But I Love Him (16 page)

I can’t believe how proud she sounds. I stare at her, wondering where all this is coming from. She’s bragging about me. I mean, she used to do that all the time, but it’s been a while. She’s been wrapped up in … stuff.

“She learned to play the piano when she was eight,” she says. “Her father and I wanted her to play the violin, but she hated the thing.”

Connor smiles at me. “Sounds like her. She’s rather stubborn.”

“Tell me about it,” my mom says.

And finally, all the tension is gone.

October 24

One month, twenty-four days

His father came back today. For good. There were bags scattered around the front door. That was how I knew.

He didn’t come out of their bedroom when I walked past it. I was kind of glad. I don’t think I want to meet him.

Now Connor and I are sitting on the hardwood floors in his room, debating whether or not he should introduce me. Neither of us can decide if I want to meet him.

I know so little of him. Just little pieces that tell me he’s not a good guy. Pieces that say he’s made Connor’s life hell.

“Shit, let’s just do this,” he says. Connor is on edge, a little fidgety and uncomfortable looking, like the neck on his shirt is just too tight. He stands up grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet. I want to reach up and do something silly, like ruffle his adorable blond hair, but it seems stupid so I don’t.

I’ve never even seen a picture of Jack. I don’t know what he looks like. Nancy took them all down when Jack left three months ago.

Connor told me not to get used to it. He said his dad would be back.

He was right.

Connor knew exactly how it would work. For a few weeks, his mom would act as if it was out of the question. She wouldn’t speak of Jack. It would be like he was dead.

But she would slowly lose her resolve. His name would be spoken again. Just in passing. Like, “Oh, Jack used to …” or “Not that one, Jack broke it. Hand me the other one.” But after that it would progress. She would say things like, “I wonder what he’s doing right now.”

Or “I think I might call him.”

And when she hit that point, it would progress rapidly. Within a few weeks, Jack would be back. And Connor predicted it. Step by step, he knew what would happen.

For those weeks he was gone, it was bliss. Though I’m sure it was in the back of Connor’s mind all the time, it was gone from mine. Jack existed only in stories. And he could not touch us.

And yet now I’m following Connor, my hand so small in his, through the cluttered house. And now we stand here at his parents’ bedroom door, listening as the TV blares. Neither of us moves to knock on it; we just stand in silence. Finally he squeezes my hand, then lets it go and knocks.

I hear Nancy call us in, and we step inside their room.

Jack sits on the edge of the bed, a bag of Doritos in his lap and a beer can on the table beside him. He’s wearing a ratty T-shirt and a pair of grease-stained carpenter jeans.

“Hey, uh, Dad. I just wanted you to meet Ann. My girlfriend.”

I smile politely and nod at him.

“Hi.” He smiles a little, I think. It creases his beady little eyes. I can’t really tell for sure, because he has a thick beard that obscures most of his mouth. It’s gray and wiry.

I guess I pictured him more in his prime. I guess I pictured dark hair and bulging muscles. He’s still tall, of course. He has to be at least six feet tall. But the man before me is just a man.

“Okay … well …” Connor just grabs my hand and we leave the room and return to his.

“He seems …” And I don’t know what to say. Because if I say anything nice, it lessens the things he’s done to Connor. And if I say something mean, I’m making fun of his father.

“I know.”

And that’s all we say. Connor slides a beat-up Scrabble box out from under his bed and we open it up and start turning all the letters over.

“He’s not bad when he’s sober,” he finally says.

“Oh.” What am I supposed to say to that?

“He managed it for a few months when I was thirteen. We thought he was doing so well. But he started acting like an asshole again. And then I knocked over a trash can in the garage. The bottles and cans went everywhere. He hit me for that. For making a mess, he said. But I think it was because I told my mom he was drinking again.”

He doesn’t usually say things like this, so nonchalant. He just says little pieces of the truth, and I’m left trying to figure out the puzzle of his past. He hasn’t opened up like this before.

I’ve never seen the whole hand of cards. He holds it close to his chest. But I’m glad he trusts me. We’ve been together less than two months, but it feels like we’ve never been apart.

Connor spells out HOUSE on the board.

I chew on my lip and stare at the letters on my little tray, trying to decide between REGRETS and GREEN.

“You look cute when you do that,” he says.

I look up and smile at him and he smiles back, his eyes bright. I love these moments. These moments when he forgets about Jack because he’s thinking of me.

I finally choose GREEN and mark down my points. My hair slides into my eyes as I scribble down the number, and before I can move it, he does it for me. His fingers slide the strands back behind my ear and he leaves his hand there, his fingers on the edge of my jaw and his thumb brushing my cheek, back and forth as he stares at me with his dark blue eyes.

We stay like that for longer than normal, just staring at one another.

And I know in that moment that I love him. I know in that moment that I am his, and that I don’t want to be anywhere else but in this room right now, staring back at him.

“I love you,” he says. It seems like he’s been saying it since we met, though I guess it’s only been a few weeks. Still, it’s like he knew the moment we went on that first date that he’d fall in love with me, and he just had to wait for me to love him back. Maybe because no one else ever gives him a chance, and I did.

He’s been speaking those three words while I smile and hug him and stay silent, and the desire to say it back grows.

“I love you too.”

His eyes melt. He looks deeper at me, like he wants to see it in my eyes, like he wants to know it’s true.

“You swear?” he says. It comes out like a whisper. We’re still not moving, just staring and frozen like this.

“Yes. I swear. I love you.”

