I hit send before I can panic. Then I bury my face in my pillow and groan like a feral animal.
Chapter Seventeen
EVEREST
I’ve donenothing but lie in bed since waking, replaying the video again and again. I’ve watched the video over and over. My attention isn’t on me, but her. It could’ve been anyone else in the video, my eyes would’ve still been held only by her.
My dorm is dark, quiet, unusually so. Thankfully, Tanner had an early class this morning so he was up and out of the room by seven thirty. I don’t have class or a shift at the gym today so I saw no reason to get up.
I stare at the screen, debating. Do I watch the video again? Do I take a shot in the dark and message her, hoping that she’ll reply?
Our conversation at the carnival was amazing. It was as if we were one person. Our interests are similar, our likes almost identical. She’s the girlfriend I imagine myself having. Even before yesterday our conversations in messages were thrilling.
What am I becoming? Simple. A guy who hasn’t slept, who’s been thinking about one girl far too much. Guilty.
My thumbs hover over my screen. The messaging app on her cam site opens, as I ponder what to say. Then as if on their own my fingers begin to move, rapidly typing out a message.
Immediately I hate everything I wrote. It oozes of desperation. I hit the backspace, deleting it and start again. I’ve barely written four words and I’m already hating it. Again I delete it. I do this over and over for about ten minutes. Everything sounds wrong—too eager, too intense, too transparent.
But the truth wins out, like it always does with her.
I finally write and hit send before I can second guess myself again.
Me: I can’t stop thinking about you.
Then my fingers are moving, typing another message. I hesitate only a second before pressing send, long enough for my ribs to tighten like something inside me is bracing for impact.
Me: It was… unreal.
I don’t expect her to answer, not right away. Maybe no reply at all.
I’m already rehearsing excuses why she wouldn’t respond back. It’s simple, it was just a contest. We did what we were supposed to and that’s it. We’re back to the relationship we had before. Her performing and me watching.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in my phone and groan. I look like shit. Like death has found residence in my body. I can already hear Tanner giving me shit about what I look like and I’m immediately coming up with the reasons—“late homework,” “couldn’t sleep,” anything that doesn’t involve the truth.
But I don’t have to wait. Her response comes almost instantly.
My phone buzzes. A soft little chime. And then?—
A photo.
Nothing explicit. Just her, cheeks flushed from God knows what. She’s holding a stick of cotton candy up to her lips, winking—playful, knowing, like she can feel exactly what it does to me through the screen.
My breath catches, but it’s not the same as before. Not heat. Not hunger.
Something gentler knocks into me.
Under the photo she’s typed a message.
Cove: Can’t stop thinking about you either.
I sink back against my pillow, the tension in me dissolving into something warm, something dangerous. My fingers move without thought, the conversation opening like it always did before things got complicated—before the video, the kiss, the rush of everything.
And just like that we fall into a natural rhythm.
Our conversation flows.
Cove: So what’s your favorite song?
