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I nodded. It was difficult to look into his eyes in that moment but I forced myself. There was so much pain there he was trying very hard to hide. I didn’t want to see it. Worse. I didn’t want to know I was the cause.
“It’s perfect.” He gave me a small, sad smile. “If you win—and how could you not? Look at that!” He glanced at my painting. “Then you get out of here right?”
I nodded again, swallowing past the lump in my throat.
“And you’ll also just happen to be going to school about five minutes away from where Tyler Vincent’s lived for the past twenty years right?”
I didn’t nod this time.
“And me, well, I come along and I just happen to be from Maine and I can get you front row seats to see Tyler Vincent, and I even look a little like him, so…”
I could see where he was going with this, but I still didn’t answer him.
He stood, letting the brochure flutter to the floor. “Listen, I should go.”
He was all the way to the door before I bolted after him, grabbing his hand. He stopped, looking down at our hands and then at me.
“Dale, please.” My eyes stung with tears and I didn’t stop them. “I know what you’re thinking, but that’s not it. It’s not like that.”
“Not… like… what… exactly?” The words didn’t come easy for him, spaced out and confused, looking at me with such raw feeling I wanted to hide, knowing I’d caused him so much pain.
“I can explain.”
Sure you can.
I thought I could. Maybe I could.
I pulled him back toward my bed where, just minutes before, we’d been completely lost in each other. “Please. Just listen?”
He let me lead him back to the bed. I could tell he was waiting and letting me struggle. I sat cross-legged, facing him, but he was only half-turned toward me, half of him facing the door, like he wasn’t sure which way to go.
“I know it seems crazy on the outside.” I looked at my painting, glancing around at Tyler all over my walls. “But I fell in love with him when I was fourteen. You know how girls are. I mean… you know.”
“I guess.” He blinked, looking around the room in disbelief. It was a lot to take in for the first time. “I get being a fan. I know girls go crazy for rock stars. I mean, obviously.”
“That’s all this is.”
He met my eyes, eyebrows raised. “Sara…”
I sighed. “Okay, maybe not all. Maybe I… maybe I took it a little too far. Maybe I… maybe I hate it here so much, I started fantasizing about a way out. And somehow my magical thinking or wish fulfillment got mixed in with Tyler Vincent and things just snowballed and before I knew it…”
I shrugged, turning my hands up and looking around the room, trying to see it like he must see it. How crazy it must all seem.
“Oh Sara.” He shook his head, my words bringing back the incident the night before, his gaze skipping to my closed door, and I knew he was thinking about the stepbeast.
“I’m sorry.” I felt my tears falling. They slipped down my cheeks and fell onto the denim of my jeans, making dark splotches. “I can’t help how I feel about him. But it doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
He raised my hand to his cheek, rubbing it gently across his skin and that delicious five o’clock shadow.
“The truth is…” Dale reached out, turning my face up to him. “I have never felt like this before in my life. Ever. It’s so strong, and it happened so fast.”
I nodded as he cupped my face in his hands, wiping away my tears with his thumbs.
“Do you feel it, Sara? Do you feel it too?”
I opened my mouth, knowing the best, most logical thing to do would be to deny it. I knew I should end this now, for both our sakes. But I couldn’t. He was right.
“It scares me,” I choked out.
