To the Stars (Thatch #2)(16)
Who am I kidding? There was nothing unfortunate about it. I didn’t care that she’d found out. It’s something we’d done before her, and I was glad it hadn’t changed during her. I also wasn’t sad she was gone—I was actually surprised she’d waited another two months to dump Knox after he had ditched her for me on Valentine’s Day.
As much as we had told each other that other relationships was part of us having our own lives, it still crushed me when I found out about her. Then again, I had dated a senior earlier in the school year. Tried to date him might be a better way of describing it. It took a couple of weeks to realize what I was doing, but whenever I saw him I compared him to Knox in every way. I finally decided a month in that it was pointless to pretend this guy could ever mean anything to me. I doubted anyone ever would, because meeting Knox Alexander had ruined me for any other boy.
Knox hadn’t even tried to hide his happiness that night, and I knew I was failing at hiding mine now. Knox’s girlfriend—I’d never wanted to know her name—had just broken up with him because of me.
“Relationship,” Knox huffed. “Low, I’ve told you, you could hardly call it that. Besides, I told her about you before whatever she and I were, ever started,” he said. “It’s not my fault she thought I was joking.”
“Well, it’s kind of weird, don’t you think? Telling her, ‘hey, sure I’ll be your date for this group thing, but there’s this girl I’m waiting for, and she’s my priority,’ seems like a way to say you don’t want to get too attached at the beginning.”
“But I told her,” he reasoned.
“You’re horrible.”
“Not horrible. I’m just in love with you, and I have a year and a half left until I can have you.”
I gripped at my warming chest and tried to ignore it as I sighed. “I’m going to stop answering your calls whenever you get a new girlfriend.”
“There won’t be a new one, and I know you wouldn’t.”
My eyebrows rose even though he couldn’t see me. “And how do you know that?”
“Because you love me, too. Through all this bullshit, you love me, and you need these calls as bad as I do.”
“I do love you, Knox,” I whispered into the phone. It wasn’t the first time I’d told him, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. “I love you to the moon and back.” My eyes fell to my dresser, where my monthly bouquet of red poppies sat. These had come just a few days ago. The card, as always, had read: I’m still waiting for you.
“To the moon?” A deep, husky laugh filled the other end of the phone. “The moon isn’t that far, Harlow.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Not far enough.” There were a few beats of silence before he confessed, “I want to love you to the stars.”
My mouth parted and a soft huff slipped past my lips. I closed my eyes and let his words replay in my mind and move through my body as I agreed, “Then to the stars.”
Neither of us said anything for minutes as we let that hang between us, and the familiar connection tugged at my chest even though he was miles away. I loved him. I loved him, and none of this was fair. But I still stuck to my word; we couldn’t do this to each other. He needed to live, as did I.
“Harlow, sweetie, tell Knox good night,” my mom said from the other side of my door.
“Okay,” I called out. “You hear that?” I asked into the phone.
“Yeah. Sleep well.”
“You, too.”
He paused, and I knew it was coming—it always came. “I’m still waiting for you, Low.” The words were just as sincere as the first time he’d said them.
I smiled sadly. “And you’re still wasting your time.”
“Never.”
I ended the call and dropped my phone to the bed. Even though I never had asked him to keep waiting, and never would, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that he’d already waited nearly a year. Another year and a half would come and go before we knew it . . . and, God, I wanted him to be there waiting when this was all over.
My phone chimed twice and I glanced at the screen to see messages from him. When I pulled them up, a laugh bubbled up from my chest as I tapped out my response.
Knox Alexander: Moon = 238,900 miles away. Closest star (Sun) = 92,960,000 miles away.
Knox Alexander: I love you to the stars.
Harlow: To the stars. <3
Present Day—Richland
COLLIN’S HAND RUNNING over my stomach woke me a week after he’d given my keys and purse back, and my body instantly tightened as I prepared for one of two outcomes: him wanting to have sex, or him being pissed-off because I wasn’t already awake and making his breakfast when his alarm went off.
“Good morning,” he murmured against my shoulder.
“Morning,” I said cautiously.
“Do you know what day it is?”
I thought for all of five seconds before it hit me, and dread filled me. It was Saturday. No wonder there had been no alarm; no wonder he wasn’t mad that I wasn’t awake. Weekends were the only days I didn’t have to be up before him with breakfast already made. But I dreaded every other Saturday, only to restart the cycle all over again for two more weeks once the day had passed.