Page 114 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
Keep counting breaths.
In for her.
Out.
In.
Out.
They’re there.
Too shallow.
Too slow.
But there.
Jackson keeps talking to her, his words tumbling over themselves now, too desperate to filter.
“You remember that morning at the apartment when you yelled at me because I drank your coffee? You said I was a menace and I said you liked me that way. You remember that? You remember the tattoo? You said it was insane and then you got it anyway. Come on, sweetheart, don’t do this now. Not now.”
My throat tightens so hard it hurts.
I drag in a breath and keep my focus where it is.
The road stretches on.
The dark outside the windows has thickened fully now, the headlights carving out only small sections at a time, and the longer we drive, the more the car starts to feel like a sealed thing, full of blood and panic and the sound of all of us trying not to let the worst thought in.
I don’t know how much time has passed when I notice the change.
It’s small.
So small I almost convince myself I imagined it.
Then I feel it again.
Her breathing catches.
Not fully.
Not long.
Just enough to break the rhythm I’d been counting on.
I freeze for half a second, every part of me locking around the feeling of it.
Then it happens again.
Shorter this time.
Wrong.
My mouth goes dry.
“Jackson,” I say, and my voice doesn’t sound right.
He looks at me immediately.
