Bad Boy Blues(86)

“That’s unfortunate.”

I sigh with relief. She gets it now. She gets that I can’t love him. How unfair it would be.

“But that still doesn’t mean you can’t love him.”

Panic grips me for a second. That and anger, and I blurt out, “He doesn’t want to be loved.”

It’s true, isn’t it?

He hates love. Hates the very mention of it. I don’t even know if he can love.

Let me tell you something about love: it hurts.

I can’t love him. I’m not allowed to.

“Well, that’s not up to him, now, is it?”

“I’m sorry?”

The girl has a tender look on her face. “He owns your heart. He might even hold it in the palm of his hand. He might close that palm and crush it one day. But what he can’t do is force it to not beat for him. He doesn’t have that power. And neither do you, maybe. A heart can be a real pain in the ass. You never know where its loyalties lie. Hearts have their own kings and queens. Sorry. So, if your heart loves him, well then, it loves him. You can’t do anything about it. He definitely can’t do anything about it. You guys are just gonna have to suck it up.”

I emit a broken laugh.

I love him.

I love Zach.

That’s what this has been about, hasn’t it?

All this frustration and restlessness.

The fact that we’re a secret. The fact that he’ll leave me behind to rejoin his new life and I can’t go with him because I have a different goal. A goal I’m starting to resent more than anything in this world.

“Suck it up.” I look at the purple sky. “He’s not going to like it.”

“Big deal. Besides, he can’t take his eyes off you either. So I don’t know. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

I want to latch onto that hope.

I do.

But I know reality.

I love the guy who hates love. Nothing could be more tragic.

“Uh, okay. Well, I’m going to go but thanks for talking to me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Oh, and how much was it?”

She waves her hand. “No need. I didn’t read you your future. I just observed a little. No charge for that.”

I chuckle. “Okay. Thanks. I’m Cleo, by the way.”

She offers her hand to me. “I’m Dove.”

I shake it. “You mean, like the bird?”

“Yup, exactly like the bird.”

As I turn around, I remember what Zach told me about The Pleiades.

How Zeus turned those seven sisters into doves and they flew away to escape Orion. And how Orion never lost hope and still chases after them.

What a crazy coincidence that a girl named Dove just made me realize that I love a guy who thinks the story of The Pleiades is the most pathetic tale of love he’s ever heard.

***

I can’t sleep.

I’m too amped up. I need Zach.

After the carnival, we rode back on the bus and parted ways just outside the gates. I didn’t say a word and Zach kept giving me glances. I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t know how to act around him. So I let it go.

Tina wanted to grill me all about my day when I got back but I told her I had a headache and shut myself in the room. Nothing new. I’ve been lying to her a lot, keeping my relationship with Zach a secret.

Since then, I’ve been crying. I’ve been soaking my pillow and using it to smother my sobs.

At midnight, I don my stealth mode clothes and put on my boots. Jerking the hood up to cover my blue curls, I set out in the night.

It’s dangerous; I know that.

But the thing is, I don’t care. I don’t care about anything right now but going to Zach, and asking him to make this pain go away.

I can’t be in love with a guy who can disappear any moment. I can’t love him when he hates love so much.

It’s too excruciating. Too unfair.

I’m almost halfway up to the main house, passing by the pool, when I hear a splash. A continuous splashing.

I spy Zach under the pole light. He’s making wide, long strokes with those arms of his.

Changing directions, I head over. I’m not trying to be quiet or sneak up on him but he hasn’t noticed me yet. Or if he has, he hasn’t given any indication. He keeps stroking, lapping around the pool as if he’s trying to outrun something in the water.

I keep watching him, watching his glistening, tight body, his dark head that punctuates his arm-strokes.

I love him.

I love you.

As I stand here and watch him swim like he has fins instead of legs, I have no doubt in my mind that I’ve loved him since the very first moment I laid eyes on him.

I saw a boy, looking out the window in the detention room, watching the water fountain. I saw him with his shirt untucked, his hair messy, his tie loose and flipped over his shoulders.

And I thought: him.

I thought we could be friends.

But when I found out he was an obnoxious, mean jerk, I was hurt.

I was hurt that the guy I’d chosen for myself was such an asshole. That he wouldn’t be nice to me. He hurt me by rejecting me and I hurt him back, and we kept going.

Until now.

Maybe hate is just love wrapped up in a barbed wire. Or at least, mine was.