One Little Kiss (7 page)

I am strong. He is strong. I know we can do this but I don’t want to. We shouldn’t have to.

“Jonas. Don’t go to Rome. Go to Dublin with me and then come back to school. Don’t end us before we have a chance to begin. Let me be there for you, no matter what happens.”

The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I’ve said but the utter stillness of his body against mine tells me that he heard every word. When he does move it is precise, careful motions that unwind us from each other. He stands beside the bed but will not look at me. I open my mouth to take it back, to apologize. I may argue with him. It is completely moot when he beats me to it.

“I asked you not to do this.” He walks towards the bathroom, stopping just inside the door and delivers his final verdict before going inside and shutting me out. “All this does is break both of our hearts.”

I hold back the tears until I hear the shower running.

CHAPTER NINE

Jonas

I might be making the biggest mistake of my life but I’m going to do it anyway.

The rest of the morning after my exit into the shower had been strained. Leighton was hurt and maybe embarrassed and I was angry at the whole damn situation. She didn’t look at me with eyes that condemned me for last night, her expression was much worse. She was unhappy.

Everything about her screamed out her broken emotions but she put on a brave face and tried to act like nothing was wrong. She made small talk which made my teeth ache, laughed and chatted with the staff at the hotel and trudged through the snow with no complaint as we tried to make our new flights.

The snow had stopped and the sun was bright in a sky so blue it looked like I painted it. The airport was open and ready for business and we were in the terminal ready to head to our separate gates. Leighton was anxious, the tight grip of her hand on her backpack and the strap of Wonder Woman’s case noticeable. She was ready to ditch me as soon as she could and I'd be lying if I said it didn't kill me to let her do it.

“Thank you for rescuing me from a night spent on the floor,” she says, refusing to meet my gaze. “I better go.”

“Red, wait.” I grab her arm as she turns away, stopping her progress when I wrap my arms around her and hold her close to me. She’s stiff as a board and no matter how much I try to soothe her, she’s unresponsive. “Leighton—”

“Please let go of me Jonas.” Her voice is low and almost lost in the various noises in the terminal but I catch the words and her underlying tone of heartbreak. Fuck, I know it. I feel it too but there are so many reasons that we don’t work right now and may never work. So why can’t I let her go?

“Leighton.”

“Let me go Jonas.”

I hear the decision in her voice and feel the resolve in her bones. She is doing as I asked and the one thing I can do is not make it harder than it already is. I release her, memorizing everything from the smell of the hotel shampoo in her hair to the coffee she drank before we ventured out into the cold.

“Have a good flight Jonas and please let Landon know where you are and that you’re okay.” She meets my eyes for the briefest second before it skitters away and she turns towards her gate.

I watch her go, only sheer determination turning my body in the opposite direction towards my own departure gate. I weave in and out of the people, dodging rolling suitcases and sleepy kids as I settle in to wait. My flight boards in a little over an hour so I find an empty seat facing the large expanse of windows and the planes all lined up outside.

Snow is plowed and pushed to the sides in huge mounds dirtied by all the grit and grime from the airport runway. Men and women scramble outside in the cold to load luggage and inspect the planes. It’s normally a scene I would sketch, the wealth of different faces and body types almost irresistible, but today I don't want to pull out the pad and flip past the pages of Leighton. I just can’t.

I decide to make a necessary call and I pull out my phone, hitting speed dial for Landon. The phone rings on his end a few times before he picks it up with a sleepy, “Hello”.

“Hey Landon. It's me.”

“Jonas!” He perks up on the other end and I can hear his bed sheets rustling over the line. “So did you and Leighton survive the blizzard?”

I want to tell him that I barely made it out alive but I stick to the facts. “She’s fine and headed to her gate. Her flight leaves at 1:20. Same flight number as yesterday.” I relay the facts I know he’ll pass on to his mom and prepare to get off the phone. I’m not really in the mood to talk.

Landon apparently is up and ready to chat.

“So, last night was okay? I really appreciate you looking after her. My mom was driving me nuts.”

