I don’t want to look at him, but I can’t avoid him forever. I tilt my head back, and he takes his time studying my face, something I’ve never seen working behind his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothin’ to be sorry for.” He swipes his thumbs across my cheeks. The last of my tears escapes, and I can finally see clearly…I finally seehim.
I push on his chest and sit up, but his arm is wrapped around my waist, so that’s as far as I get. And I don’t mind. “It’s embarrassing,” I confess, leaning over to grab a couple of tissues.
“You’ve been dealing with some heavy shit. Having an emotional breakdown is anything but embarrassing.”
“I’m talking about my…situation.”
“Tell me about it.”
I nibble on the inside of my cheek. “You’re really not going to let me go, are you?”
“No. I’m not.” He tilts his head. “Do you really want me to?”
“No.”
He smiles.
I smile.
Then I tell him.
I tell him that because I lost my spot in the nursing program, I had to reapply, and I didn’t get in. I tell him that I was so mad at my dad and I was so stubborn that even though we lived in thesame house, I wouldn’t look at him. I blamed him for everything bad that happened to me, even when it wasn’t his fault. I tell him that I didn’t talk to him for almost a year.
“The last thing I remember saying to him was that I’d never forgive him for ruining my life. And then he had his stroke, and it ruined his brain…so bad. The state took every asset he had to fund his stay at the nursing home. I got my CNA so I could get a job there and make sure he got the best care. I don’t know if he was ever lucid enough to understand me, but every single night, I held his hand and apologized for being such a bad daughter.”
Ben tucks some hair behind my ear. “You’re not a bad daughter. You were allowed to have your feelings, Annie.”
That’s not something I will ever agree with. “Looking back, it wasn’t so much about me, though. It was about you.” He pulls his head back. “He shot you. He injured you permanently. And I know what you’re going to say, but he did that because he walked in and saw me freaking out because I was a fool and kissed you. My reaction was why he reacted, and I projected that guilt onto him.”
He starts to say something, but I cover his mouth. “You just said I’m allowed to have my feelings, so just let me finish.”
“All right,” he mumbles behind my hand.
I wring my fingers together as I continue. I need to power through, need to get this over with so maybe, just maybe, I can have a life here. Maybe Ben and I can stay close, at least as friends. “I missed you.”
“Annie…”
“I blamed my dad for that, too. I always wondered if you and I would have kept talking if that night never happened. If you’d have given me your number so I could text you a picture of my Skee Ball score and brag that you’ll never beat me.” I suck in a breath and look at his ear so I don’t have to see his reaction. “For four months with you, I was happy. And a foolish part of me hadthis fantasy that we’d become more than friends. I blamed my dad for ruining that, too, because it was easier than admitting to myself that you’d never see me as more than a sister.”
When a tense minute goes by, I finally look into his eyes, and the second I do, he stands. “You’re staying.”
Um… what? “I guess.”
“It’s not a question. You are. But not here, I need to get you over there, to your new place. You need to take a couple of days to decompress. You need some time to accept this decision so when you get pissed at me down the road, you can’t throw resentment in my face. I want you to want to be here with me.” He runs his hands through his hair almost as fast as he runs away from me. “And I need you to do that somewhere else.”
Like a knife to the heart, I put a hand to my chest with a pained gasp.
He stops in his tracks and turns to me. His eyes flash with more emotions than I can count, and in a quick second, he closes the short distance between us, cups my jaw, and rubs his thumb across my mouth. “I missed you, Annie. Do not ever doubt that. I’m glad you’re here.I want you here.” Then he bends down and kisses me, hard and quick, but long enough that I feel the glide of his tongue across my lips. “And make no mistake, I do not think of you like a sister.”
Hope soars at thepossibility of him, and I feel the shattered pieces of my heart fusing. That fragile organ in the center of my chest thuds back to life, reminding me that I still have a lot left of mine, and I want to live it.
Youaredefinitelynotthesame.
Ben
It’s been two nights and three days since I got Annie situated in her new place. Three long days since I last saw her, but it might as well have been months. I’ve never wished for a superpower before, but every day when I wake up and look out my window, I think I’d give just about anything to have X-ray vision so I can see into her loft.
