“It’s a lot more my fault than you think, White,” he whispered.
“Maybe the others are the ones who make you think that.”
He frowned. “Do you really think so?”
“Yeah.”
I sipped the tea slowly. Silence fell between us, until I saw him smile.
“It’s not fucking fair,” he said looking around curiously.
“What?”
“You had quite a laugh when you saw me as a little kid—now I wanna see what you looked like.”
Oh no. I stalled a little bit because I was embarrassed.
“It certainly can’t be worse than what you look like now,” he teased.
“Go fuck yourself.”
I went to the wall unit and took out a photo album. The only ones surviving. My mom suffered from the opposite of hoarding. She wanted to get rid of everything, especially objects and memories, so most of our photos had been lost in the numerous moves and new starts.
I sat back down with the album on my lap. When I opened it, I immediately recognized my picture from kindergarten.
James ripped it from my hands with impressive speed.
“You liked your cookies, huh.”
“Yes, okay, I was a chunky country kid, so what? For your information, I still like them.” I looked at him cantankerously.
“I bet that you were bossy. Look at you.”
He pointed at my chubby cheeks and my angry expression surrounded by a clump of blond hair.
Yeah, I looked like an extra in the movieTheBoss Baby.
“I was. If you and I met in kindergarten, we’d have been pulling each other’s hair out.” I smiled.
“Not that it’s that different now,” he murmured, as his sharp eyes drifted along the hair falling down my shoulders. Our eyes met.
I gulped loudly. Having him so close made me feel weird.
Why did he make me feel so, especially when he looked at me like that? It was James. Will and Amelia’s words ricocheted in my head.
He turned the page, and a picture from Halloween showed up in front of us. I really was little. I didn’t even remember it.
“We can stop if you don’t want to look anymore,” he said when we found a picture of my brother.
“My mom never wants to look at them. Especially these from when he was younger.”
As I pointed at the picture, I inadvertently brushed his hand. James lifted his arm abruptly, scared of the contact.
“You’re really strong,” he said at some point. “Stronger than I thought. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. If something happened to Jasper.”
I caught a glimpse of innocence in his midnight-blue eyes that I’d never seen before.
“When we found out he was sick, it was so shocking that I couldn’t even cry. At least not initially. I couldn’t react because the anger was stronger than the pain. I don’t know why, but that’s what happened to me.”
