Second Chance Stepbrother(23)
“This is.” I gesture between us. Keeping my eyes fixed on the cabin, on our parents’ home. “All of this. It’s wrong, and it’s weird, and it makes me worry I’ll hurt my dad, and it’s messing with me, because…” I shake my head. Rest my forehead on my knees instead so he won’t see the way my eyes glisten with unshed tears. “Because this is what I wanted all those years ago. When we were younger. I wanted to have this with you, and I never thought we would, and now, suddenly, we do, but as soon as this summer ends, we’ll have to stop, we’ll have to go back to being… Family, I guess.” The word sticks in my throat, tastes all wrong. “I just… I don’t understand why we never did this all those years ago. Back when it was still possible. Back when we had all the time in the world, and this could’ve been something.” I inhale deeply. Make myself lift my head and face him. I need to look into his eyes when I say this. I need to know his answer. “Why did you run?” I whisper, eyes locked on his. “After I kissed you, you vanished. I never heard from you again. Why?”
He looks back at me, silent. There’s a sharp look in his eye, a thoughtful one, like he’s considering what I’m saying. But he doesn’t reply. He doesn’t say anything, and after a long, terrible moment, I realize I can’t wait around for him anymore. I can’t wait to hear this reply. What could it possibly fix now, anyway? What does it matter?
I push myself to my feet.
Josh catches my hand. Winds his fingers through mine, until I finally give up and sink cross-legged back onto the dock beside him.
“Pau…” To my surprise, I notice his eyes seem over-bright too. There are unshed tears in his eyes too, feelings he’s trying to suppress. But what?
“I knew about the move,” he finally says, and it’s not what I was expecting to hear. It’s so confusing that I blink a few times and tilt my head to one side, brow furrowed as I wait for him to continue. “Mom’s new job,” he adds. “The one she got in Georgia. I knew going into that summer that it would be the last time our families would get together, maybe ever. I tried to fight what I felt for you, but the more we hung out that summer, the more time we spent together, the harder it got… I was going to just leave without every admitting it, without ever finding out if you felt the same. But then, that last night, you kissed me, and I realized you were feeling just as much as I was.” He pauses, his voice going low and fraught with emotion. He clears his throat once, hard. “Resisting was easy until… Until that. Until you kissed me. You were my first kiss, Paulina, and…” He closes his eyes. “I knew if I saw you again after that, if I had to say goodbye, I’d break in two. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t say goodbye to you, and I knew a relationship could never work with me leaving, so I figured… I figured just vanishing would be easier. I figured that way you’d move on faster, forget all about me, and we could both just… go our separate ways.”
“I never did,” I say, my voice hard. “I never forgot you.”
“I know.” His hand tightens around mine. “I never forgot you either, Pau. I know this is a shitty situation, and it’s messed-up, and maybe you’re right, maybe it’s too late, maybe we can’t make this work, but… I have to try. I have to make up for lost time. I was a coward back then, I ran away, and I refuse to run again. Even if…” He bites his lip.
“Even if what?” I ask, angry now. “Even if it ruins our parents’ lives? Even if we screw up their one chance at happiness?”
“That’s not—”
“Or maybe it’s just easier now because you know we can never have anything real,” I point out. “Just like last time. We were just teenagers, it was just a summer fling. So is this. It can’t ever be more.”
He cups my chin. Turns my face to his. When I meet his eyes again, I’m surprised by the heat of the fire burning in them. The passion so intense it threatens to burn anything that stands between us. Passion that hot could burn me in the process, too. Could burn both of us, from the wanting.
He kisses me anyway. It’s different from our other kisses. Sharper. Fiercer. There’s a desperation in it, and I give in, kiss him back, let him feel the desperate ache that echoes in my veins too. This time, when we break apart, he rests his forehead against mine, those eyes still sharp and hot and burning holes through mine.
“No,” he says. “We can be more. We can make this more.”
Without another word, he stands up. Breaks away from me, and my whole body aches at the sudden absence where he used to be. I stare up at him, dumbstruck, and he shakes his head, turning away.
“This time you’re the one who’s running, Paulina.”
He leaves me there, alone on the dock, and I watch him walk all the way back to the cabin before I finally find the strength to make myself stand again.
8
I’ve spent a lot of the last few days out here by the lake. Just watching the water, thinking. Wishing for what could have been. Knowing that it’s too late now, too impossible a task to surmount. Josh thinks we can make this work somehow, but he doesn’t know my dad. Doesn’t know how long it took Dad to find real happiness, lasting happiness. There’s no way I can take that from him. Not after everything Dad sacrificed for me, raising me all on his own, giving me every advantage in life.