I Need You (39 page)

Like Lindy, push your boundaries, face up to your insecurities, blow them out of the water, and you can be whoever you want to be and achieve whatever you want to achieve. Self-belief is always the first step.

Bonus Material

Rachel and Jason’s story started in
I Found You
and is available to buy
now.
Read on for an exclusive sneak peek at chapter one below!

I Found You

Chapter One

The beat of the music pounded through my earphones, drowning out the loud rattle of the subway trains. I was in the zone. My heart was racing, my feet striking the pavement with the rhythm of the bassline as I ran.

The monotony of city life swamped me in the day, but running brought me back from it at night.

God, I missed home, and fuck it was cold.

Too cold to snow.
I heard the words Dad always repeated. I’d always thought it a myth. Was it ever too cold to snow? I didn’t know, but people had been saying it all day.

The pavement was dry, not icy. Dry with cold. There was no moisture in the air, only the cloud of my breath, as my lungs filled and then exhaled with the pace of my strides.

Maybe it was true. God, there were so many myths in the world. Like, New York City was the place to be. It still felt like new shoes to me, like it just didn’t fit.

The asphalt felt firm beneath my sneakers.

I looked forward, trying to increase my pace and energy, burning away the doubts and disappointments I’d felt since I came to the city.

At the end of the bridge there was a figure, caught in the middle of a beam of orange lamplight, like some illuminated angel. I generally only saw other guys jogging on the bridge path. It was rare to see anyone else.

It was Thanksgiving in little over a week and Christmas in a few weeks. Lindy was pissed I wasn’t going back home, but she’d made up her mind to come to me for Christmas.

Was that good or bad?

The figure was facing the Brooklyn Bridge, probably looking at the reflection of the lights glinting and shifting on the dark water. It was mesmerizing when you focused on it.

The Manhattan Bridge was never busy, probably because of the noise of the trains. The environment didn’t inspire pleasure, so it wasn’t a place for tourists. But it was a good path for running: long and straight, and normally empty.

I ran harder, my eyes focusing on the figure.

The person hadn’t moved. They held their hands up, gripping the metal grill above them.

The pose seemed odd. A little desperate. It wasn’t casual.

My imagination shifted, no longer picturing angels but a horror movie. The way the lamplight shone down on the figure was like they were in the sights of a hovering helicopter, or a beam from a UFO.

I thought of Christmas again, and ached for home. But I wasn’t going home. I had to conquer New York.

The light shining down on the stranger suddenly took the form of a Godly benediction once more. The person’s arms shifted, stretching out, similar to a crucifixion pose, hands wide and high as they looked upward.

I was getting nearer.

My fingers were numb with the cold, even inside my gloves, and my ears burned as the frost nipped beneath my hood. Running should’ve kept me warm, but it was twenty-one degrees Fahrenheit, way below freezing point.

Fuck, now I could see the person ahead was standing in a t-shirt. Their outstretched arms were bare.

“Hey!” My heart rate thundered as I ran on, wondering what sort of sketchy city-nutter I was running toward. What were they doing wearing a tee in this weather? It didn’t look like a homeless dude, but…

My breaths grew more uneven.

The guy ahead hadn’t heard me.

I pulled my earphones out. “Hey!”

Still no recognition. It was like they were in some sort of trance.

My feet pounded on the concrete.

It wasn’t a guy, it was a girl. I’d seen the long hair way back, but hadn’t been sure. Plenty of guys had long hair. But now, I could see.

I knocked my hood back. I didn’t want to scare her. “Hey!”

Nothing. Not a single sign of recognition and I was only yards away. She was wearing skinny jeans and sneakers with her tee.

Her hands moved, catching hold of the wire like she was going to climb it, then her foot lifted, seeking a grip on the railing.

Her arms bracing her weight; her other foot lifted. What the hell was she doing? Trying to go over the wire? Did she want to jump?

“Hey! Wait!”

I ran harder.

Fuck. She looked serious and she carried on climbing, searching out hand and foot holds.

“Are you crazy? Stop it!”

