Like Gravity(91)
His eyes were glassy with unshed tears, full of hopeless resignation.
Nodding, he took a step back, out of my space, and turned his eyes to stare at the floor. “I’m sorry, Brooklyn,” he whispered. “You have no idea how many times I tried to tell you…how close I came–”
“Close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes, Finn.”
“I know that,” he said, reaching up to run his hands through his hair. “But how do you find the words for something like that? How do you tell someone that you’ve spent your whole life looking for them?” He laughed, a bitter sound escaping his lips. “Brooklyn, since we were separated as kids, I’ve been trying to track you down. I begged my adoptive parents to go back for you, to let me call you or even write to you. By the time they relented and I called the group home, you were already gone. Eva wouldn’t tell me anything. Your adoption files were sealed; I never thought I’d actually find you. And then, one random Tuesday afternoon two years ago, I typed your name into a Facebook search engine and bam! There you were.”
I thought about the long-dormant social media account Lexi had insisted on setting up for me when we’d been accepted to the university. She’d posted a photo of the two of us wearing new matching college sweatshirts that advertised the university logo in proud orange across the front. I wondered if that was how Finn had tracked me down.
Since I’d never really used the site, I’d assumed it would deactivate after such a long period of inactivity. Apparently, all that preaching my professors did about permanent Internet footprints really was true after all; Facebook is forever.
“I knew it was you immediately – you were beautiful as a little girl, and you’re even more gorgeous now… those eyes, that smile. There was no denying it was you.” Finn continued. “But I still needed to see that you were okay, Brooklyn. I’ve worried about you for years. You have to understand, when I got adopted, when I left you…I felt like I’d abandoned you. And I knew I’d never put that to rest until I’d seen you again, face to face.”
“So, when you found me, what then? Was the plan to screw me back to normal? To fix me with the sheer will of your penis?” I bit out. “You could have checked on me and walked away, without speaking one single word to me. I was fine before I met you. The only thing you’ve done is f*ck me up even worse than I was before.”
“It wasn’t like that, Brooklyn,” Finn said, anger infusing his tone. “I never planned on this – on us. I didn’t want to fall in love with you, any more than you expected to fall for me. I transferred here when I learned you’d be attending last fall. But did you see me at all, your entire freshman year? No. I didn’t approach you. I didn’t mess with your life. I was just there, in the off chance that one day you’d need help – that you’d need me. I wasn’t about to fail you again, regardless of whether you even knew I existed.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. He’d transferred here for me? That was crazy. Not the good crazy either – the stalkery, obsessive kind of crazy I wanted nothing to do with.
“I think you should leave now,” I said, backing away from him.
“Bee…Fuck!” He buried his hands in his hair. “Please don’t be scared of me. I’m so f*cking sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I tried, so many times. I just couldn’t find the words. That day, when you fell over that hydrant and hit your head – it seemed like fate. You were right there in front of me, injured and needing help. I thought maybe I could get close to you, just to be your friend. I swear my intentions never went further than that.
“But I fell in love with you, Brooklyn. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I realized that you were everything that was missing in my life, but I knew – just like I had when I was a ten year old kid – that I couldn’t be without you anymore. Still, I tried to push you away, tried to keep boundaries between us when I realized that you didn’t remember me...But I just couldn’t stay away from you.”
“Finn, this…it’s just so messed up,” I whispered, at a loss. I was way, way out of my emotional depth. I wasn’t just swimming in the deep end, here – this was the freaking Mariana Trench.
“I know that, okay? I know how f*cked up we are. With you, it’s one step forward, and three monumental f*cking leaps back. But I also know that you can be incredibly sweet when you aren’t too busy slapping me, or glaring at me, or hating my guts.”
At that, I glared at him and crossed my arms over my chest.
“You don’t want anyone to take care of you – I get that. I respect it, even,” he continued, heedless of my glare. “But sometimes, behind that icy, impenetrable front you show the rest of the world, I catch a glimpse of that fiercely vulnerable, heartbroken little girl who still needs me. And I like that I’m the only one who gets to see her and protect her.
“I know this is a lot to think about – I know you probably hate me. And maybe it makes me a total bastard, but you should know that I don’t regret a single second of our time together, Brooklyn. With or without the lies, this relationship has been – and always will be – the most important, beautiful, goddamned sacred part of my life. And I’ll wait for you – as long as it takes, I’ll wait.”
I’ve already been waiting forever. He’d said those words before and I hadn’t understood them at the time, but I comprehended them perfectly now.