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“Why do you want to know?”
“Would you believe me if I said I care more than you know?”
She eyed me as if debating whether to trust me. And I knew in that moment, we were at a crossroads, a defining moment, which could determine our entire future. Either she’d take a leap of faith on me, or she wouldn’t.
MIA
Carson leaned across the table toward me. He filled every available space with his broad shoulders, his long arms, and his confident smile. The last remnants of the sunlight outside the window beside us caught his hair, turning it bronze as he reached out his hand for me, and even though this was the same boy that once put grass in my peanut butter sandwich, everything seemed brand new. Different.
I thought back to our moment in the perfume shop and my heart skipped. Carson smelling the scent of perfume under my neck was single handedly the most sensual thing that had happened to me in my eighteen years on this earth. All the things he said then and in his Jeep fought inside my head. He’d said he wanted me to want him. Was this just another one of his games? Was he toying with me? Or was this feeling between us, this chemistry that sparked when we touched, real?
Biting the inside of my cheek, I made a decision and placed my hand in his. He wanted me to open up to him, but I hesitated as the past came rushing in, reminding me it was Carson sitting across from me. Because old habits die hard.
But he was different with me now. I could see it in the depths of his clear blue eyes. And I could feel it when I was with him. There was a tenderness to his voice, and besides all of the things he said to me today, the thought and care he put into the Angel Program for people he didn’t even know proved I was right.Thisis Carson. Maybe he wasn’t the boy I thought he was. He was so much more—someone I could trust, maybe even rely on.
“It’s been a couple years. But it’s been getting a lot worse these last six months, since the start of the school year.” I paused and chewed on my lip for a moment, wondering how much I should tell him. “It’s been pretty bad. Stressful is an understatement. Pretty much every day in my house is a war zone, one I want no part of.”
“That must be hard,” he said, and I could tell he meant it. His voice, his eyes, they were so full of sincerity it hurt.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Most days, I put my headphones on and blast my music to drown them out. Going to your house to hang out with Ethan is pretty much the only thing keeping me sane. My house is a battleground, and yours is my refuge.” My voice cracked, so I took a calming breath.
“What do they fight about?”
“Anything. Everything.” I laughed. “I mean, I’m sure there was a starting point, some catalyst to set everything in motion. I’m pretty sure my mom thinks my dad cheated with his assistant. I have no idea if it’s true or not, or if it’s just a convenient excuse to fuel their feud. It doesn’t really matter what started it anymore though because they find something worth arguing about every day. If my mom says the sky is blue, my dad argues it’s indigo.”
I glanced up at him as I toyed with the straw in my ice water, eyeing him from beneath my lashes. Why was I telling him all of this?
“You know, when we got in trouble for the gym incident, they were mad at me for half a second before they turned on each other. Each of them blamed the other for my getting in trouble at school. Isn’t that crazy? I could wind up stumbling home drunk or wreck my car, and they’d each have a finger to point. It’s like I don’t even matter anymore. It’s just them all the time and this anger between them. It lives and breathes in the walls.”
“Is that why you want out so bad? To go to Duke, I mean. Is that why you’re desperate for early admission?”
I offered him a small smile. “Yes and no.”
“Explain.”
“At first, it started as wanting something to celebrate, a piece of good news that might somehow glue us back together. Any early admission would do, even though Duke was always my number one. So I applied to a handful of good early admissions programs. I thought that if I could get in somewhere, anywhere, then they would be proud of me. They would have something to be happy about, like that could somehow fix us. But lately, I see more and more just how stupid that is. There’s nothing that’ll fix them now.”
Something flickered through Carson’s eyes as he gripped my hand, tracing small, slow circles with his thumb. “It’s not stupid at all. You’re human. And you care. You want to help, but you feel at a loss, so you’re grasping at whatever you think might make a difference. It’s not fair, but it’s certainly not stupid.”
I swallowed over the lump in my throat. “Now I just want to get away. Is that terrible of me? To want to just disappear?”
“No.”
The way he said it, so firm and strong, made me believe it.
To my horror, my eyes filled with tears, so I blinked them back. “They’re going to get divorced. I know it. Heck, I want them to, just so all the fighting will stop, but at the same time, I don’t think I can bear to see it. It’s the end of something so huge. I don’t know how I’d adjust to that, but having the buffer between Lakeview and Duke would help. Maybe it won’t seem so bad then—when I’m away. Maybe separate holidays and splitting time won’t hurt quite so much either.”
Reaching up, Carson tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, and I wanted nothing more than to sink into his touch. Nothing had felt so right in a long time. I don’t know what gave me the courage to tell him everything. Maybe it was knowing he actually cared, but speaking my truth released something inside me. And no matter what came of us, whether we returned to being enemies after the holidays or remained friends—or whatever this was—for this time, this moment, now, I was thankful.
“So how will Christmas be, at your house?”
I worried my lip with my teeth. It was a good question. There hadn’t been much mention of the holidays. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. Then I shrugged. “I’ll probably sit at home and watch movies. We don’t even have a tree up.”
Emotion swelled in my throat. The last thing I wanted to do was cry, so I spoke through the sting of threatening tears, willing them away. “I’m sure my parents will do something. Even if it’s not the same, it’ll be okay. Ella’s coming home Christmas Eve, so I’ll bake cookies and put some music on,” I said, with false cheer, because really, I felt like doing none of those things.
“You should come to our place for Christmas,” Carson said. “You know my parents love you, right? I think they secretly hope either Ethan or I end up with you one day. You’re like the daughter they never had. They’d love to have you there, trust me.”
I felt myself blush. The idea of being with Carson . . .