As I ran the last few yards her gaze finally turned to me. I covered the distance in moments, watching her clinging on the wire, Spiderman style.

God knows what she saw in my eyes. I could see nothing in hers except maybe fear. They were huge, and dark, staring at me like I was the weird one.

I wasn’t the weird one.

My music continued playing muted sounds and air rasped into my lungs as I stopped. I lifted a hand, palm up, offering to help her down. “Come on…” My breath fogged the air around us. “Nothing’s that bad…”

She held still. Her eyes had no depth. It was like looking into mirrors, reflecting back the electric light. She looked a little mad.

“Let me help you.”

She was panting as hard as I was. She didn’t come down.

She was only a couple of feet off the floor, I could pull her down, but I didn’t want to scare her.

My fingers instinctively lifted and touched her lower back. I could feel the breath pulling into her lungs. “Look, seriously, you don’t want to do anything foolish.”

She didn’t move.

“What’s your name?” Shit. My heart was still racing like I was running. I looked along the bridge path, but there was no one else here to help.

“Honey, come on down. I can’t let you do it.”

She was just staring at me.

What the hell did cops say to persuade a person…? “You must be cold, you can have my hoodie. I’m not going to leave you here.”

This was like some TV drama.

My hands were trembling from the blood burning in my muscles. I’d gone from running hard to standing still. A weight of responsibility fell on me suddenly. This girl’s life was in my hands. I’d been running wrapped up in my own world and now… Shit. “Really. Please… Come down.”

Pleading obviously touched some nerve in her, as one foot came back down onto the concrete, her cotton t-shirt catching on my glove and crumpling up, revealing the pale skin of her lower back. My gaze dropped to her plain white sneakers, as the next foot touched the ground.

Relief washed through me on a wave as I lifted my hand so her t-shirt slid back down. I looked up and met her gaze. It was still blank though, and her fingers gripped the wire.

I touched her shoulder. It lifted as air pulled into her lungs, before slipping back out. I didn’t know why I was touching her, but I just… I needed to know she was okay. She didn’t seem to know where she was, or what she’d been doing.

A dark smear marked her face, and whatever it was, it stained her hair too.

Every sermon I’d endured as a kid raced through my head. Help the needy; put others first; don’t walk past that mugged guy in the street. I hadn’t gone to church for years, not since I’d hit my teens, but religion was stitched into my DNA. No way could I walk past a person in need.

My shock dissipating, I stripped off my hoodie. The smell of my sweat permeated the cold air. She probably wouldn’t want it but she needed it. “How long have you been up here? It’s freezing.” She could have been up here half an hour. She hadn’t been here when I’d run over the bridge into Manhattan.

For a minute I didn’t think she’d take it, but then her hand reached out. “I don’t know?”

“You know it’s twenty-one degrees Fahrenheit, right? You’ll get hyperthermia.” She looked at me, her eyes still dead. “I’m Jason… Were you trying to do what I thought?”

She didn’t answer.

I held out my hand. “Hi.”

She didn’t shake my hand, just looked at it.

“Look, nothing can be that bad. You’ll get over it, and be glad you didn’t jump.”

“Will I?” Her pitch was mocking, although maybe she was mocking her own thoughts, not my words, nothing in her eyes or her face told me though.

What now? I could hardly just run on and leave her here. Dammit. “I…” I could take her to emergency… What would they do? Check her over and spit her out. “Have you got any family locally?”

“No.”

“Friends?”

“No.”

Her large eyes confirmed what she’d said. She had nowhere to go. Her full lips pouted a little. Shit. What did I do?

“Where do you live then? Is there somewhere I can take you?”

She was pretty. Her face glowed in the electric light, showing a clear complexion and perfectly even features, though her skin was yellowish in this light.

“No. Nowhere.”

Why was she here? What had made her life too hard to carry on?

She shivered, and pain etched its expression on her face, then tears suddenly glittered in her eyes, and the coldness in them became a lake of desolation. “I need to get away.”

“From what?”

She didn’t answer, but her teeth started chattering. I lifted the hood of my sweatshirt over her blonde hair.

