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keep protecting me—you have to let me live.”
    He tosses the sheet to the side and growls. “You’re the only girl I have in my life. My father is fucked up. My mother is dead. I don’t have any siblings. You’re the only thing that makes me feel like . . .”
    “Like what?” I ask, standing.
    “Like I have something to fight for.”
    My heart breaks and I walk forward, stopping in front of him. “You’ll always be able to fight for me, Rai Rai, but this is important to me. I need to do this. I promise to tell you everything that happens, and you’ll be the first to know if something goes wrong, but please.” I place a hand on his chest. “Please let me do this.”
    He turns to me, eyes scanning my face. “If he hurts you, Em, I’ll kill him.”
    “And I’ll let you.”
    “You promise that?”
    I smile, stepping closer into him. He wraps his arms around me and we both sigh. “I promise.”
    He holds onto me longer than he’s ever done before, and it feels nice. His skin is soft, his muscles hard. I press my cheek to his chest and just take a moment to breathe him in.
    “You wanna stay tonight?”
    I let him go and nod. “Sure, why the hell not?”
    ~*~*~*~
    “I ck, oh my God, turn it off!” I screech, pressing the pillow to my face.
    Rainer laughs. “No, it’s epic.”
    “He just . . . he just . . .”
    “Cut his leg off, yes.”
    “I can’t!” I cry, burrowing into the bed deeper.
    “Pussy.”
    A loud pounding on the door makes Rainer flinch beside me.
    “Rainer, turn that fucking shit down. You’re not the only fucking person in this house!” his father roars.
    “Yeah, right-o,” Rainer calls out.
    “You smart-mouthing me boy?”
    I peer out from under the covers and Rainer’s body is so stiff it worries me. His fists are clenched and he’s glaring at the door, which, thankfully, is locked.
    “No,” Rainer yells.
    “Beg your fucking pardon?”
    “No, sir.”
    Poor Rainer. My heart aches for him. It’s as if his pride is being torn to pieces every time he talks to his father. His father is an asshole. I dislike him and try to avoid him at all costs. We hear a pound, as if he hit the door, and then the floorboards creak loudly as he disappears. Rainer stops the movie and we both sit in silence, like we always do when this happens.
    “You okay?” I ask, the same question I always ask.
    “Yeah,” he says, the same answer he always gives.
    “Do you want me to go?”
    “No,” he says, flicking the television off and sliding down into the covers. “Roll.”
    I do as he asks, rolling to my side. He slides up close and throws his arm over my middle.
    “Hey, Rai?”
    “Hmmmm?”
    “Do you think this friendship is . . . unnatural?”
    It’s a very random thought, but now that Rainer and I seem to be finding our own love interests, I’ve been thinking more and more about our friendship and how it might look to another person. It seems normal to me, but I don’t know any other people who have a friendship like ours.
    He’s silent a minute. “No.”
    “We sleep together.”
    “So?”
    “I don’t know. I guess some people probably don’t get it.”
    “Then they wouldn’t get us. Girls have sleepovers all the time, where four or five of them pile into a bed. What’s the difference?”
    “We’re snuggling.”
    He grunts. “I’m not snuggling.”
    I laugh softly. “Okay, dude, whatever you say.”
    He doesn’t move his arm off me—that just shows he doesn’t give a crap and is going to sleep like this, no matter how much I taunt him.
    “Promise me something, Em,” he says just as my eyes start fluttering closed.
    “Anything.”
    “Promise me you’ll protect your virginity with everything you’ve got. Only give it up when you know, with all your soul, that it’s time.”
    I reach up and grab his hand, squeezing it. “I promise.”
    I honestly don’t know what I’d do without Rainer, some days.
    And that thought scares me.

CHAPTER SEVEN
NOW – MALI
    “O