If I Was Your Girl(35)

“Can we slow down?” I said, wrapping my arms around myself.

“Of course,” Grant said, quickly handing me my shirt. I pulled it over my head and saw him smiling gently once I had it on. “Of course we can.”

“Can we … is it okay if we cuddle?” I said, brushing my hair back. “I didn’t get touched much before I met you.” I didn’t finish the rest of the thought: and I didn’t think I ever would. “I kind of need to—to ease into the idea of it.”

“I think we can manage that,” Grant said, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me in so I was lying on my side using his arm as a pillow. I kissed his cheek and we both turned to look at the stars. They were even more visible in the crisp fall air than they had been in the summer. I could even see the Milky Way, a band of white smeared across the night sky.

“I saw you’re reading Sandman,” I said. “I would have loaned you my copies.”

“I actually got it before we started dating,” he said. “I thought if I read the books you liked it might impress you.”

“That’s sweet,” I said, closing my eyes and nuzzling deeper into his arms. “You know I was already into you, right?”

“I didn’t at the time,” he said, pulling me in tighter. “You acted like I was a serial killer at first.”

“Things were hard at my old school,” I said, bringing my face closer to his again.

“I figured, from some things you’d said.” Grant nodded. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think so, but maybe not right now.”

“That’s okay,” Grant told me, and we were quiet until he started talking again. “I don’t know where Dad told Mama he was workin’. I don’t know if she even remembers anymore, but I remember it was a real job, and I remember the day we found out he didn’t have it. The police showed up at our house, back when we had a house in town, and they had papers from the judge. It turned out he’d been going out in the woods to an RV with some buddies and cookin’ meth for years.

“Avery wasn’t even a year old when this happened. Mama had three kids and no income. We moved in with my grandma for a little bit, but then Mama had what the doctors called a psychotic break from all the stress, and apparently she said some things grandma still ain’t forgiven. Mom’s medicine made her better, but she can’t really work on it, so—”

“So you’re the only thing keeping your family afloat,” I said.

He nodded. “All I ever wanted was to keep Mama outta the loony bin and my sisters outta foster care, and that kept me so busy I couldn’t give much thought to anything else. But being around you makes me feel … different. Like anything’s possible. It’s almost scary, you know? It feels selfish to say it but I’ve been wanting more and more to leave my family behind and just go wherever I want, be whatever I want.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve spent my whole life thinking about how I’m going to get away. Head up north, disappear in some big city like New York or Boston. Maybe if I’m lucky, live in Paris.”

“Oh,” Grant said, rolling onto his back again. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to apply to NYU. I think I’ll get in. It’s weird though. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long, but it’s scary too. It’s scary to think of leaving here, of being so far from my parents and everything I know. But then it’s the only way I can be really free, that I can finally live somewhere that people understand me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he said, frowning and sitting up. I cocked my head and looked up at him, feeling a sudden lurch in my stomach.

“Just that there are things about me that not everyone can understand,” I said, realizing my mistake even as the words were coming out.

“What am I to you?” he said, turning to look at the lake, his nostrils flaring.

“You’re my boyfriend,” I said, rising to a kneel and wrapping my arms around him from behind.

“For now,” he said, stiffening at my touch. “Until you find somebody at your fancy college who doesn’t have trouble understanding movies and gets the weird books you like.”

“Grant,” I said, kissing the back of his neck. “I like you, all right?”

“But you don’t think I can understand you,” he said.

“It’s complicated,” I said, turning his head to face me. His eyes darted away but I kissed him, holding him still. “I like you more than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s just—there are things that are really hard to say.” Grant stared at me, his eyes boring into mine, and I felt naked right then, like he could see everything, the things I wanted him to know and the ones I didn’t too.

“You can tell me anything, Amanda, you know that. Haven’t I shown you that?”

I buried my face in his neck and breathed him in again. I thought about what he had said, that I could tell him anything, and I knew that he was right—or at least that he thought he was. But until the moment he learned the truth, I couldn’t know how he would feel, and that was a risk I wasn’t ready to take. “I’ll try, okay? You deserve that. I promise I’ll try.”