With This Heart(77)

It was over.

I raised my gaze, trying to find the distinguished man in the crowd. It only took a moment; he was the only person there beyond the age of twenty-five. His eyes locked with mine and he shrugged his shoulders, as if to tell me that it would be okay. I bit down on my lip, trying not to cry. It felt like I’d let him and Sammy down somehow.

Seconds turned into minutes and people began to realize the show was over. Some of them looked disappointed, but most of the people didn’t care all that much. It was like watching a reality show to them. The fair-weather guys in the center patted my shoulder and turned back to find their friends. Each one of them leaving me as quickly as they’d stepped forward. Converse guy didn’t turn right away. I think out of everyone, he might have been serious about his proposition, and for that I was grateful. Without him, I would be crawling along rock bottom, but instead I was dangling by a limb just a few feet away from it. That counted for something.

“ Thank you,” I muttered toward him with a tight smile. It felt forced and I knew he could tell.

“ Yeah, I really meant—”

His voice faded out as my gaze drifted to where his Converse rested on the concrete. Directly beneath his left foot there was a small white arrow chalked onto the sidewalk. A few feet in front of that one, I noticed another. They were leading away from the statue.

No freaking way.

I didn’t pause to let the moment sink in; I followed the arrows and pushed my way through the crowd. Most of them followed after me, but I picked up my pace, keeping my nose to the ground. The arrows led me around the back of the statue and passed the campus library. Some of the arrows were rubbed almost completely clean from foot traffic, but I kept connecting the dots until I turned a corner and arrived in front of an expansive field. The field was in the center of the undergrad dorms, but at that moment there was only a single person occupying the sprawling space.

The first thing I saw was that brown hair glistening in the sun and curling right around his ears like always. My hands shot to my mouth and the world slowed to a crawl. For a moment we stood there, frozen, but then someone gently pushed me from behind and I realized I had to keep going. I took a deep breath and stepped up onto the grass. We were yards away from each other, but he started walking to meet me half way.

My breath hitched when we were close enough for me to see his hazel eyes brimmed with dark lashes and swirling with green madness. His flawless features, confident air, dimpled smile. Everything was there, just like I’d imagined every night for the past year. A spontaneous laugh escaped my lips as we stopped a foot away from each other.

He nodded, as if convincing himself that it was really me.

It was my Beck. My Beck, just as I’d left him.

His gaze held utter amazement and I couldn’t temper the tears running down my cheeks. To see him, smiling and present. To know that in the middle of a thousand people, he was still the one person who could turn my world into a splash of color.

When he spoke, I could tell he was flustered. His voice hung on a nervous tone and his gaze teetered between my features, as if he wasn’t sure where to concentrate.

“ I was the guy who should have never left and you were the girl who should have found me earlier.” My hands gripped my mouth as I started to cry harder. They weren’t even cute tears; just ugly, uncontrollably happy tears. I couldn’t pull myself together no matter how much I tried.

His hands reached out to capture the back of my neck, hitting the spot that made goose bumps bloom down my body. I took a step forward, placing my hands against his hard chest. He pressed closer to me.

“ Do you want to know why I followed you into that funeral parlor?”

I titled my head, recalling our first encounter like it was yesterday. “You said you followed me on a whim,” I answered with a small smile.

“ That’s the truth, but there’s more to it.” He ran his hands down my arms to entwine them with mine. “I was parking at the gas station across the street and I saw you get out of your car. I didn’t think much of it until you paused on your way inside the shop. You tilted your head toward the sun and closed your eyes, like a prisoner stepping outside after years of being locked away. It seemed so odd. No one just stops and appreciates life like that— but you did. I could see your smile from across the street and I couldn’t look away. I knew in that moment that I was completely uninterested in pursuing a life in which I didn’t cross that street and meet you.”

I wiped my tears from my cheek and furrowed my brow in recollection. He was referring to the moment I felt truly free for the first time in my life. The first time I took a step toward beginning my little adventure.


His words made my apology lodge in my throat.

“ I’m sorry I made you leave,” I sputtered.

“ Abby— ”

“ I had to get healthy for you. For me.” I stared at my hands resting against the cotton of his shirt. I liked feeling his heart thumping against his chest at the exact rhythm as mine. “I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.” I had so much to catch him up on.

He nodded, and the movement brought my gaze back toward his eyes. When he finally spoke, the edge of his mouth quirked up. “I liked your headline.”

I laughed; pressing my face to his chest and inhaling the scent that I’d wanted to bottle up months and months ago. “Good enough to be on your UIL team?” I smiled into his chest.