CHAPTER 13
Rowan
Idon’t think there’s a limit to the things I would do to put a smile on her face. To see those freckles shine like stars because her happiness is so utterly unbridled that it pours out of her in any way it possibly can.
She glows.
She’s bright and light and the only thing I see in the dark.
I want everything and nothing from her. And I want her to have all the same from me.
I could tell her that, I know. I just…haven’t. We were only seventeen when I first realized I had real feelings for her, and it was right before she was admitted into a psychiatric unit. Then I visited her and I obviously couldn’t confess my feelings in those circumstances. Not when she was healing and I was still broken. But she was the only person who made me feel like I wasn’t. The only person that made me think maybe life wasn’t so terrible.
Eventually, she was discharged and even then it wasn’t the right time. We were friends. We were all still in school andfiguring ourselves out. I began to lose hope and think she would always be the right person at the wrong time. The one that got away from me.
Then she started dating that jackass Adrian who belittled her and disrespected her every chance he got. That fucking twat always told her what and how to eat. To get over her mental illness because it was just for attention. That her scars were ugly and needed to be covered up if she didn’t want to embarrass him.
I swear I could have killed him.
And now…Well, now I don’t know. I just want to give her everything. I want to love her loudly.
I put the car in park after backing into a perfect spot in the dark, where there is no glare or reflections and the film will be played clearly. I change the channel on the radio to find the movie, listening to the commercials and trailers playing before the movie starts as Natalia is still silent beside me, hugging her coat over her chest.
“Natalia?”
Her head snaps toward me, her eyes finding mine instantly. “Hmm?”
“Are you okay?” I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn up the heat.
“Oh, um, yeah,” she murmurs, fidgeting with her nails. “Just…a bit cold, I guess.”
I nod and rake my fingers through my hair, my heart unable to settle. It isn’t awkward—it shouldn’t be. This is nerves. Anxiety about what might happen next and where we go from here. I don’t know how to begin to ask her about it.
“Nat—”
“Ro—” She giggles, the smile reaching her eyes. “Sorry, go ahead.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “I was just going to ask if you’re warm enough, or if you’re still cold.”
She nods, pressing her lips together with a smile. “I’m good now. Thank you.”
I nod too. “Okay. Okay, good.”
“I’m sorry,” Nat blurts. “I’m just… I feel…”
“Anxious? Nervous?”
An insecure, shy shrug from her.
“Me too,” I assure her. “But nothing has changed for me. I want you to know that. I’m still…”
“I know,” she breathes. “Me too. I just thought…that was it for us. That maybe we wouldn’t really be good friends anymore.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Sometimes sex ruins the friendship.”
“Do you think it ruined ours?” I ask just as the opening song begins with Danny and Sandy on a beach.
