“It’s just …” She bites her bottom lip.
“Can I ask you something?” She nods. “Why did you guys stop seeing each other back then?” I’ve always wanted to know but some things you just don’t ask. And she was right. It was none of my business. No matter how badly I wanted to know.
She bows her head and sighs. I push her hair behind her ear so I can see her face. “You know that night I kissed you at the frat party?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I answer slowly, wondering what that has to do with it.
“That night before, Bones had come over to the house. My parents were out of town, and we had sex.” I knew he was going over there because we had plans, and he was late due to seeing her before. “After we were done, he was getting dressed, and he said that we needed to stop seeing each other.” She frowns. “I was confused at first because it was just sex, but then he said that he loved me, but he couldn’t love me the way that you did.” Her soft blue eyes meet mine.
I tense at her words.
“I loved Bones, the most he would allow someone to love him.” She sighs, averting her eyes again. “We started hooking up my sophomore year in high school when he was a senior. It was a couple of months before his mom passed, and honestly, I thought it was going to go somewhere. But after she died, he became more closed off than he was before. He was unreachable. It was like he felt nothing. Not even physical pain. I saw Grave spiral after that, worse than he already was, and I was afraid Bones was going to do the same. I clung to him, became his lifeboat because I didn’t want him to drown.” She takes in a deep breath. “Then he got injured in baseball while in college, destroying his chance at getting out of this town and going pro like I knew he wanted to do. There was never a good time to walk away. But you …” She looks up at me. “You didn’t have that problem. I remember saying how could Titan love me? He doesn’t even know me. I was attracted to you, yes. And I wanted you, yes, but that would be as far as it would have gone.”
“How do you know that?” I ask like I could have seen the future back then. I can’t say for certain that we’d be sitting here right now if she had let me love her back then.
“The next night, I saw you at the frat party, and after that first kiss we shared, I just knew …” She trails off.
“Knew what?” I ask.
“That I wouldn’t be able to do with you what I did with Bones.” She drops her head. “That I wouldn’t have been able to separate feelings for just casual sex, so I pushed you away.”
“Is that how you felt about me?” she asks. “Did you have feelings for me?”
“Yes,” I answer without any hesitation. This is my chance. To be there for her in a way that Bones never wanted to be.
“But ... you were a dick to me.” She narrows her eyes at me.
“I was jealous. I wanted you for myself.”
She straddles my hips, and I readjust myself onto my back, staring up at her. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“What was I supposed to say? Hey, I’ve liked you since you were in third grade. But by the time I wanted to approach you, you were already fucking my best friend?”
“Third grade?” She chuckles, thinking I’m joking.
I nod. “Yep. Duncan Wiltz walked behind you and shoved you out of the swing.”
She bursts out laughing. “How did you know that?”
“I had Mrs. Hollan’s class, and her window faced the playground.” I can remember that day like it was yesterday. I was two grades ahead of her, and it was our last year at the elementary school. Her mother always dressed her in bright colors. She was hard to miss.
Her mouth opens wide as she stares down at me in shock.
“I watched you lie there on the ground and cry while he sat there swinging, laughing at you.”
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
“You were wearing a pink shirt with white polka dots and jeans. You had pigtails. A pink ribbon on the right one with a yellow wrapped around the other.”
“That is …” She blinks.
“Adorable.”
“Kinda stalkerish.” She laughs. “But I remember that day too. Well, not what I wore, but the best part was that he came back to school that next Monday with a …” She trails off as I smile. Hers drops off her face, and she tilts her head to the side. “No … did you …? Titan.” She slaps my bare chest. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar. You broke his arm, didn’t you?”
