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“But that was, like, a practice environment. Make-out homework. ”
“You’re saying I mi
ght be the kind of person who can’t hack it in a real-world application. ”
She turns toward me, resting her shoulder against the wall. “I’m saying I have a feeling you’ve never had a girlfriend before. ”
“That’s true,” I tell her. “I’ve been with girls but I’ve never—”
I think about how to put it, and I start to tie myself up in knots before I remember that it’s just Caroline and me. I get more than one shot at putting it right if it comes out wrong the first time.
“You’re the first girl I ever cared about this way. ”
I thought admitting that to Caroline would be like taking a piece of myself and handing it to her.
It is.
And it isn’t.
It’s more like … like there’s all this stuff I’ve packed into myself, a defense against what I’m afraid of. Rocks and dirt, bits of rebar and junk that I’ve found by the roadside. And what I’m giving her isn’t me, it’s a clawed-off piece of this barrier that I’ve gotten used to thinking of as me.
I don’t need it. Not to keep me safe from her.
She’s smiling, looking down at her hands where they’re laid out on the bed. Just an inch or so from my hands. She nudges her fingers over until they overlap the tips of mine. “You know what the magic word was, at my room?”
“No, what?”
“Boyfriend. ” She glances at my face, then back down. “That’s why I came with you. Because you said that. ”
“I should’ve said it a long time ago. ”
I mean it, too. I wish I’d been able to. I wish I hadn’t wasted every night I might have been able to spend with her. “Friend. Boyfriend. You deserved both. ”
She reaches up to touch my face. Her fingers stroke over my forehead, past my temple, over my cheekbone, curling into a loose fist so she can skate her knuckles over my mouth. “You’ll really tell me anything?”
“Yeah. ” The word is a whisper, the movement of my lips against her skin.
“If I asked you why you got so upset when I gave you that money at Christmas …”
God damn. Way to pick a woman who goes for the throat.
“Yes. If you asked me. ”
She sits, watching me for a moment.
“If I asked you why you came out to my car that night at the bakery?”
I nod and turn her hand over. Kiss her palm. It’s corny, I guess, but I’m just so fucking happy she’s here.
“How many … partners you’ve had. ”
I kiss her wrist. “Yes. ”
“How you feel about me. ”
“Yes. ”
But I think maybe she knows that already. I think it’s there when I look at her, when she looks at me. If it wasn’t already there, we wouldn’t have lasted so long. We wouldn’t have put each other through so much when it would’ve been easier to just not.
