How long since I’d stopped.
So long, and not long at all.
It felt like aeons since I’d learned to think about him the only way I could without something ugly slicing at my insides.
Only there was nothing ominous circling my thoughts of Sean anymore. He was Sean. My best friend, even more than Claire. Long before my heart got tangled up between us, he was the boy I’d spend hours playing “Need for Speed” with, the boy who used to sneak me into his brother’s no-girls-allowed tree house, the boy who dressed up as Oliver Hardy to my Stan Laurel for Halloween three years in a row.
I didn’t wake up one day and decide to love Sean Addison. I woke up one day and realized there wasn’t a time I could remember not loving him. Until one night, with whiplash-inducing speed, I stopped.
So much of my life was tied up in Sean Addison. All the good stuff and the bad. But if the bad was gone, where did that leave us?
“I don’t know.” It was the only answer I had.
“Maybe I do. Hear me out, okay?” Sean leaned forward enough for a nearby park light to paint a star in his eyes. “You know I hate running, right? Tell me you know that?”
“I know.”
“Right. Good.” He sat forward again, his hands between his knees. “And Claire, well, sometimes I want to kill her, but I love her and—” Sean sighed before catching my eye and holding it. “Do you remember Jamie Pilther’s thirteenth birthday? We carpooled together.”
I blinked, trying to follow his random subject change. But I remembered every single detail about that night. Jamie was pretty hung up on Claire at the time and, as her best friend, I’d reaped the benefits by getting invited to his birthday. Most of the party I’d spent playing messenger between them:
“Does she want to hold his hand?”
“No.”
“Does she want to be his girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Does she want to sit next to him while he opens his presents?”
“Okay.”
After the presents were opened, I’d officially resigned as messenger girl. Claire had gotten over her initial shyness and was able to talk to Jamie by then anyway. But that wasn’t why I remembered Jamie Pilther’s thirteenth birthday. And that wasn’t why Sean was bringing it up.
I don’t remember who suggested we play spin the bottle, but I do remember my eyes instantly scanning the crowded basement for Sean. Claire refused to play, but she was the only one. My hands were shaking when it was my turn. I could even still remember where Sean sat, four people to my left, and watching the bottle spin, round and round and round.
I remember it didn’t land on Sean.
I don’t remember the name of the guy it landed on, not that it mattered. Claire’s mom arrived to pick us up before my brain had even fully registered my disappointment.
“I knew you wanted the bottle to land on me,” Sean said, pulling me back to the present. It would have been pointless to deny it. “I wanted it to land on me too.”
“Don’t.” I dragged my eyes away. “I don’t want you to do this.” He’d had all the time in the world since Jamie’s party to say something like that, and he never had. Not even close. “I understand, okay? About my mom. I understand and I believe you. I think that’s probably why I couldn’t completely let you go, and I don’t want to. I’ll never want to.”
Sean’s eyes flitted down and he nodded. “Good. ’Cause I’d never let you.”
“But you need to understand something too.” Sean sat next to me waiting, but the words wouldn’t come while he was that close. “Can you…can you go back to sitting on the ground?”
He moved and his mouth kicked up on one side. “I’m practically prostrate at your feet. Better?”
“Yes. But let me get it all out, okay?”
Sean’s smile slipped.
“Jamie Pilther’s birthday? That was nothing. That was my every day. It was insane how much I thought about you. Ask Claire.” My smile was watery. “That night with my mom, even knowing what I know now, it opened my eyes. I waited for you to say something, to see me the way I couldn’t help but see you. I waited so long, Sean. But you never did. Not really. And I know I could have said something, but it was so painfully, pathetically obvious how I felt. I knew you knew. I didn’t get it then, but I do now.”
“No you don’t.” The merry-go-round moved slightly as Sean sat down next to me, his hand slipping to my jaw to turn my face to his. My eyes followed more slowly, too slowly to see him move into me, dipping his head and fitting his lips over mine.
