I step further away because the need to be in his arms is the strongest it’s ever been. I think of his hand caressing my cheek a few weeks ago, the warmth of his body pressed against mine tonight. And I crave more.
No more pain, or hurt, or anger.
Just hold me, Dorien.
I turn away before I do something that will make him reject me; he already said hewantsme to go on hating him. “Goodnight,” I say as I hug my waist.
“Night.”
I walk toward the cemetery gates. There’s a restaurant across the street I’ll sit in for a while, until after Mom and everyone in my house is asleep so I can avoid any questions.
The gravel crunches under my shoes and the sound fills up the quiet. I don’t look back. If I look back I’ll see him standing there and I’ll want to return, and I can’t want that. I can’t let tonight change anything between us.
But halfway to the gates, my pace slows. I press my hand against my stomach where a knot has lived for twelve years, and I notice it’s loosened. Like someone found the tightest fiber in it and pulled one thread free.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JUNE
The trees change color about forty minutes outside Lafayette. The quality of the green shifts from the tired, oversaturated greens around campus to viridian, which is cooler and bluer and the kind of green that makes me want to mix paint. Though they’re also turning orange for fall.
Cinna is driving and humming along to the radio. She’s wearing a cropped denim jacket over a white top, and her blonde hair is pulled into a loose braid that keeps slipping over her shoulder. Every few minutes she tucks it back without looking. Even in the car with no one watching, she looks put together. Cinna always looks put together.
I have my forehead against the passenger window watching the light filter through the canopy. My breath keeps fogging a small circle that appears and fades, appears and fades.
It’s Halloween weekend, so we all ditched today (Friday) for a mini vacay. Cinna and I are on our way to an Airbnb, where we’ll meet up with the others.
The past few weeks of my life have felt different, and I’m not yet sure if that’s good or bad. After the cemetery, after everything Dorien and I finally said out loud, the dynamicbetween us has shifted in a way I’m still trying to understand. We bicker in Mixed Media like always, but something about it is warmer and more playful. There’s a looseness to our interactions, like we both took a step back from the line we’ve been standing on and realized we could stop pretending we wanted to be anywhere else.
I think we like being next to each other, if that makes sense.
Two days ago he leaned across the worktable in class while I was cutting a stencil and said, “You’re pretty when you’re concentrating.” It was so low and deep I thought I’d imagined it. But when I looked up, his eyes were…
I can’t describe them. But the look he gave made my heart flutter, and I’m pretty sure it’s never done that.
I bit my lip and responded, “You’re tolerable when you’re quiet.” He grinned, and it was so handsome and warm that I realized I’d never seen him happy as an adult.
He looked truly joyful, even if only for that one moment. My stomach did a full backflip and I… God, I thought things about him I don’t want to admit. Kinda pervy, yeah, but most of the thoughts were the really dumb, sappy stuff. Like holding his hand between classes, kissing in the snow, and just laughing with each other.
Laughing and hugging and being young and in love.
Then I had an out of body experience, observing myself from above and realizing in horror that I was thinking those kinds of thoughts aboutDorien.And I didn’t hate it.
I was so shocked I immediately fled to the bathroom and stayed there the rest of class.
“So what’d you bring?” Cinna asks, turning down the radio.
I blink. “Hm?”
“Your costume. For tomorrow night.”
“Oh.” I shift in my seat and pull my knees up. “I didn’t have anything, but Mom let me raid her closet, so I’ve got theseinsane neon leggings and an oversized blazer with shoulder pads and a scrunchie the size of my fist. My costume will be Generic Eighties Person.”
Cinna laughs so hard she snorts. “That’s better than mine. I bought a toga dress from a party store. I’m Generic Ancient Greek Person.”
I laugh because I can already picture her in something that looks like a bedsheet. She’ll still look stunning, because she looks stunning in anything.
She’s grinning, tapping her thumb on the steering wheel. Then she glances at me sideways. “What’s Tyler wearing?”
