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She’s angry, and maybe even a little upset, and the idea of living with the fact that I’m the reason her bubbly personality has flipped so distinctly on its head isn’t stomach-able.
I have to follow her, explain, make things right.
I have to make sure Carly Page understands what I’ve finally come to recognize—together, we burn bright. And for me, it’s becoming more and more impossible to look away from the light.
Carly
My feet slap against the pavement audibly as I stomp toward my mother’s stupid landominium at three times the pace of my normal gait. I cross my arms over my chest and rub at my skin.
Suddenly, tonight, Florida feels unusually cold. But I guess that’s what flat-out rejection will do to you when you’re not expecting it.
I suck my lips into my mouth and will tears not to fall. I will not cry over some uptight jerk. I will not cry over sexy Barney Fife. I will not cry.
It’s dramatic, but at the same time, it’s not at all.
I can’t help how I’m feeling right now. The only control I have on this situation is holding in all these pent-up emotions until I get some place private where I can let them do their thing.
With my mother’s house in sight and the lights still out, I pick up into a jog and hiccup against the threat of impending tears.
“Carly!” Ryan yells, his voice coarse like a whisper but loud enough in volume to hear it.
I shut my eyes tight and shake my head, letting the wrap of comfort on my chest go so that my arms can swing freely to facilitate a faster run.
“Wait up!” he implores this time, the sound of his approach getting louder with every one of his steps. “Carly!”
“No, Ryan!” I hiss without turning around. “Just go home, okay? We’ll talk tomorrow.”
The tomorrow after never, if I can help it.
“I’m not going home, Carly. Not without explaining.”
“Well, then, I guess…enjoy your baseless, wandering existence. Because I’m not talking to you right now.”
Ryan reaches forward and grabs me by the elbow, stopping my momentum and spinning me around to face him. Ughhh. I fucking hate that there are biological physical superiorities in one sex over the other. If he weren’t a vastly fit male, I would have dropped that motherfucker so hard.
“Carly, you’re blowing this out of proportion.”
I laugh, right in his stupid face, the tease. “Wow. Great opening line, genius. Women love having their emotional-reaction percentage rated.”
He sighs, shaking his head. “That’s not what I mean. I wasn’t trying to criticize your reaction. I was trying to get you to reimagine the catalyst.”
“What?” I narrow my eyes and wave a wild hand in front of his face. “No. You know what? I don’t want to know.” I turn and head for the driveway again, and his footsteps follow.
“I’m trying to say that you clearly think I was rejecting you, and I was not.”
I shake my head and make the turn into my mom’s driveway, and he heaves a giant breath of air that I feel shake in my chest.
“Carly, stop!”
I spin around and march back toward him immediately, his eyes widening at my speed.
“You don’t get to tell me how to interpret something, Ryan Miller. That’s not the way this works. That’s not the way any of this works. Relationships, hookups, whatever the hell this is…they’re kind of like jokes. If you have to explain the punch line, the whole thing loses its luster.”
His head jerks back, and his eyes narrow slightly. It makes them appear to be a darker blue than I know them to be, but no less captivating. His words are slightly less endearing, though. “Are you always this hard-headed? Or only when you’re afraid to feel something bigger than the thrill of a trip down a snow-covered mountain?”
Fed up, I spin around again and march straight toward the house without turning back. It seems like he’s behind me again, following, but I don’t turn and look to find out.
Straight to the front door, I open the glass storm door and then the main wooden one, letting them slam behind me. They don’t hit the jamb, instead bouncing off Ryan’s body as he forces his way through them.
“I told you to stop following me,” I hiss quietly, not wanting to have an argument of this nature at full volume in case my mom came home and went to sleep. It’s not that my parents never had the occasional knockdown, drag-out, screaming match when I was growing up, but I really don’t need her waking up and feeling the need to get involved.
“And I told you that I’m not going to quit following you until you hear my side of the story at least.”
“You know what?” I snap, turning around as I reach the door of my bedroom and getting in his face. I twist my wrist to engage the knob behind my back, shove open the door with my foot, and grab him by the front of his shirt to pull him inside with me. I shut the door behind him soundly and then offer with wide arms, “Go ahead. Get it over with. Tell me your side of the story.”
