“I wouldn’t recommend it. José must have hurt his hand worse than you hurt yours.”
“Good.”
He smiles and then winces. “That’s good news. I think he’s probably in love with you. I honestly don’t blame him, but I was worried you might change your mind about him. He has really nice hair. I can’t do that floppy thing with my hair.”
“I’m not the least bit interested in him. Right now, I’m incredibly pissed at him. You should press charges.”
“Nah, I won’t do that. He’s probably having a bad enough day.”
“You should think about it. Now, where’s your phone?”
“It’s in my pocket, Nora. So if you feel something hard inthere, don’t worry. Just this once, it’s not because I’m happy to see you.”
“You’re loopy.” I run a finger over his lips, my heart hurting. It hurts worse when he kisses my finger, and I feel those banked tears again.
He can’t be mine. I can’t let him be mine.
“I’m loopy for you,” he says.
“I’m loopy for you too,” I admit as I reach down and grab his phone. “What’s the passcode?”
“My face ID probably won’t work, huh? It’s 1002.”
I give him a sharp glance. “That’s my birthday.”
“Sometimes I forget things I should remember if I don’t drive them into my brain. I knew it was coming up in a couple of months, and I didn’t want to forget.”
Those stupid fucking tears are pressing at my eyes again, insisting that I let them out. “Why are you so good to me?”
“I love you, Nora.”
He says it so easily, so naturally, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and then he flinches and lifts his hand to his mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to say that yet. I didn’t want to scare you off.”
“You shouldn’t love me.” The tears begin running down my cheeks, hot and wet. “I’ll only hurt you.”
“And I’ll probably hurt you too. I had to save your birthday as my password so I wouldn’t forget it, but who am I kidding, I’ll probably still forget it. I sometimes forget my own birthday.”
“I don’t care about my stupid birthday.”
“I do. But that doesn’t mean I’ll remember it. I’m sorry.”
I shake my head in disbelief and run a hand gently over his. “Why didn’t you punch him back?”
“You were busy doing it. I wasn’t about to risk hurting you.” He shrugs, then flinches. “Besides, I didn’t want to hurthim. I figured it might make it hard for you to work with him if we got into a full-on brawl in a bowling alley.”
Tears continue streaming down my face. “Oh, Cormac.”
My heart hurts, but I finally ask what, until this moment, I couldn’t bear to know. “Why’d you keep that awful letter the principal made me write to you?”
He turns his head toward me, his bloodshot eye seeking me out. “You saw that?”
I nod, wiping my cheeks. He reaches for me, so I get on my knees next to his hospital bed.
“I figured it was the closest to a love letter I was ever going to get from you.”
I wipe my eyes again and again, but the tears don’t stop coming. “I didn’t know. I thought you were disgusted by me after that seven minutes in heaven thing. You…I was…awful to you.”
“I explained why, didn’t I?”