“It was fine. We had a decent room and went to a pub and grabbed a bite to eat. It worked out great.” I hesitate and then add. “I told her about my diagnosis.”

He whistles, long and low on his side of the phone and I hear him move as he sits up in his bed. I’m kind of anxious to see what Landon thinks about this whole thing. He’s my best friend and he’s wicked smart but he’s Leighton’s brother and I can’t imagine he’s going to be happy about what happened.

“How’d she take the news?”

“She was cool. It upset her but she was a rock.”

“Well, that’s my sister. She’s got a backbone of steel.”

I pull back the phone and stare at it. Who is this guy? “What? What about her being fragile?”

“Buddy, that was four years ago when I was an asshole and seeing everything through the lens of my parents. Growing up in a house where a kid had cancer is different and all I remembered was the tubes and drugs and my sister lying in a bed barely hanging on. It fucks you up.”

“We talked about it.” I remembered what she said and how she’d carried all of the weight of it on her very young shoulders. “Her illness, we talked about it.”

“My parents were great and strong and did everything you are supposed to do but she was the one who carried all of us. Don’t get me wrong, she had her moments where the shit hit the fan and she fell apart but her attitude and the way she faced it head on set the tone for the rest of the family. I didn’t get it until later.” He laughed. “My sister is
anything
but fragile.”

Oh Jesus. I scrub my hand over my face and try to wipe away the confusion. I have no idea what he’s trying to tell me.

“Landon, spit it out.”

“Fine Jonas, here it is. I know that you guys have had something going on since I caught you with your tongue down her throat freshman year.”

I open my mouth to protest but he’s right. Not much to argue about there.

He continues. “And I know she spent the night with you on New Year’s Eve.”

“How?”

“I’m not blind. You guys have been doing the ‘I slept with you and it rocked my world but I’m going to avoid you’ dance for the last two months. It’s exhausting.”

Well, shit.

“And I’m not saying that you’ve got to marry her or anything but the two of you are good together and she can’t do any worse than Brian-the-shitface.”

“Well, thanks for the endorsement.”

“I know you better than anyone else and although you can be a douche, you’re honest and a good guy.” He laughed to himself. “And it’s really none of my fucking business but since you asked...”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes. You did.” He cuts me off before I can protest any more. “I get that you need to see the world before you lose your vision and I think you should. It’s a shitty thing that’s happened to you and I don’t blame you at all for doing what you need to do.”

“But?”

“But you need to come back and graduate and figure this shit out with Leighton and then make your plans to see the world and paint every fucking sunset on the planet.” He huffs out a laugh of sorts and I can picture him in my mind, pushing his glasses up on his nose and making his hair stand up all over his head like an electrocuted Einstein. “Fuck Jonas, even Mother Nature was telling the two of you to get your shit together and figure it out.”

“You're telling me that the Universe made this blizzard to force Leighton and I together?” I shake my head even though he can’t see it. “That’s not very logical Mr.-Math-Major.”

“This isn’t about numbers. It's about the heart and
I’m
smart enough to know the difference.”

That shuts me up. I take a few moments to process all these pearls of wisdom and he waits patiently as I figure out what feels like my whole future.

“I don't have any idea what is going to happen. No idea how I’m going to handle the changes or anything.”

“Well if you did I’d tell you to go buy some lottery tickets for me because the thought of graduating and living on a starting salary for a math teacher is starting to give me the shakes.” We both laugh and then when we quiet down he adds, “Nobody can guarantee anything. Her cancer might come back or my turn might be next. You could get hit by a bus in Rome. Nothing is guaranteed except that it will be shitty at times but I think she’s strong enough to handle it.”

I freeze. It’s exactly what Gabe said last night. I then realize that I’ve done exactly what her family did—underestimated Leighton. She is strong enough to handle it. Not that she won’t have challenges or be scared for me but she can push on through.

And I need her.

I don’t know if I’m strong enough to get through it all. I just know I have a better shot at it if Leighton is with me.

