Instead of You(51)

**Please, Kenzie. I need to see you.**

Apparently I wasn’t above begging.

**All right.**

Students started filing into the classroom, so I tossed my phone into my desk drawer and prepared to try and make it through two more periods before I saw McKenzie.



When she walked into my classroom a few hours later I was ready for her. I waited until she was all the way in, closed the door behind her, and then turned the lock. Her eyes flitted down, watching my fingers essentially block everyone else out of the room, out of our lives, even if it was just for a few moments.

She didn’t have anything with her besides her messenger bag, no lunch, which made me think she hadn’t come to enjoy a meal with me. Instead she’d come with armor, her shield so firmly in place, even if it was invisible.

“How are you?” I asked, trying to open some sort of communication between us. It wasn’t the real question I wanted to ask her. I wanted to know why she was pulling away, what I could do to keep her close, if she really loved me the way she’d said she did just a week ago, but I know those questions would only make her shield go up even farther, put more of a wall between us.

I watched her face as she battled to answer the question. Her eyes were welling and I let a string of curse words run rampant in my mind. I was so f*cking tired of watching her cry. She quickly wiped a tear away and said, “I’ve been better.”

“Yeah,” I said on a breath. “Me too.”

“Why did you ask me to come here, Hayes? You know if someone sees me in here, you could get in a lot of trouble.”

“I just wanted to talk to you. You’ve been avoiding me. At least here we can talk in private.”

She didn’t say anything in reply. Just wiped away another tear.

“Why are you crying?” I asked softly.

“This hurts, Hayes.” Her words were accusatory, like I was trying to hurt her on purpose.

“Tell me what I can do to make it hurt less?” I took a step toward her, feeling so much relief when she didn’t move farther away.

She just shook her head, looking at me, begging me with her eyes to make the pain go away. Fuck it. I walked to her, took her hand, and pulled her to the one corner of the room hidden from the window. She came willingly, let me lead her. I grabbed the rolling chair from my desk, sat in the corner, then pulled her onto my lap, her legs straddling mine. I pulled her into me, letting her face rest against my chest, and wrapped my arms around her, trying to comfort her.

Minutes passed, just her sitting on my lap, crying. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just held her. Eventually, she spoke.

“I’m so confused, Hayes. The whole time I was with Cory I knew what we had wasn’t right. I knew he wasn’t it for me, but I hoped, because I loved him, I was wrong.” She lifted her head to look me in the eye, her face wet from tears. “But now, with you, it’s right, I know it is. You’re it. There will never be anyone else who makes the world as colorful as you, who makes me smile as much as you, who loves me like you do. But it’s all still so wrong. So, tell me how I’m supposed to ignore the part of my brain that screams at me every day, that reminds me of who we’re hurting and who we’re lying to, and just be.”

My hands cradled her face, eyes darting between hers, trying to find the right words, the words that would keep her with me.

“I know this, us, isn’t ideal. Trust me, I want to shout to the world and tell everyone how much I love you, how long I’ve waited for you to even look at me with the tiniest spark of interest.” My thumbs rub just under her eyes, catching the tears that just keep falling. “And I know the odds are stacked against us, Kenz. I do. But none of that outweighs my need to be with you. None of the consequences are worth living without the hope of us. Does that make sense?”

She stared at me, eyes vacant, and all I could see was worry and hurt. Fuck.

“Okay, let’s try something different. You tell me what you’re worried about, and I’ll explain why it doesn’t f*cking matter.”

Underneath the sadness I swear I saw just the hint of a smile, and it was just as though someone had lit a f*cking fuse inside me, hope sizzling through my limbs. She was still in there, my McKenzie, and I could still keep her. I just had to show her there was nothing that could come between us.

“What if your mom finds out?” I knew this was her biggest concern, and frankly, it was mine too. My mother wasn’t exactly stable.

“Listen, I’ll agree that if my mom were to find out about us, oh, tomorrow, it would probably be a shock to her, and might upset her, but eventually she will come around. She’s dealing with a lot right now. You can’t make yourself unhappy to save my mother. She needs to deal with her own emotions.”

“What if us being together causes tension between our mothers? What if my mom takes my side, and your mom is mad at me, and they stop being friends?”

“What if an asteroid hits the earth tomorrow?” I blink at her, trying to make her understand that we can’t deal with what-ifs. Then, then, she smiled and slapped my shoulder, laughing while still crying a little.

“What about my friends? Cory’s friends? They’ll hate me.”

“If they’re really your friends, they won’t,” I say, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. My hand splayed on her cheek and she leaned into it, her tears finally stopping. “Do you really love me?” She nodded, eyes locked on mine. “Then trust me to take care of you.” She didn’t respond, but she kept her eyes on mine, so I took a chance. I leaned in, waited for her to tell me no, and when she didn’t, I kissed her.