Paradise Lost (Private 9)

prepared to be a good friend--a supportive friend and nothing more. To ask the right questions. The questions that Noelle Lange and Rose Sakowitz and all the other people down in the waiting room wanted me to ask. But before I could even open my mouth, I was in his arms.

"I thought she was going to kill you," he said breathlessly.

Surprised tears jumped to my eyes. I savored the familiar strength of his arms, the crisp scent of his shampoo. I clung to him, gripping the smooth fabric of his oxford shirt like it was a life vest and I was about to go under.

"I can't believe what you did," I said as a tear spilled down my cheek. "Lunging for the gun like that..." I forced myself to pull back so I could look into his eyes. "When you hit the floor, I thought you were dead."

Josh placed his hands on either side of my face and looked at me as if he was trying to reassure himself that I was actually there. "I didn't even think. You were frozen, and there was a gun pointing at you, and I ... I didn't even think. It was either throw you down or go for the gun, and I guess I was closer to the gun, so ... I just did it."

"You saved my life," I said, a sob choking my throat.

He moved his hands to cup my shoulders and touched his forehead to mine, blowing out a sigh. "You're okay. You're okay," he said. "Thank God you're okay."

Just like that, my heart filled with bubbles of joy. Josh still loved me. He loved me so much that he couldn't stop touching me. He loved me so much he had put himself in harm's way to save me. Josh loved me. I felt so high, I could have floated right out the hospital window.

But then, reality. Like a lasso around my ankle, reality once again

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slammed me back down to the ground. Because Josh's attempt to save my life had resulted in Ivy's current state. He had knocked the gun just as it had gone off. Knocked it so that the bullet had passed me by... and had hit Ivy right in the chest.

In trying to save me, his ex-girlfriend, Josh had put his current girlfriend in the ho

spital.

We both looked over at Ivy's room. I knew that Josh was thinking exactly what I was thinking, that Ivy didn't deserve this. He let his hands slip from my shoulders, and he stepped away. Suddenly, I was freezing. For the first time, I noticed the bloodstains on the front of his shirt. On his hands. Under his fingernails. Ivy's blood. It was everywhere.

"What happened to Sabine?" he asked flatly, as we started walking back to the waiting room.

"They arrested her," I told him. "Pretty much everyone heard her confess, so . .."

"I can't believe this. I can't believe this is happening."

Josh pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. I knew the feeling. It was all so overwhelming that it was hard to decide which part to try to sort out first. Cheyenne's pointless murder, Ivy's pointless injury, or the fact that Sabine was Ariana's sister and, apparently, had come to Easton for the sole purpose of torturing me. How were we supposed to deal with that?

And then, of course, there was the issue of us. The "us" that now included three: me, Josh, and Ivy.

"So . . . now we just. . . ," I trailed off. I knew Josh well enough to

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know that he always did the right thing. And the right thing at this moment did not include me.

We turned the corner and stopped down the hall from the waiting room. Josh leaned against the cinderblock wall. He looked miserable. Tired and gaunt and haunted. He raised his hands to his face again, making a little tent around his nose and mouth. For a moment, neither of us breathed. Then he dropped his hands, as if resolved, and looked at me. The emotion was gone. In its place was an expressionless wall.

"I have to stay with Ivy," he said firmly. "I have to know she's okay. She's going to need . .. someone."

My heart contracted painfully, and I allowed myself one moment of selfishness. One. But what about me? I thought. And then I let it go. Because he was right. Ivy needed him more than I did. Yes, I had been through a lot this semester. We both had. Cheyenne's murder, our breakup, my falling-out with Noelle, and the constant feeling that someone was stalking me. All the heartache and paranoia had been because of Sabine. It had all been part of her little "torture Reed for hurting Ariana" plan.

I wished that Josh and I could have talked through all of this right then. That we could have sat together and figured out what it all meant. But at that moment, it all meant nothing. Because he cared for Ivy and, as much pain as I was in, Ivy needed him more.

I glanced over my shoulder toward the waiting room. I saw Noelle hovering, watching me expectantly. We hadn't even had a conversation yet. Hadn't cleared the air after our massive breakup and her kicking

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me out of Billings. But she had made a peace offering--she'd invited me to the party tonight--and after everything we'd been through in the past few hours, I knew that things were going to go back to normal between us. At least I hoped they were. She was all I had now.

"I guess I should go tell them what's going on," I said slowly.