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I push him away then or try to. All I end up doing I think is stroking his biceps and rubbing my thighs against his hips.
“No,” I lie.
Which makes him chuckle somewhere low in his throat and loom over me like a shadow. “You’re the girl every guy runs away from. You’re every guy’s nightmare, Salem. Because you’re the girl with too much love inside you.”
At this, I have to push him away.
I have to.
Because oh my God, he’s such a giant asshole.
But when I go to do that, push him away, he tightens his hold on my waist. In fact, he draws me in closer and fuses our lower bodies together.
Fuses the place between my legs with his hard pelvis.
And all amusement vanishes from his face as he whispers roughly, “So you were right about the fact that it was a mistake, you trying to kiss me. But not for the reasons you think. Not because I’m your coach or your sister’s ex-boyfriend. Or your friend.”
“Then why?”
“Because I’m one of those guys too,” he whispers against my lips, his eyes dark and penetrating. “I’m the guy who’s a nightmare for a girl like you.”
My thighs squeeze around him again and my arms creep up and I wind them around his neck. “Why?”
“Because I’m empty,” he says with clenched teeth and punishing hands on my waist. “I’m hollow. Because whatever I had, I gave it to her. Whatever fucking love I had, she used it up and threw it away. She took it and flushed it down the toilet, understand?”
“Arrow…”
“And I don’t have anything left now. Nothing but this deep-seated anger and a need to destroy something. Hurt something.”
At this, his body shudders and I hold him tighter.
Tighter, tighter, tighter.
With my arms, with my legs.
And I decide that I should tell him.
I should tell him that he won’t be feeling this way for long. That it’s all coming to an end. All of this.
He just has to wait a few more days and then all of this will be over.
He’ll have what he wants, her, and all his anger, his hurt will be gone.
“Arrow, listen to me, okay? I –”
But he’s too far gone, his eyes dark and liquid, his body all heated up. “So if you think you’re dangerous, I’m a wrecking ball. I’m a loose cannon. A wildfire. I can burn houses down. I can burn cities down too. So don’t ever make the mistake of trying to kiss me again. Because I don’t want a needy girl clinging to me and you don’t want a guy giving you your first lesson in heartbreak.”
I blink my eyes furiously, trying to keep my tears at bay, when he says, “A word of advice though: all this love, it’s only going to bring you pain. It’s only going to make you miserable. So maybe you should do something about that.”
“Do what?”
“Find someone who can cure you. Someone who can fuck all the love out of you.”
He abruptly lets go of me then.
He lets go of my waist and detaches himself from my body, and I have no choice but to slide down the desk and come down to the floor.
Panting and trembling, I look at him and he tips his chin at something. “That’s for you.”
It’s a small rectangular box, a shoebox, the kind where I put my secret letters in, sitting on one of the chairs.
“It’s soccer cleats. You’re going to use them from now on. But only on the field. While I practice with you. Three times a week.”
Still in a fog, I say, “What?”
He clenches his jaw, somehow looking all put together and confident, arms folded across his chest. “Now you don’t have to watch old game tapes to learn.”
I look at him, speechless.
“One more thing.” He unfolds his arms and fishes something out of his pocket and sets it down on the shoebox.
I pick it up and unfold it; it’s a permission slip.
For outings.
There’s my name, the date and time along with his signature at the bottom.
“See you for dinner on Friday.”
***
He’s running late.
For the Friday dinner.
The dinner that Leah and I came up with.
Well, Leah came up with it when I went into her office and told her we needed to do something to get Sarah and Arrow back together. And that she had to be the one to do it because if it came from me, my sister would never follow through. She told me that she’d already arranged for it. And that Sarah was flying over this coming weekend.
Leah drove me home from school and Sarah got in a couple of hours ago. And now we’re all waiting for him at the dining table, sitting at the edges of our seats, silent and tense. It’s the same table at which I’ve sat for years. At which I’ve always kept my head down while at the same time, I’ve tried to catch a glimpse of him.