And I still want to see the world, store up the memories but I want her to be part of that. I can’t imagine looking back and not seeing Leighton in the movie reel of my life in a starring role.

“I’ve got to go,” I say into the phone, grabbing my backpack and looking for the closest ticket counter. I don't have much time if I’m going to fix this.

“Yeah. You do.” Landon laughs into the phone. “Have a pint for me in Dublin and tell my sister to call mom.”

CHAPTER TEN

Leighton

I keep telling myself that this is the right way to end things.

Quick. Just like pulling off a Band-Aid. And I will be spared the shit-tastic, “Groundhog Day” version of seeing Jonas all over campus. With Landon. In the student quad. With other women. Nope, he’ll be in Rome and then anywhere else the wind will take him and I’ll strain a muscle listening for any clue from my brother about where Jonas is and how he is doing.

It will not be enough. It is not enough.

I want to be with him. Asking him was easy once I'd started, the words falling out of my mouth like the notes singing out from my instrument. It was like...breathing. Wanting him is part of me. My DNA has shifted to incorporate him into my cellular structure, my soul. To not ask him would have caused me physical pain.

But his rejection hurts like a bitch too. I understand his reason, I really do. I can't imagine what he is going through and what he is feeling. I just want to be with him. To help him. To love him.

He needs space to figure stuff out in his head without having to worry about me and how I’m handling it. I might be the one person in his life, besides Grandpa Sutton, who gets it. I remember the burden of worrying about my parents and Landon when I was sick. You have no control over your body but you still feel like you’ll let them down if you don’t get better.

The last thing I want to do is be a burden for Jonas.

I shove the stupid airline magazine into the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me, smiling in apology when the person occupying it turns around with a glare. Apparently I was trying to shove my heartbreak into the pocket along with it.

I shift in the seat, itching to pull out Wonder Woman and soothe myself by playing her for a while but I can’t. This is going to be a long flight.

The flight attendant who greeted me at the door enters the coach section of the cabin with purpose and stops at my row. She is still smiling, every hair in place and nails buffed to a high sheen but it’s the weird gleam in her eyes that has me wondering if I’m headed for a cavity search.

“Leighton Greer?” she asks in greeting, using that vocal uplift at the end of it to indicate a question.

“Yes? Is something wrong?”

“No. Not all,” she replies, glancing up into the open overhead compartment and then back to me. “I just need you to gather your things and come with me.”

“What? Why?” Panic rises in my gut as I contemplate the possibility that I might actually be headed to a meeting with a woman with a latex glove and K-Y jelly inside the terminal. “Is there something wrong?”

She laughs because it’s not
her ass
in jeopardy and my irritation spikes a little higher.

“No. You are fine. You’ve been upgraded to first class for your flight.”

I get up out of my seat on auto-pilot when she reaches up and pulls my violin out of the bin and hands it to me. I’m following her lead but my brain does not compute what she is saying. We walk three or four more steps down the aisle before my mouth catches up with my feet.

“Was it my mother?” It would be just like her to do it too. She’d put me in a bubble if they offered that option. I love her but we’re going to have a talk about her worrying so much when I get home. Upgrades aren’t cheap and while my folks aren’t destitute they can’t throw around money like the Kardashians.

The flight attendant ignores my question, leading me past the flimsy curtain that separates the two parts of the cabin. She stops in front of one of the double-wide, comfortable leather seats and points to an empty spot.

“Here’s your seat.” She takes Wonder Woman out of my hands and smiles. “I’ll store this up front for you and be back in a few moments to get your drink order. Have a great flight.”

She turns without any further explanation and I stare after her, still unsure about what is happening here. I edge forward to sit down and finally notice the person occupying the window seat next to mine.

When he turns and smiles up at me my legs give out and I land in the seat in a heap, mouth hanging open.

Jonas grins even wider and leans forward to whisper in my ear, “Hey Red.”

***

Jonas

I’m not sure if she’s going to hit me or kiss me so I make a command decision.