“Who’s it to?” he asked, his voice quiet, serious.
I swallowed, afraid to answer. He looked at me, his eyes boring into mine, and I lied. “No one. Just thought of it.”
He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. Then his eyes moved to the pen in my hand, and he gestured for it. I passed it to him without a second thought.
He turned a few pages before finding a blank one. The pen hit the paper in perfect, sweeping motions of his wrist, and I marveled at him—at the mark he was leaving in the book that held the deepest parts of my heart. He tapped the end of his writing and closed the book quickly with a crooked smile, placing the pen on top. When his eyes found mine again, there were a thousand unspoken words inside them.
There was a long pause, us just watching each other, and my heart thudded loudly in my ears. I could feel the expansion of my lungs with each breath I tried to control. I could feel the leaves turning colors in the autumn air. I could feel the gravity pulling me into him with a force I could never overpower.
“Come on. I wanna show you something,” he said, breaking the silence.
He passed my book back to me and pushed against the ground as he stood. I wanted to see what he wrote, but I was too high off his presence to look. He held his hand out to lift me up, and I took it. I followed him through the grass and down the small hill that led to the parking lot.
And then I saw it.
“You got a car?!” I screamed excitedly.
He turned around and leaned against it, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “Pretty cool, right?”
“Insane cool! I love it!”
It was a 1998 white Cadillac Eldorado. A convertible with a black top and the sickest rims I’d ever seen.
“I mean, it screamspull me over because I’m up to no good, but I think that makes me love it more!”
He laughed, a deep, throaty sound, and I felt it run all the way through me. “It would.”
He turned and opened the door, holding his hand out for me to climb in. “Let’s ride, baby.”
I all but swooned. He was the coolest person I’d ever met, and he wanted to spend his time with me. Everything he did was cool. Even the way he called mebabywas cool. It wasn’t desperate or manipulative like when Enzo said it. It was effortless—like the word belonged to me before he even said it. Like he designed it himself and gave it to me for safekeeping. The way it slipped from his mouth on instinct had me spinning. And damn, the way it sounded on his lips made me want to follow him to the ends of the earth.
We rode in his car all day long, going everywhere and nowhere at all. E drove with one hand, his left elbowpropped on his window, his hand covering his smile. The Sacred Souls’Can I Call You Roseplayed while I air-surfed the autumn wind. It was beautiful and freeing and everything I needed it to be.
When the sun began to set, we turned around and started our trek back from the highlands, almost an hour away from home. I turned the music down.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, my voice timid, hesitant.
“Always.” He said it so matter-of-factly, and I believed him. I believed I could ask him anything, and he would answer me honestly, because that’s who he was.
I waited a moment, testing my confidence, allowing myself time to reconsider; to ask a different question than the one that was on my tongue. But I asked it anyway. “Why’d you sleep with Cashman?”
He didn’t look at me as he readjusted his position. “Why are you with Enzo?” he countered.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?” His voice was soft, but there was an edge to it.
I didn’t have an answer for that. Because in a way, it was the exact same thing. I was with Enzo because he was there. Because he wanted me. Because he said all the right things at all the right times. Because needing someone and being needed back felt enough like love when you were lonely.
I swallowed. “It’s different.”
He looked at me then, and whatever softness lived in his eyes before was gone now, replaced with something colder.Not mean or angry. Just… honest. Like he knew he was going to hurt me, but he couldn’t lie to save me.
“I slept with her because I was angry and… upset that you were…” He didn’t have to finish because I already knew. I knew Enzo had lied and said we were together before we ever were. I knew E thought he was coming home to me, but instead came home to me belonging to someone else, and even though it wasn’t true, he thought it was, and it killed him, just like it would’ve killed me.
“I did it because for a minute, I wanted to forget you.”
My throat clenched tight. His words were a weight on my soul, like the truth always is— heavy and unavoidable. Something we wish we could take back, wish we could change, but never can.
