99 Days(31)

I feel myself go pale, sitting there on the lounge chair. I’ve left him alone all day on purpose, wanted to give him as much space as I could—or, at least as much space as I could after showing up at his party. “Patrick.” I swallow. “You don’t have to.”

But Patrick’s already turned toward the driveway, car keys jingling like bells in his hand. “You coming?” he calls over his shoulder.

All I can do is nod.





Day 28


According to the clock on the dashboard, it’s twelve-thirty A.M. by the time I climb into the passenger seat of the Bronco across from Patrick, fussing with the tricky seat belt until I finally hear the buckle snick into place, just like I have a million times before. This is the car I think of when I think of the Donnellys—the one Connie used to haul us all around in, the one we crowded into every morning for the sleepy drive to school. We used to climb up onto the roof and look for comets.

“Thanks for taking me,” I say now, swallowing down the strange thickness of memories in my throat as Patrick pulls out of the driveway. “You really didn’t have to do that.”

Patrick keeps his eyes on the road, his face cast reddish in the dashboard light. He’s got the faintest batch of freckles across his nose. “I know,” is all he says.

We ride in silence the whole way to my mom’s house, no radio and the woods pressing in on either side of the road, close and haunted. The headlights carve broad white slices through the dark. There’s not another car on the road, just me and Patrick; I open my mouth and close it again, helpless. What can I possibly say to him? What could I possibly tell him that would matter?

After what feels like a living eternity Patrick turns up my mom’s winding driveway, the Bronco coasting to a stop on the side of the house. “Okay,” he says, shrugging a little, hands resting loosely on the steering wheel. It’s the first time he’s opened his mouth since we left the farm. “See you, I guess.”

“Uh-huh.” I nod mechanically like a robot or a marionette. “Okay. Thank you. Seriously. I—seriously, yeah. Thank you.”

“No problem,” Patrick mutters. He barely waits until I’m out of the car before peeling back down the driveway, which is why I’m so wholly surprised when he slams on the brakes again before he’s even halfway to the road.

“Fuck it,” he says, getting out and slamming the door of the Bronco behind him, closing the distance between us in what feels like three big steps. “I just. Fuck it. I hate this.”

“Patrick.” My heart is pounding wetly in my throat, fast and manic. I didn’t even make it up the walk. “What the hell?”

Patrick shakes his head. “I hate this,” he repeats when he’s reached me—when he’s close enough so I can smell him, overwarm and familiar. “Jesus Christ, Mols, how can you not hate this? Just being in the same car with you makes me want to scrape my own skin off. I f*cking hate this. I do.”

I stare at him, stunned, unsure if this outburst is global or specific, if I should apologize or yell back or kiss him hard and honest right here where we’re standing.

If he’d even let me. What it would mean if he did. What it means that part of me might want to, even as I can feel myself falling into Gabe.

“I hate it, too,” I venture finally, ten years of history pressing at the insides of my rib cage, like time itself is expanding in there. I wish for the hundred thousandth time that I knew how to make this right. “I’m so sorry, I—”

“I don’t want to hear you’re sorry, Mols.” God, he sounds so, so tired. He sounds so much older than we actually are. “I want it to stop feeling like this.” Patrick shakes his head. “I want . . . I want . . .” He breaks off. “Forget it,” he says, like he’s suddenly remembered himself, like a sleepwalker coming back from a dream. “This was stupid, I don’t know. I wanted to make sure you got home; you’re home. Like I said, I’ll see you.”

“Wait,” I say too loudly, my voice ringing out in the quiet yard. “Just. Wait.”

I sit down on the ground where I’m standing, night-damp grass whispering cool against my legs. Then I turn my back. “Come on,” I say, facing away from him just like we used to when we were kids and needed to talk about something important or embarrassing. “Sit for a sec.”

“Are you serious right now?” he asks me instead. “I—no, Molly.”

Even though I can’t see him I can picture the look on his face exactly, the barely contained annoyance, like I’m embarrassing us both. For once, I don’t care. I tip my chin backward until just the top of his head comes into view behind me, that curly hair. “Just humor me for a second, okay?” I ask. “You can go back to hating me right after, I promise. Just humor me for one second.”

Patrick looks at me for a long minute, upside down and scowling. Finally, he sighs. “I don’t hate you,” he mutters, and sits down on my mother’s front lawn with his broad, warm back pressed to mine.

I breathe in. “No?” I ask when he’s settled on the ground behind me, the first physical contact we’ve had in over a year. I can feel each individual pleat of his spine. We’re hardly even touching—it’s nothing to write dumb romance novels about, certainly—but it’s like my body is full of sparks anyway, like I have no skin and I can feel him in my organs and my bones. I try to hold very, very still. “You don’t?”