“Then what is this even about?”
Brandon’s restraint snaps, and he coughs a hard laugh. “Gosh, I wish my mama didn’t raise me right. Not when I have to deal with your bratty attitude.” He shoves a hand through his hair. “It’s about doing the right thing. And driving alone into a forest to meet up with some creepy guy is about the stupidest thing you could do. But would you ever admit that you might need someone? No!”
He throws his arms in the air, pacing away before looping back like a stupidly muscled boomerang. He lowers his face dangerously close to mine.
“So yeah, Kate. I will be going on this trip. Because even though you don’tneed me”—he says these words with air quotes, and the urge to smack him intensifies—“I’m still gonna be there to protect your sorry butt if something goes wrong.” Brandon’s chest heaves less than a foot away from mine, but our eyes stay locked in battle.
“Why?” The word spills out of me before I can stop it. “Why do you stillcare?”
His surprised eyes flick between mine.
I bite my lip, cursing the way my heart races in anticipation of an answer I shouldn’t care about. Six years ago, I felt the sting of a playboy’s pre-manufactured date that had been meant for a million girls, including me.
But I’d also never felt more seen than I did that night.
How can someone so shallow be so deep?
I always felt so protected by him, until he wasn’t there when I needed him most. And his unreliability, hissecrets, broke me on the night he never showed up.
“Why?” I croak the demand. “Tell mewhy.”
Something seems to snap within him. His palms fly up to cradle my cheeks, making my eyes blow wide. War rages behind his forest-green gaze, but his lips stay drawn tight. The familiar heat of his calloused hands makes emotion sting my tear ducts.
Seconds tick, but I still don’t move. Don’t breathe. Because I am starved for this answer. I’ve been emaciated for six years, a million scenarios dancing across my ceiling at night. That same desperation claws to the surface, embedding itself in the lump in my throat.
So I wait. I wait for his answer the way I waited for him that night.
When Brandon finally speaks, his voice is strained.
“Because I’m never gonna stop being there for you, Kate. Thought you would have realized that by now.”
Cold slaps me in the cheeks as his hands disappear.
Brandon strides away, and I’m left all alone.
PAST
KATE
I can’t believe Brandon left me all alone.
No, I correct myself. Leaving would have required him to show up to the Lunar New Year parade in the first place.
I scrub my face harder with the washcloth as if it can erase the tears pouring down my face. My glare is rimmed with red in the mirror, my under-eyes puffy. I stab my phone awake, pulling up the text Tuck responded with.
TUCKER: He’s with me.
That’s it. No elaboration. No explanation.
I slap my toothbrush onto the counter before brushing my teeth. Salty tears mingle with the foaming toothpaste.
Why am I alwayswaiting?
Waiting for someone to care.
I’m again sitting at a high school art show, waiting for my parents with my head in my hands. I’m lying in a silent dorm room at law school while my parents threw a party for my sister’s admission into medical school. I’m slumped against a grimy alley wall, sobbing by the parade route.
I’m sick of waiting for people to love me.
