Instead of You(36)

“It kills me to watch every guy you pass check you out. Then that Nathan prick just sat down next to you and invited you to a party, and I just had to stand there and f*cking take it.”

“Take what? You don’t have to take anything, Hayes.” I reached my hands up to cup his cheeks and make sure I had his attention. “Nathan invited me to a party, but I’m not going with him. He’s not going to be my date.”

“But you’re going?” His voice registered somewhere between hurt and angry.

“I’m going with my friends. To a party.” I tried to calm him by gently rubbing my thumbs across his cheeks. “I’m not going with Nathan. I’m just going to try and do normal stuff, like I used to.” I could feel him nodding, as if he were attempting to understand my position.

“I’ve just spent so much time watching you with Cory, or imagining you two together because it was too painful to come home and see it with my own eyes. But now, we’re still not together, not really. I can’t stop that * from swooping in and trying for his shot with you. And it kills me.”

“Hey,” I said more forcefully. “You’re acting like I’m up for grabs, like being with anyone else is even a consideration for me. I’ve thought about you just as much as you have me in the last two years. Imagining you up at college, with older girls, girls who have more experience, who are smarter, who can, I don’t know, drink an alcoholic beverage with you.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “What I’m trying to say, unsuccessfully, is that no one is going to swoop in and take me away. The best parts of me, the parts that matter, are already with you. Always. No one is going to change that.”

“I’m going back to Bellingham tomorrow.”

His words might as well have been an arrow shot directly into my lungs for all the breath I lost, for all the air I couldn’t take in, and all the burning in my chest.

“What do you mean?”

“I have to go back every two weeks for a meeting. Thursdays. I was going to tell you, hoping you would come with me.”

I instantly sagged with relief, my forehead falling against his chest.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, clueless.

“I thought you meant you were leaving, like, for good.”

“No, just for the night. I’ll be back Friday.” He paused, his hands running slowly up and down my back. “Come with me,” he whispered.

I was tempted. Oh, how I was tempted. But it didn’t feel right. Tomorrow I needed to be at a high school party with my two best friends, and I needed Hayes to understand that, to let me have that part of my life back.

“Becca really needs me to be there for her tomorrow. And I really need to be there too. I need to take these seemingly insignificant steps back toward normalcy.”

There was silence between us, hanging from us, dripping like fat raindrops from green leaves.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Kenz. I’m afraid that every step you take back toward normalcy will only take you in the opposite direction of me.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, couldn’t really argue with him because I could understand how he felt that way. I could see his point of view and see how doing normal high school senior things could make me think I no longer wanted what he and I shared, would only highlight the gap between us. I wanted to ask him to have faith in me, to trust that I only wanted him, only us.

But I didn’t have words powerful enough. So I kissed him instead.

When he pulled away minutes later, nothing felt resolved. In fact, for the first time since he kissed me in the rain, everything felt fragile. Like watching a plate fall to the floor, knowing it would crack into a million pieces when it finally hit. We were in slow motion, hurtling toward our epic fracture.

I just prayed something would break our fall.





Chapter Fourteen


McKenzie


School on Thursday sucked. I didn’t have any better words to describe it. People were buzzing about the party, making plans, and for some reason, the fact that I was even going was big news.

Big.

Stupid.

News.

At least five different guys asked me if I had a date to the party and all seemed very disappointed when I told them I wasn’t taking a date, that I was going with my friends. Halfway through the day I’d almost told Holly and Becca I wasn’t going to go. Thoughts of sneaking away with Hayes ran through my mind, and I second-guessed myself to the point of madness.

But then Becca looked at me with big blue eyes and asked me to help her choose an outfit, and I knew I had to go. I had to be her crutch for the evening. Besides, if things went south with Jacob, I couldn’t just leave her there with Holly and Todd, then she’d be the third wheel and depressed. No, I needed to go to be her backup. So, I’d be the fifth wheel. And I was mostly okay with that.

Until I got to History and spent the entire period trying to reassure Hayes with my eyes that everything between us was fine.

I did, however, fail to hold in a snicker when at the beginning of the period he announced a new seating chart. I was completely surrounded by girls.



Hayes wouldn’t be home before I left with Holly, and the idea that I wouldn’t get to tell him good-bye before he left for Bellingham bothered me. I pictured him sitting at a fancy coffee shop, full of overeducated people, a particularly smart blonde across from him, gazing into his green eyes. I didn’t want to think about what could happen. And I knew I was driving myself crazy with the same insecurities that were making him crazy as well. I would just have to trust him, and trust myself to believe enough in what I felt for him, to believe in us enough to know everything would turn out all right.