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My knuckles almost caressing his hard, ridged abdomen.
“Sixteen, huh,” he whispers.
“Yes.”
He runs his gaze all over my face, which I know must be all flushed. “You still too mature for your age?”
My breath hitches.
And I want to hide my face now.
I want to clench my eyes shut and burrow my nose in his massive chest.
Because he’s bringing up that long ago conversation.
Theembarrassingand one-sided conversation I had with him back when I was naive and stupid and thought that I wanted to be his friend. Before he taught me that all rumors about him are true and that I should believe them and not what my heart was telling me.
“Yes,” I reply.
His thumb inches closer to my mouth. “But you can see why we can’t be friends now though, can’t you?”
“Because we make each other hatesick.”
“Yeah.”
“Why did you,” I ask, my lips trembling, “give me that anklet?”
My question makes him frown. “What?”
Swallowing, I bring my other hand forward, the one that was up until now gripping the bedpost behind me, and clutch his t-shirt. Because I need something sturdier.
To hold on to.
Something more grounding and solid.
Something like him in this moment.
Because he’s the only one who seems stable when everything else is shifting and sliding around me.
“Why did you bring me that gift?” I explain. “If you hated me so much, why did you give it to me?”
Was it his way of mocking me somehow, hurting me? Making me feel important so it’s more fun when he snatches the rug from under me?
It still sits in my nightstand drawer, his gift.
Shoved to the back but still there.
So many times I thought about giving it back to him. Just leaving it where he’d find it later so I didn’t have to do it face to face. But I couldn’t do it for some reason.
I couldn’t let it go.
Pressing his thumb down on my lip, tugging at it, he whispers, “Happy birthday, Echo.”
I know I should say something right now.
Something like,thank you and please can you move away from me? Can you please stop looking at me like that?
But I can’t say a single thing.
