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I don’t.
The intensity is still there when he answers, like he’s aware of how I’m trying to just talk nonsense to diffuse this tension between us.
“Okay. Everybody else is just faster then.”
“I’ll have you know… that…” I clear my throat and tuck a wet strand behind my ears. “I’ve gotten tons of speeding tickets, okay? I used to be a menace on the south side.”
His lips twitch at my asinine comment. “I don’t doubt it.”
How many times have I kissed that twitch in the past?
In fact, up until last week, I was kissing every inch of his skin.
What the fuck happened? Why are we standing so far apart?
Right.
Because I told him I loved him and he told me that I was pathetic.
“Why were you following me?”
“So you don’t have to be alone,” he replies in a grave voice with equally grave eyes.
“Alone?”
“Yeah.” I watch his Adam’s apple bobbing. “So you’d know at least one person no matter where you go. And at least that person would know your name.”
My extremities, my toes and fingers, they curl. The weight of his statement is too much. It invokes too many memories.
The night I jumped in the water for him.
Seems like another lifetime. I was so brave, so reckless.
I thought nothing could harm my love, only to realize one thing could.
Him.
He could hurt it. The guy I’m in love with.
Sighing sharply, I say, “So what? You’re going to follow me wherever I go?”
“That’s the plan.”
Zach says it so casually that it makes me mad. “It’s a stupid plan.”
“Well, it’s the only one I’ve got.”
“Look —”
“I know how it feels, Blue.” His passionate voice cuts me off. “To be alone in a place, a big, unknown place, where no one knows you. It fucks with your head. It makes you cynical and hard. It makes you think that no matter where you go, who you meet, you’ll always be lonely. It makes you miss home something fierce. It makes you feel like you’ll never find a place where you belong. I’m not gonna let that happen to you. You’re too sweet for that. Too good and shiny. I’m not gonna leave you alone in a world that’s cruel and messed up.”
He’s stopped talking for a few seconds now.
I’ve counted his breaths, the long gulps of them since then. Seven. He’s breathed seven times since he strangled me with his words.
My hands are fisted on my sides, my hair dripping water. I wish I could drip down to the floor like that, like water, and become nothing.
His stare, his words, his smell… him. Everything is too much.