He crawls across the Scrabble board and the words go everywhere, but neither of us care. He kisses me long and hard and I close my eyes, and I feel the urgency behind his lips.

In seconds I’m lying back against the ground, and the letters are tangling in my hair, and he’s kissing me, his hands on my face, and there is a raw need that has never been there before. But I feel it too. I feel the heat, the absolute thirst for him.

I know his door isn’t locked, but I know, too, that no one will bother us. They exist in Connor’s world, but he doesn’t exist in theirs.

His hands slide up my shirt. I pull on his, too, and in seconds we are naked from the waist up and he’s kissing me everywhere. My arms, my shoulders, my chest, my stomach. Every inch of me, as if he can’t get enough. Quick, butterfly kisses. His eyelashes tickle and set me on fire.

When he pulls my jeans off, I’m thankful it is dark, because I have never been unclothed like this in front of him. I have never let him see me like this.

As if he can read my thoughts, he pulls a blanket over us so that we are cloaked in it.

When he reaches into the nightstand, my heart nearly stops. I know what he’s getting.

And I suddenly freeze. I think I’m ready for this. I am, right?

But as he pulls the little wrapper from the box, I’m paralyzed. The only thing moving is my chest, as it rises and falls with my panting.

And he knows, and he closes the drawer again.

“I’m … we can still …” I say.

“No,” he whispers in my ear. He lies on top of me so that every inch is touching me, skin on skin. “You’re not ready.”

He shifts his weight and props himself up on an elbow.

“I love you. You might think you’re ready, but you’re not.”

“I am ready. I’m just scared.”

“Then we’ll wait until you’re not.”

I nod my head and blink back the tears. I love that he knows me like this. I love that I didn’t have to say anything for him to know. I pull him closer so that my face rests against his shoulder and I close my eyes. All I can feel is his body heat.

And it feels good. I know I only have forty-two minutes left with him before I have to leave. Before curfew.

But I will enjoy our forty-two minutes. And tomorrow there will be more.

And the day after that.

And we will spend every moment together.

Because that is what I want.

August 30

One Year

Sweetheart? Can you even hear me?”

Yes, I can hear him. He is all I can hear. His voice is raspy, desperate, begging. I want to block it out but even if I had earplugs or headphones, I’d still hear it.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

I don’t want him to be sorry. I’m sick of sorrys.

I wanted to be his life preserver, the thing that would keep him afloat. Instead, he became my anchor. And I’m tired of drowning.

How could I not see that it would never change? That it would always be this?

“I’m going to leave for a little bit, okay?”

I lift my head up and look at the door, then at the window. The storm is still raging on, both outside and inside.

“I’ll just go dry off somewhere and let things cool down, okay?”

He keeps saying okay, over and over, as if he can say it enough and make it true.

It will never be true. Things have never been okay with us. Maybe if I’d paid attention, I would have seen that on our first few dates. Maybe I would have noticed his possessiveness; maybe I would have seen the way he wrapped around me, made me his entire world, his obsession.

Maybe I would have felt the weight he placed on my shoulders, one tiny stone at a time.

I listen as his heavy footfalls leave me. The broken exhaust in his truck backfires as he starts it up, and then the rumble slowly disappears.

I lie back again and stare up at the ceiling. I close my eyes and will the sleep to come. Sleep is the only time when I feel at peace.

But when I sleep, I dream.

October 18

One Month, Eighteen days

Today is our first away meet for cross country. I’m a ball of nerves and excitement.

I won my first race two weeks ago. But winning at home is different. You know the terrain; you know when to kick it up a notch and when to coast. You know where the turns are and where to position yourself to keep the most momentum going.

At Reilly Hills, it’s different. I’ve been here twice, but the last few hills still manage to surprise me. I always get passed at the last minute because I don’t gauge it quite right and have nothing left.

But now I’ve trained harder than ever before, and I can’t wait to be the one who breaks the tape. I can’t wait to feel the energy and the cheers as I win.

Blake and I sit next to each other on the bus, like we’re supposed to since we’re captains. It’s a tradition or something. Coach thinks it gives the team confidence, like we’re strategizing.

We’re not talking, though. Ever since that awkward … moment a few weeks ago, we haven’t said much, and it’s starting to get to me. We lead the team in our silent way. If one of us announces something, a warm-up or a stretch, the other just follows without a word.

Even though we’ve never been best friends, we’ve always been close. We have this sort of mutual respect for each other that comes from years of proving ourselves. I know Blake worked his butt off to get to this point. To be the best. I see him, all summer long, jogging the long back roads around town. He knows a real runner never has an off-season. And so each fall, it’s like a reunion, and we hug and talk and catch up, and every year we get closer.

It’s a forty-minute ride to Reilly Hills. It’s going to be torture if we don’t speak, and I hate that we’ve been reduced to this. I can’t tolerate the prickly feeling every time we hit a bump and my shoulder rubs his. I can’t tolerate the way he’s staring out the window, as if he doesn’t even know I’m there.

So I break the silence myself. “So, um, do you hate me now or what?”

He turns and gives me this look, like he’s shocked I finally talked. “No. God. I don’t hate you. I just thought … I figured I made you uncomfortable or something.”

“Oh, no, it’s not that. I just didn’t know what to say, after … you know.”

And then there’s silence again, and I worry that it’s back for good.

“Okay, well now that that’s over,” he says, and laughs.

And Blake is back.

“Congrats on winning last week, by the way,” he adds.

“You too. Two in a row. Well done.”