The Sweetest Darkness

Alana

"I see you made it through the night." My voice cuts with acidic disappointment as I step into the kitchen and past where Chris now lurks.

Funny, isn't it, that one piece of information can completely decimate the way you see a person? Before now, I would admire the way Chris stands tall; his broad shoulders back, his head held high. Even in grey sweats and a ratty old t-shirt from that one time he was a camp councillor at some sleep-away music camp in Sophomore year, he has always looked confident and in control. He was once someone who walked with purposeful strides and smiled with honesty and clear intentions. Now? Now Chris lurks. Physically he still stands tall, but there's a shadow over him that cloaks his warm smiles with mystery and lies and I hate it. I hate that the youthful innocence of that stupid yellow t-shirt covered in treble clefs and music notes has been tainted. I hate that the boy I met on day one of college, the same boy who helped unload a cab full of my junk without knowing me or my story, and who brought me chicken noodle soup when I had freshman flu, and who held my hand through the worst months of my life became this man.

"Don't be like that, Al. Please." He sounds tired. Exhausted even. And even though I hate him right now - for the choices he's made and the impact it has on our little patch of hope here - my heart frays a little at the sound.

"I think I have a right to be angry at you right now," I sigh, running my hand over my face as I lean against the counter and try not to let my pain slip into my voice. "I can't believe you could be so stupid. Or that you could lie to me for so long."

"I know," he whispers. He doesn't say anything else. Instead he slinks to my side and pulls me against him, just as he has done a thousand times before; his arms wrapping tight around my ribs as he crushes me against his broad chest and takes a deep breath, his nose buried in my hair. When he does this, breathing in like I'm the very air he needs to live, I can't hold on to my anger. I want to, I really do, but I can't. Because, despite the fact he messed up so monumentally, he's also my best friend. My stupid, stupid best friend.

"What are you gonna do?" I melt into his embrace, wrapping my arms around his waist and sighing with him when he relaxes against me. Chris has always given the best hugs. An easy kind of warm hug that you can't help but melt into. "You don't have that kind of money, Chris."

"I know, Al. But I've got enough to pay half of it off at least."

That does little to settle my worries. The Farkas family don't accept partial payments. Not when you're six months overdue and Death is crawling down your street.

"Listen," Chris continues, whispering into my hair as he holds me, "they didn't want me. It wasn't my debt or I'd be - I'd be dead already."

I shudder at the notion. But he's right. The heir to the Farkas fortune is a deadly mystery and only one thing we know about him is one hundred percent the solid truth: if your name reaches his ears, you're already dead; you're just on borrowed time.

***

Despite the fact I have to get to the offices on the West side of the river in the next two hours, or risk the wrath of my new Editor, I find myself curled up on the couch. My knees are tucked into my chest, my arms wrapped around them and my head against the cushions as I listen to Chris' story. I am a bad friend; a horrible, terrible, awful friend.

"And when you got into the accident, Alana..." His voice waivers with leashed emotion and I find myself having to look away from the way his eyes burn into mine. It's pained, and broken, and intimate. "I was so scared I'd lose you and that they'd - they'd take you from me like they took your parents. It felt like a warning. So I did what I had to do. I did the only thing I knew to do."

I close my eyes with his confession. It weighs heavy on my soul to hear the truth. Christopher Lee Jacobs is a dead man walking because of me. Because of my father and the choices he made. Because of The Ove and the mess my family were in.

"It doesn't work like that," I'm not sure if it is him or me I'm trying to convince. The truth is, it could work exactly like that. Once The Ove murdered my father in his sleep and my mother as she lay beside him, it could have fallen on me. And the police never did find the person who drove me off of that bridge. So Chris shouldered our debt. He paid it off. And thanks to him, I will never have to find out if they would have killed me too. "You shouldn't have gone to Farkas."

"I wasn't prepared to risk it, Alana." He scoots closer to me on our couch and places his hand on my cheek, brushing away my tears. "I wasn't prepared to risk you."

"Don't," I warn him, my heart rate spiking and my eyes widening as he looks too closely at me again, and Chris shakes his head sadly. The way he always does before he says the one thing that strains our friendship.

"I love you, Allie. You know I love you."

Please, don't.

He continues with sad eyes as he places his other hand against my other cheek and turns my face gently to look at him.

"I have always loved you, Allie. And I know you don't feel the same way. I know that and I don't expect that to change, or anything from you because of this, because you are my best friend above anything else, but I love you and I did this for you." He brushes his lips against my forehead before pushing himself up off of the couch and moving to his bedroom door - giving me the distance he knows I need when he says these things. "We don't know if they'd have killed you, Allie, but I made the decision to borrow from the one man with deep enough pockets to make sure we never find out."

"And what if they kill you?" My voice catches on a sob and Chris pauses, as if he wants to come to my side but knows better. "What if you die because of this?"

"Then at least you don't."