay With Me (A Wattpad Novel) Page 24
