“I can’t help that I worry about you. My mom worries too.”
I lean my head away to look at him, raising my eyebrows. He’s telling the truth. I can see it in the softness of his brown eyes, the way he watches me.
“You shouldn’t worry,” I say.
He laughs. “Uh, yeah. I totally should.”
“Stop.” My wrist still itches under my cast. I can’t even think about the mall without the fear of a panic attack.
“I’ll try,” he says.
“Great.”
He waits a moment. “So you want to go watch bad movies and sleep in my room with me?” He bites playfully at my shoulder.
I push him back, making him laugh. “And sure, let’s watch your stupid movies.”
“Oh, now they’re stupid?”
“Shut up.”
“I love when you sleep in my room with me,” he says, leaning in again. Despite wanting to be tough, I kiss him.
It should be weird that I sleep in his room, but his parents don’t mind. They don’t even ask us to leave the door open. Not that we have sex when they’re home or anything, but still . . . that amount of trust? It’s sort of weird and cool at the same time.
So after his parents go out, and we watch a movie—we’re in his bed. He lies next to me, twisting my hair between his fingers as I stare at his ceiling.
“Then what about August?” he asks. “Can we go then?”
“No.”
“But you’re not going to college.”
“Hey,” I say, elbowing him. He chuckles, pulling me to him. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m not going either.”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling. “But you’re sort of dumb, remember?”
“Right. I forgot.”
Cameron’s going to finish the semester with an A despite having missed ten days this quarter. He should have probably lost a letter grade for that, but Mr. Jimenez saw that he was trying. He ended up being a pretty awesome teacher.
“Besides . . . I might take a class,” I say, a little self-consciously. For my career project, I’d researched how to become a special education teacher. Retha looked up nursing, and we both decided that if we ever went to college, that’s who we’d be. Of course, back then it was hypothetical. I had Evan.
“Ah, I snagged myself a college girl,” Cameron says. “Fine. We’ll go between semesters. We’ll just drive. Stop whenever.”
“Sounds horrible.”
“Hey,” he says. “Be nice.”
I lift my head to look at his face. His strong jaw. His perfect lips, smirking as he stares up at the ceiling. “Look at me,” I whisper.
His eyes glance over to mine, studying my face. “I always look at you,” he says. “You just don’t always notice.”
Everything about him. I love everything about him. I move up to kiss softly at his lips, and he holds me close. We take our time. There’s no rush.
“This weekend,” he says after. “You want to try to see Evan?”
“Yeah. I’ll call.” And I feel the emptiness again. The sense of loss that never goes away. I grow quiet, and Cameron buries his face in my hair.
