Page 72 of Always Him

Because I don’t believe it.

Two beautiful people meeting for coffee isn’t ever friendly.

I am one hundred percent sure there will be flirting involved. And touching.

And when Finn sneaks out of bed the next morning, his hands carefully tucking me back under the covers, I feel a sickening feeling coil inside of me.

I don’t fall back asleep. No, I just lie there staring at the ceiling, wondering when Finn is going to leave me for good.

eighteen

SIX YEARS AGO

FINN

I movethrough the next few months like a ghost. Barely eating, barely moving. I glance in the mirror each morning and see my thin frame, looking weak and tired, staring back at me. My eyes have sunken into my head. I’m slowly fading away.

I need Landon like I need air. I need him. This isn’t just a teenage crush. It’s more. It’s always been more.

“Shit,” I hear my dad mutter, when he sees me lying on my bed, the food he left me picked at and shifted around on the plate. But uneaten.

“You have to eat, Finn.”

I eye him. He looks just as bad as me. Probably because I’ve given him hell, in a quiet way. I don’t talk to him anymore, not that we talked much to begin with. But I’m silent now, my lips sealed.

I slam doors silently, never meet his eyes, and haunt the small apartment in the middle of the night.

The plate rattles as he picks it up and sighs. “Look, I know this isn’t going well and so I’ve been thinking,” my dad begins, his voice gruff.

I don’t even answer, just turn around and stare at the wall.

“I spoke with the Lewis’ this morning.” Just their name has me stiffening in expectation. What’s he going to do? What’s he got planned?

“And they said they’d be fine with you living with them…”

I hear nothing else, a loud ringing in my ears. Oh my god. Oh mygod.

“What?” I ask, my entire body turning to face him. Because I need him to repeat it to me. One word at a time.

My dad rubs at his neck, looking sheepish. “You can live with them. If you want. Finish up high school in California.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, I’m up, my legs carrying me to the closet.

“When?” I ask, feeling lighter than I have in the past two months.

“Damn, won’t even miss me, huh?” my dad mutters and I just stare at him, my heart thumping erratically in my chest.

“When, Dad? Tell me.”

“I need to buy you plane tickets. So this week, if you want—”

“I want,” I say, already packing my things. Because truth is, I won’t miss my dad. Not like I’ve missed Landon. Never like I’ve missed him.

He holds the pieces of my heart together, and to be parted from him is a death sentence.

When I arrive at the airport three days later, my body a mess of nerves and excitement, Landon rushes toward me, his body flung against mine, a loud laugh erupting out of him.

His lips press against my cheek and I burst into colors.

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