Falling In Between (Falling Novels #1)

Chapter Eighteen

I awoke in the middle of the night when I rolled over and suddenly found myself atop Chance's chest. The motion brought his tranquil body to life too, and he reached out and wrapped his arm around me.

"How long have you been here?"

He shrugged and stroked my cheek softly. "Few hours maybe. You seemed so tired and I wasn't sure if you were still in a bad mood, so I just wanted you to rest. Like last night."

My heart melted a little. No! No, my heart cannot melt from him anymore! I rolled my body out of his grasp and back to my side of the bed.

"Still mad then?"

"No. I'm not mad. I'm just...confused. And when I get confused, I tend to back away from things."

He rolled up against me and hitched his head up on his arm. "What are you confused about, sweetie?"

"You. Me. What the hell it is going on in here."

"What exactly confuses you about us?" he whispered in my ear. Then he began to nibble it, and I felt my strength begin to dissolve, like it always seemed to do in this fantasyland. I swear the air was filled with some type of drug-induced aphrodisiac. It was so hard to fight his advances when I liked the way his lips traveled down my neck the same time his hand worked its way up my shirt. And it didn't help that my fingers plunged themselves deep into his hair no matter how many times I told them to stop.

His nibbles paused just long enough to whisper that he loved me. "Do you really mean that?" I asked breathlessly.

I felt a puff of air on my neck before he released a weak chuckle. "Do you really doubt that?"

"No, it's just..." He lips moved down to where his hand was and my back began to arch towards him, making it extremely difficult to keep my thoughts on track. "Stop. Please, stop," I begged, but he didn't take it seriously and my body continued to lightly spasm from the love bites. It took an insurmountable amount of strength to push on his chest as I begged him again to stop. I inhaled a cleansing breath, hoping it would calm the fire burning wildly within. "I need to tell you something and you're really not gonna like me for saying it."

He looked down on me with narrowing eyes. "How bad is this on a scale of one to ten?"

"Bad."

He sat up, and silently waited as I pulled my shirt back down and followed him up.

"I need you to promise me something first."

He groaned and stroked his eyebrows outward.

"You're gonna be mad and you're gonna think I'm crazy, but when I'm done telling you all this, you have to promise that you'll actually try to do what I ask."

His body stiffened, but after a moment he was able to give me a long, mellow, "O-kaaaaaay."

"First off, where do you go when you're not with me?"

Confused, he asked, "Is this a trick question? We're always together."

"No, we're not. I go to school during the day. Sometimes I hang out with other people." Like Robert. "I only see you at night. When I'm dreaming."

He huffed and rolled his eyes. "Jenna–"

"Think about it! You just said that we're always together. But Chance, you're a senior in high school. When's the last time you remember being in class? And your family? When's the last time you sat down to dinner with them?" I could see him contemplating my words, but he still didn't look like he was gonna believe me. "Don't you see? You can't be with me all the time. We're not together all the time. And you're not spending your time away from me at school or at home. So where do you go?"

He took a deep breath and opened his mouth, but quickly closed it again. "So you're saying I'm dreaming?"

"Actually, I think we both are. Only I get up each day and live. You..."

"What?" he asked. "I what?"

"You're in the hospital. I've seen you. You've been in a coma for like five months. Your name isn't even Chance, it's Evan."

That did it.

"Alright." He jumped off the bed. "This is ludicrous. If you want to skip the sex, just tell me flat out. I wouldn't ask you to do anything you didn't want to."

I jumped off the bed too. "Would you stop? Please!" I grabbed him and he let me hold him firmly in place. "A part of me loves you too, and I love that we've had this time together. But it's all just been a fantasy. And I don't want you to spend the rest of your life in here."

"Yeah, alright," he mocked. "So, I'm going to go for the night. Since you're playing this off as a dream, I'm going to hit the stop button now and let us start fresh tomorrow."

He pried my hands from his shirt and turned towards the door. For the first time in my life, a surge rose within me and I pushed him hard from behind. "Don't mock this!" He turned to face me and I slapped my hands into his chest. I didn't hurt him, but his eyes were widened by my brazen antics. "I'm serious! You have nowhere to go when I'm not here to guide the dream. You're just this leech of a visitor that jumps in every night 'cause your soul or mind or whatever is drawn to mine for some reason. Like we're connected." I grabbed his collar and yanked him closer. "I don't want you in here anymore. Do you hear me? I want you out of my dreams and you need to get back to reality."

I could feel the tears begin to well behind my eyes.

"So, what? You don't want to see me anymore unless I'm in the 'real world'?"

"Yeah, that's right!" I snapped, furious at his use of air quotations. I didn't have the courage to tell him that I only wanted Robert in the real world. But I let him assume, afraid he'd never try to leave otherwise.

"Jenna, this is crazy and I'm going to stop this fight before it gets any worse."

"You can't avoid this. The next dream will just pick up right where we left off. The dreams never reset."

"Jenna, whatever. I'm leaving."

Once again he turned his back on me. "Stop!" I shouted, the tears beginning to flow and my throat constricting. "I'm giving you an ultimatum."

He paused and looked over his shoulder. "You're giving an ultimatum? You?" He shook his head and added, "Don't say anything you'll regret tomorrow, Jenna."

I couldn't believe I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I needed him to take this seriously and I was coming off as an emotional teenage girl.

"You promised me when this began that you would do what I asked no matter how crazy you thought I was or how mad you got at me. So here's what I want, and if you love me at all, you'll do it."

He was clearly done with me at that point, but he forced himself to stand firm long enough to hear me out.

"When you leave me tonight and walk out that door, I want you to pay attention to where you go. And when you realize that you're not actually waking up from this fantasyland, I want you to find your body and realize it's lying somewhere in a hospital bed. And if you can't accept what I'm saying right now and you can't find a way to believe I'm telling the truth, then I don't wanna ever see you in here again. Ever! You wanna ever speak to me again? Then you do it from your own damn body!"