Love Songs & Other Lies(35)

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEN





CAM


At school, there’s an unspoken rule: No touching. Friends only. I don’t know when it started, sort of like I don’t know when I started thinking of me and Vee as “more than friends,” or when seeing her became as necessary as my 7 A.M. coffee. For weeks, I’ve been barely surviving on four hours of sleep, after leaving the beach. I don’t know how Vee does it. She’s actually cheery in the morning. I’ve resorted to drinking caffeinated mud, just to get through the day. That alone should be proof that I have a serious problem when it comes to Vee. I love my sleep like I love my food: in large quantities, whenever I can get it.

Learning that Vee had subconscious lines that weren’t meant to be crossed only required a few shoulder smacks. Figuring out the actual location of that line was a lot harder. The same way she never came right out and asked questions, she also didn’t come right out and tell me when I was crossing the line. But she always let me know. It took a handful of tumultuous days, a shitload of trial-and-error, and a few elbow-bruised ribs, but I finally figured out what was, and was not, acceptable at school. Or at band practices. Basically anywhere we were in public together, where it wasn’t covered in sand and drenched in darkness.

But like any good rule, I’ve found loopholes. Standing behind her, chest to back, hasn’t earned me a slap or an elbow to the ribs. Any time I feel the urge to touch her—which is becoming more and more often—I find myself sliding in behind her and resting my hands on her shoulders. I do it while I talk to her, or while she talks to someone else. While I wait for her at her locker. Once in a while, if I catch her with her guard down, I can drop my hands to her waist. I usually have two minutes max before she coyly wiggles out of my grasp.

I want to ask her what the problem is, but I think I already know. Because when Vee told me about the drama with her parents, it felt a lot like an explanation. I could practically hear the unspoken words: “I’m not looking for a boyfriend.” Sometimes I don’t even know if that’s what I want. It’s not what I deserve. Sometimes you don’t know what you want until you just do. It hits you like a wave, knocks you underwater, and when you surface, all you want is this one thing. It’s like gasping for air. All I can think about right now is how much I want Vee.

It’s ten o’clock on a Friday, pitch dark, and she’s slipping on the leaves that are caked onto the sidewalk. She’s almost fallen three times and still, she’s stayed six feet ahead of me the entire three-block walk from my apartment to Todd Winter’s house. Todd is a senior jock and a huge Melon Ballers fan. He invited all of us to his party, and even Vee—respecting Nonni’s wishes—said yes. She had sounded like she was chewing on rusty nails while doing it, but she said yes. And she didn’t put up a fight when I said we were going together. At least not until we left my apartment and she decided to leave a five-foot gap between us the entire walk. The same walk we make almost every night at two in the morning—hand in hand in the dark—when we walk from the beach back to my car. After hours of practically spooning on the beach. “This is dumb, Vee.”

“What?” She sounds annoyed.

“You know what,” I say, jogging to catch up to her, and grabbing her hand in mine.

She pulls it away in one tiny, sudden movement.

“Seriously. What the hell, Vee?”

Her eyes are fixed in front of her, on the giant house we’re approaching. “Just don’t, Cam.”

“I don’t get it. You can’t cuddle on the beach with me every night and then ignore me all day.”

“Ignore you? I see you all day. And we don’t cuddle.” She says the last word like she’s appalled by it. As if I’ve accused her of pulling the wings off of butterflies.

Please. We cuddle the shit out of each other. “Oh, we don’t,” I say.

“No … we don’t.”

“I must be confused. Then I guess we can try out a few of our favorite ‘not cuddling’ positions at the party and see what people think. Maybe do some spooning on the couch. That’s your favorite, right?”

“You’re disgusting,” she says.

“And you’re being ridiculous!”

We attract some curious looks from a group of smokers by the garage as we approach the house. Vee falls a few steps behind. She grabs me by the wrist and pulls me into a small clearing of trees along the sidewalk, taking us out of sight.

“You don’t want this. If you did, you would have done something weeks ago.”

She’s panicking, talking herself out of this before it even starts. And I should be doing the same; I should be running.

“And we’re graduating in seven months,” she says.

“So?” I know exactly what she’s implying: seven months until she leaves. Seven months until I’ll leave. In seven months, she’ll be at Michigan State with Logan and Anders and I’ll be … I don’t even know. She sure as hell doesn’t. “I’m trying to hold your hand, Vee. I’m not asking you to marry me.” I kick at the leaves on the sidewalk, scraping them away with my shoe. “Though we’ve already talked about our wedding, so this whole ‘no holding my hand in public’ thing seems sort of ridiculous, don’t you think?”