An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(51)

Instead, Cal rests his hand on the small of my back and guides me forward. It’s enough to ease the sudden rush of melancholy. It’s enough to make me smile.

“Thanks for doing this,” I tell him, glancing up as we weave through the crowd. It’s the final weekend before Halloween, so it’s brimful of people eating taffy apples, pushing strollers through lumps of dying grass, and sipping plastic cups of cider.

He spears me with a look. “You say it like I felt obligated.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No. I wanted to.”

I know he’s not lying because I don’t think Cal makes a habit out of doing things he doesn’t want to do. The people-pleaser in me struggles to relate, but it gives me a surge of comfort, nevertheless.

“Where to first?” he asks, digging through his pockets for a piece of chewing gum.

I watch him unwrap the tiny yellow rectangle and pop it in his mouth. “That’s nicotine gum, right?”

“Yeah,” he nods as he chews. “I smoked for way too fucking long. I smoked to prevent myself from reaching for a bottle of pills, until I decided they were both shitty habits.”

My heart stutters.

They aren’t a lot of words, but he says a lot with them.

It makes me wonder about our lost years, our severed friendship, his struggles and weaknesses. Nothing about Cal screams weak—nothing about him strikes me as vulnerable.

But I know he has his demons, and they look a lot like mine.

It’s fascinating how two people burned from the same experience can come out on the other side with completely different scars.

Normally, I’d pry into that confession and try to pull it apart, layer by layer, but the music in the air is light and the mood burdenless. So, I swallow down my interrogation and change the subject. “Well, let’s grab something to eat first, then we can check out the rides.”

“I still owe you one of those stuffed animal things. What was it? A hamster?”

Oh my God.

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry, so the sound I make sounds like a weird mix of both. “A mouse,” I correct him.

It was giant and hot pink, and had a belly decorated in rainbow stars. Emma saw it first and named it Pinky. Once it had a name, it had to have a home.

Cal tried all night to win that mouse for me, perching himself at the basketball free throw station, while furiously throwing balls into a swiftly moving net. He was a freshman basketball star, after all, so the fact that he couldn’t make enough baskets to win me the toy had him downright enraged.

Emma and I both eventually dragged him away from the game before he imploded, forcing him onto the Ferris wheel to cool down.

And that turned out to be a moment that will live inside of me forever.

We got stuck.

Right at the top, right among the stars, with Emma squealing in the bucket below us.

I still see her staring up at us with a galaxy of freckles on her nose and dark hair flying around her face as the wind nearly choked us.

“Kiss her, you chicken!”

I jolt back to the present moment when Cal’s fingers lightly graze my elbow. “Where’d you go?”

The Ferris wheel lights become blurry, and I realize tears are sneaking up on me.

Not here, not now.

Shaking my head, I force a big smile and avert my attention from the wheel. “Thinking about how many basketballs it’ll take for you to win me a prize this time,” I tell him.

Cal knows exactly where I went, but he doesn’t poke. Looking over my shoulder at the row of carnival games, he cracks his knuckles. “Can’t say I haven’t been preparing for this moment of redemption.”

“It’s haunted you, hasn’t it?”

“In the worst way.”

I giggle. “First, deep-fried Oreos, then we can sell our souls for a dollar-store plushie.”

We amble up to the food vendor and step in line as the breeze picks up. In my rush out the door, I didn’t bother to grab a jacket, and the balmy sixty-degree day has plummeted into the low fifties. Swiping at the goosebumps prickling beneath my sweater sleeves, Cal doesn’t hesitate to slide out of his jacket and wrap it around my shoulders.

“You forgot your coat,” he states the obvious.

I’m immediately warmed, but it’s less because of the added layer and more because of the way Cal steps into me, carefully helping my arms into the armholes before sliding his hands down the length of them. He wavers briefly when our fingers brush, like he’s thinking about linking them together, but he clears his throat and inches back instead.

“Thank you,” I say with sincerity, swallowed up by the leather and lingering aroma of earth and oak. “Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m fine. Looks better on you anyway.” His eyes travel over me, then he turns to face the front of the line.

A long-sleeved Henley hides beneath the jacket. It’s all black, simple, with three buttons at the top, sending a shot of heat through me. I hardly see Cal wear anything but sleeveless t-shirts and oil stains.

The heat could also stem from the way the shirt hugs every bulging muscle in his arms, and I’m flashing back to how I felt in his lap when those huge, careful arms were wrapped around me.

Suddenly, the jacket is stifling and I’m overheating.

As I shift uncomfortably inside of it, Cal orders us the Oreos and two cups of spiked cider, and I take both with shaky fingers.