Until You (Fall Away Series)(49)

“Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don’t ask me why.” She sounded light and natural, like she was speaking to a friend. “But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line.”

She paused, and I lifted my pen, realizing I’d been outlining the same box over and over again.

“On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky.”

Suspicion inched its way under my skin, and my breathing got shallow.

This wasn’t a monologue.

She continued, “I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming home for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees.”

I couldn’t help it. My eyes snapped up to meet hers, and my f*cking heart…it was like she was reaching out and squeezing it in her hand.

Tate.

Was she speaking to me?

“Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again.” Her eyes were locked with mine. “You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt anymore. Nothing hurt if I knew I had you.”

I couldn’t catch my f*cking breath. Why was she doing this? I meant nothing to her.

“Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom.”

A tear fell down her cheek as I felt my own throat tighten.

She was looking at me like she used to, like I was everything.

Piles and piles of f*cking shit swirled through my mind as I watched her.

All the crap I’d done to prove that I was strong. To prove that I didn’t need someone that didn’t want me. I swallowed, trying to calm the pounding in my chest.

Had she loved me?

No.

She was lying. She had to be.

“What was worse than losing you was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home.”

Her eyes pooled with more tears, and I wanted to break shit.

She was hurting. I was f*cking miserable. And for what?

“Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault,” she continued and thinned out her lips in a hard line. “There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” In a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school.” Her eyes zoned in on me again, and her voice grew strong. “You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all of those things, and I loved you. But now…you’re a f*cking drought. I thought that all the *s drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.”

My hands balled up, and I felt like I was crammed into a tight space, looking for a way out.

I barely registered the class clapping for her—no—cheering for her. Everyone thought her “performance” was great. I didn’t know what the hell to make of it.

She acted like she cared about me. Her words told me she remembered everything that used to be good between us. But the ending…it was like a goodbye.

She bowed, her hair falling around her with her dip, and she smiled a sad smile. Like she felt good but guilty that she felt good.

The distant cry of the school bell sounded, and I moved out of my seat, past her desk where she’d sat back down, and out of the room feeling like I was in a damn tunnel. People scurried around me, giving Tate congratulations on a job well done, and going about their business as if my world wasn’t crumbling.

Everything was white noise around me. The only sound that filled my ears was my own heartbeat as I walked in a daze into the hallway.

I pressed my forehead into the cool, tiled wall across from Penley’s classroom and closed my eyes.