He nodded. “Fair enough, Daredevil. Fair enough.”
12
In the springsemester of my sophomore year at Westbrooke, I had hit a low unlike any other. The days had started blending, a muddy mosaic of uninspired creation. Homesickness became the film through which I saw the world. I could have gone home. My parents wouldn’t have minded. And my siblings would only tease me for as long as I could keep my tears in–and at that point, my record was thirty seconds.
I didn’t leave campus. A window for a bus ticket remained open on my laptop, though. And the number for a private car service was written on my wrist every morning. I walked through campus with a smile and an inescapable ache in my stomach. I went on like that for a month before seeing David outside of the student center. He was hurrying across the quad, a gym bag swung over one shoulder, books stacked in his hands. His tongue poked the inside of his cheek, and the familiarity of the gesture offered temporary relief to my constant ache. The way his hair fell in his eyes made my lips twitch. It wasn’t a smile, not yet. But it was enough to remindme I once had the capability of feeling something other than wayward and isolated.
David looked like home. He wore a worn tee from a local seafood restaurant where he’d bussed tables all junior and senior year. The braid bracelet on his wrist came from an older woman who sold handfuls of them to hiking tourists every summer season. If I got close enough, he’d probably smell like the mountains. Westbrooke smelled so much of salt and sea that I missed the pine needles and oak trees.
I didn’t move closer, but I did pull out my phone. We’d exchanged numbers years ago for some group project that’d meant the world then and absolutely nothing now.
My finger had hovered over the send button. A message this late into our college career would be weird and perhaps a little desperate. What exactly did I want? And why did I think David Evans of all people could provide it?
But sending the text felt no less or more painful than the days I went through on autopilot. Seconds after I sent it, David pulled out his phone and stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at the screen for a moment before a small smile appeared.
David
Told you you’d miss me.
I snorted, recalling his warning when I vowed never to speak to him again after graduation.
It was a simple question. Doesn’t mean I miss you.
And I hadn’t. I’d missed our gray-bricked high school, rugged hiking trails, star-gazing watch parties, and community movie nights in the park. But I couldn’t have that and grow up, so talking to him would get me close enough.
David
You want tickets to a football game? You hate football.
I’m giving it a second chance.
David
Being away from the rest of the royal family forced you to expand your horizons, huh?
Careful.
David
Careful? You threatening me?
Possibly.
David
With what?
You want to risk finding out?
David
Yes, one thousand percent.
I’d bit my lip, fighting off a full smile. This was what I wanted, what I needed.
He’d taken my pause as a retreat and tried to reel me back in by texting,
I dare you.
