Please just leave it at that.

“I was your best friend.” She spoke slowly, making me feel her disgust. “All these years…” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

“Tate, I had a shitty summer with my dad that year.” I inched closer. “When I came back, I wasn’t the same kid. Not even close. I wanted to hate everybody. But with you, I still needed you in a way. I needed you to not forget me.”

Part of it was about control, and part of it was about my anger, but most of it was about not being able to let her go. I needed to be in her life. I needed her to see me.

“Jared, I’ve turned it over and over in my head wondering what I could’ve done to make you act the way you did. And now you tell me that it was all for no reason?”

I continued moving in.

“You were never clingy or a nuisance, Tate. The day you moved in next door I thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” My voice dropped to a near-whisper and my eyes to the ground. “I fucking loved you. Your dad was unloading the moving truck, and I looked out my living room window to see what the noise was. There you were, riding your bike in the street. You were wearing overalls with a red baseball cap. Your hair was spilling down your back.”

Even then, I knew Tate would be important to me.

Shortly after she’d moved in, I’d found out that her mom had passed away. My father wasn’t in my life, and Tate and I connected instantly. We had things like music and movies in common.

And the rest was out of our control. We’d found each other.

“When you recited your monologue this week, I …..” I let out a breath. “I knew then that I’d really gotten to you, and instead of feeling any satisfaction, I was angry with myself. I wanted to hate you all these years, I wanted to hate someone. But I didn’t want to hurt you, and I didn’t really realize that until the monologue.”

Stepping in front of her, I felt the hairs on my arms stand on end. The heat from her body—so close— radiated toward me, and it took everything I had not to circle my arms around her waist and bring her up into my arms. The memory of how she felt the other night only made me think of all the things I wanted.

“You’re not telling me everything.” She looked like her head was spinning, like she was half in and half out of the moment.

I reached up and cupped her face with one hand, wiping away a single warm tear. “No, I’m not.” My voice was barely audible.

Her eyes were hooded, but she tried to keep going. “The scars on your back,” she started. “You said you had a bad summer, and that when you came back you wanted to hate everybody, but you haven’t

treated anyone else as badly as—”

“Tate?” I cut her off and closed the inch left between us, our breathing in sync as we met chest to chest. All I could see were her lips, full and soft. “I don’t want to talk any more tonight.”

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 610