For some reason, this thought makes it hard for me to swallow. I reach for the tequila bottle just as Finn reaches out for it… and slips his hand around mine.
“But don’t you think wecanchoose who we love and who we don’t?”
I wait for him to let go of my hand, but he doesn’t.
“I guess I just don’t think we have as much control over our feelings as we’d like to believe.”
“I disagree. You always have a say. No matter how tempting it may be, you can choose not to make the mistake of letting yourself love someone.”
“I challenge your stance.” He looks into my eyes. His face is serious, but his eyes are sparkling with something like laughter… or maybe it’s something else.
I smile—I’m enjoying the references to our debate days. It feels right to accept the challenge. Natural. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s your counterargument?”
Now he’s grinning, definitely. “Sometimes, Emma, making the mistake is the best part about love.”
19
EARLY FRIDAY MORNING
(One day before the wedding)
FINN’S WORDS SEEM TOlinger in the cool mountain air. One word in particular…love.
I swallow, and he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Well, it’s pretty late,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m sure you want to get some sleep.” As I swing my legs into the hammock so I’m settled the right way, Finn stands up, caps the bottle, and begins to tuck the Yeti blanket around me.
“Wait, where are you going to sleep?” It feels so nice, having him tuck me in so gently, like he really…cares.
“The car will do for me.” The hammock gently sways as he stands and begins to walk away, and I feel the darkness of thenight wrap around me, the piercing intensity of the stars, so far away—light-years. And even though he’s only feet from me, Finn feels just as unreachable.
Maybe he’s right about people not being fully in control of their feelings. Maybe the two of us are a ticking time bomb. What was the word Finn used?Inevitable.The memory of our kiss tonight in the elevator comes crashing back, and suddenly I don’t feel a bit tired. Energized by this electricsomethingthat keeps pulling me to Finn, even though I should almost certainly know better by now. Maybe all I need to do is finish what we started in the elevator. What we started on the rooftop in New York. In Katie Dalton’s pool. Really, what we started in the back of that debate team bus when Finn first slipped his hand into mine.
“Finn, wait,” I call out.
“What, what is it?” he asks, backtracking until he’s sitting perpendicular to me on the hammock. He pulls my legs across his lap, and the hammock sways slightly. “Are you warm enough?”
“Yeah, I’m just… I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” I tell him truthfully. Despite the fact that I’m exhausted, my heart is racing, my mind numb with some feeling I can’t name, some need I can’t say out loud.
“Why not?” he whispers. His hand moves to my ankle. “Scared of the woods?” he asks, a slight, playful taunt in his voice.
“I just…” How do I say it? How do I make him understand? That I don’t want him to stop touching my ankle, don’t want him to walk away, to sleep in the car, to let this moment just slip away like all the other moments between us before. “I just—Idon’t want to make another mistake.” My voice breaks, and I feel foolish for blurting that out. “I don’t want to get hurt.”
“I don’t want that either,” he says softly. In the darkness, I can’t read his expression.
“I want to be able to trust you.”
He sighs. “But you never seem able to.”
The pain is in my throat, but I push past it. “And why do you think that is?”
He shifts. “Look, I know there were times when you felt like I wasn’t there for you—”
“I ‘felt’?” I interrupt. I hate that kind of bullshit non-apology. Hewasn’tthere for me. That wasn’t just my perception of the situation, it was a fact.
