Finding Perfect (Hopeless, #2.6)(4)

“Then I’ll move back home if you tell them!”

“My lips are sealed,” she says.





Chapter Two


It’s been a long time since I’ve knocked on Six’s bedroom window.

She and Sky share a dorm on campus now, but it’s on the fifth floor of a building and I can’t climb that high. I tried a few weeks ago because our dorm curfew is ten o’clock, but it was almost midnight and I really wanted to see Six. I got scared halfway up the first floor and climbed back down.

I glance at Sky’s bedroom window, but the lights are out. She and Holder still haven’t made it back from Austin yet. I look at Six’s window and her lights are out, too. I hope she’s home. She didn’t mention she was going anywhere.

But then again, I haven’t asked her. I never ask her anything. I hope Hannah is right and I can somehow fix whatever is weird between us.

I knock quietly on the windowpane, hoping she’s in her room. I immediately hear movement and then her curtains are pushed aside.

She looks like a fucking angel. Still.

I wave at her and she smiles at me. She actually looks happy to see me. That smile eliminates the majority of my nerves.

This always happens. I get paranoid and worried when I’m away from her, but when I’m with her, I can still see how she feels about me. Even when she looks sad.

Six opens the window and moves aside so I can climb inside. Her bedroom is dark, like she’s been sleeping, but it’s only nine o’clock.

I turn to face her and take her in. She’s wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms plastered with pizza slices. It reminds me that I haven’t eaten dinner today. I don’t even remember eating lunch. I haven’t had much of an appetite.

“What’s up?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

She stares at me for a moment and then gets this look in her eyes like she’s uncomfortable. She walks back to her bed and sits down. She pats the spot next to her, so I lie down and stare up at her.

“I lied,” I say. “It isn’t nothing.”

Six sighs heavily and then scoots down so that she’s lying down next to me. She doesn’t turn toward me, though. She stares up at the ceiling. “I know.”

“You do?”

She nods. “I was expecting you to show up tonight.”

I’m suddenly regretting coming over here and confronting it, because confronting it means action will be taken, and it might not be an action I want. Shit. Now I’m scared. “Are you breaking up with me?” I ask her.

She rolls her head and looks at me sincerely. “No, Daniel. Don’t be a dumbass. Why? Are you breaking up with me?”

“No,” I say immediately. Convincingly. “Dumbass.”

She laughs a little. That’s a good sign, but she looks away again, back to the ceiling, and offers up nothing else.

“Why are things weird between us?” I ask her.

“I don’t know,” she answers quietly. “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

“What am I doing wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“But I am doing something wrong?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“What can I do to be better?”

“I don’t even know if you can be any better.”

“Well, if I’m not the issue, what is?”

“Everything else? Nothing else? I don’t know.”

“This conversation isn’t going anywhere,” I say.

She smiles. “Yeah, we’ve never been the best at deep conversation.”

We aren’t. We’re shallow. Both of us. Our conversations are mostly shallow. We like to keep things fun and light because everything under the surface is so damn heavy. “That doesn’t seem to be working out for us too well, so tell me what you’re thinking. Let’s dig a little and figure this out.”

Six rolls her head and eyes me. “I’m thinking about how much I hate the holidays,” she says.

“Why? They’re the best. No classes, lots of food, we get to sit around and be fat and lazy.”

She doesn’t laugh. She just looks sad. And then it hits me why she hates holidays, and I feel like an idiot, and I want to apologize but I don’t know how. So instead, I slip my fingers through hers and squeeze her hand. “Do holidays make you think about him?”

She nods. “Always.”

I don’t know what to say to that. While I’m trying to think of a way to make her feel better, she rolls onto her side and faces me.

I let go of her hand and reach up to her cheek, stroking it with my thumb. Her eyes are so sad and I want to kiss her eyelids, as if that’ll make that look go away. It won’t. It’s always there, hidden behind fake smiles.

“Do you ever think about him?” she asks.

“Yes,” I admit. “Not in the way you do, I’m sure. You carried him for nine months. Loved him. Held him. I didn’t know about him until I already knew the outcome, so I don’t think it left as big of a hole in me as it did you.”

A single tear rolls down her cheek and I’m glad we’re talking about this, but also very, very sad for her. I think this has affected her a lot more than I realized.