“Look, obviously things aren’t okay for you. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

I took a breath, looking at her and hoping some magical solution would suddenly hit me. It didn’t, and I was getting cold now.

She shivered again and her arms crossed, her hands gripping the opposite elbows. She’d stopped looking at me. She was looking at the sky, like she was searching for answers too.

I sighed, my fingers running over my hair. She was nearly as tall as me, and I was six foot one. She must be at least five eight. But she was slender, like a model. My sweatshirt swamped her figure. She looked fragile.

Shit. There was nothing I could do. “What are you going to do, if I go?”

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug, but she didn’t look down.

My heart was thumping to the same rhythm as the bass beat now pounding out of the earphones dangling ‘round my neck

I couldn’t leave her out here…

“Have you really got nowhere to go?”

She shook her head, making her blonde ponytail sweep over her back.

Shit. What option did I have? What option did she have?

“Have you got any money?”

Her head shook again. But her stillness, apart from her shaking head, made me feel like she didn’t even care. I felt stupid then, of course she didn’t care. She’d just tried to end her life by throwing herself off a bridge. She obviously didn’t care about anything right now.

What to do with her? I could give her money… But I’d have to go back to my apartment to get my card and take her to a cash dispenser. And what would she do with it? Maybe she’d already taken something. Drugs or drink. Maybe that was why she was so dead looking. I’d be stupid to give her money.

I sighed again. I could call the cops and take her to a station. But what would they care?
I found this girl and she’s got nowhere to stay
. They’d say, yeah, right, join the line of a couple of hundred other homeless people in New York.

There wasn’t any choice. “I could take you home with me, if you’ve got nowhere to go. Just for tonight. It would give you chance to get your head straight, and get warm. If you want?”

“I…” She looked at me again then, her eyes losing their depth once more and setting up shutters, locking me out.

“What do you think?” I got another shrug, but her eyes suddenly filled with depth, letting me see into the thoughts behind her gaze. They were asking me questions.

“What are you going to do if you don’t come back with me?” Another shrug. “Have you got any other options?” She shook her head, her ponytail swaying, but her gaze was clinging to mine now, like was she was considering me. Maybe she was trying to judge if she’d be safe.

This was surreal, like I’d been lifted out of real life, and placed in the middle of a fucking film. Question was; how was it going to play out? Taking her home was a risk, but sometimes risks had to be taken. Like coming to New York.

I sighed again. Sometimes taking risks didn’t pay off. But I still hoped they would.

She shivered and her hands gripped her arms harder.

I lifted my hands palm outward. “I swear. I’m the nice guy. And if you’ve got nowhere else to go…” Lindy would go mad, but this was devil or deep-blue-sea territory. How could I leave this woman here? She’d nowhere to sleep and it was twenty-one degrees Fahrenheit.

Her shoulders shook as she shivered again.

“It’s not far. I live in DUMBO.”

“Down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass…” she whispered. “It’s such a cool name for a neighborhood.”

I laughed. She didn’t.

“Have you got any other choice?”

She shook her head.

“Then on my life, if you come, I’ll not hurt you.”

She said nothing just looked at me.

“My apartment’s warm. You can’t stay out here…” Shit, I was probably just as crazy as her, offering to take a stranger back with me.

“I…”

“I swear, you’re safe with me.”

She looked back at the wire, then down at the water.

“You don’t want to do that. Just give it a night, you’ll feel different in the morning.”

She shook her head, still looking at the water.

If zombies were real, they’d look like her. My sweatshirt swamping her, she stood like a sorrowful statue, her complexion as pale as marble.

I couldn’t just leave her. I rubbed her arms, gently, answering an instinct to put my arm around her, but I denied that. I didn’t even know her name.

“Look, you can trust me. Honest. When we get back to my apartment you can call my Mom, or my friends, and they’ll all tell you I’m the nice guy. Seriously, if you need references…” I smiled as she looked back at me, trying to convince her. “What do you say? Are you a gambler? Are you going to try trusting me?” Silence and stillness. This girl was messed up. But then I’d known that from the moment I’d seen her. She’d been standing in the freezing cold, in a tee, trying to jump off a bridge.