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“Yeah, now I just have to buy Kenzlee’s,” he joked.
“Tell her I said hi.”
“Will do.”
“Okay, well…I love you.”
“I love you, Edie,” he replied, my heart breaking just a little bit at how I was lying to him.
After hanging up the phone, I looked back out towards the field, and Lars was still looking at me.
Chapter 21
The resilience that surprises us.
Edie~
To say that the past few days had felt uncomfortable would be an understatement. Though Lars had still picked me up for school, and though I had still waited for him during football practice, our friendship felt strained, and I didn’t even want to think about the other aspects of our relationship. Guilt was weighing heavily on both of us, and not just over how we were handling things with Talon. No one knew about our relationship, and that made it feel…wrong. Staring up at the ceiling of my bedroom, I didn’t know how I could feel so happy and so miserable at the same time.
“Knock, knock.”
I jackknifed out of bed.
Talon.
My eyes immediately began to water. “What…what are you doing here?”
He gave me a tender smile. “I still know you better than anyone, Edie,” he said. “So, I could tell that you were lying when you said everything was fine.”
With no shame in my game, I jumped out of bed, raced across the room, then threw myself in my brother’s arms. Though super dramatic, he didn’t say anything as I cried happy tears at seeing him home for the first time in a couple of months.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said soothingly. “I’m here.”
“I…I…mis…miss you,” I stammered, not realizing just how much until this moment. “Things are so differ…different without you…you here.”
“I know,” he whispered softly as his arms tightened around me. “I know, Edie.”
“Every…everything seems…you’re missing from us,” I went on like a drama queen, all my emotions from the past few weeks bubbling up to the surface.
“Hey, hey…it’s okay,” he repeated, walking me back towards my bed. “Edie, relax. Take a deep breath.”
When Talon finally got us sitting on my bed, I looked down at my hands, certain that it had to be the start of my period making me crazy. I mean, it could be losing my virginity and falling in love with a boy that I’d known since I was little, but it could also be PMS.
“What’s going on?” he finally asked. “Why the waterworks?”
Finding the courage to look at him, I lifted my head to stare into a pair of blue eyes that mirrored my own. “I just…I’ve always been so busy that I never…I never imagined that I’d miss you so much once you were gone,” I answered, telling him the truth, though leaving out theentiretruth. “Walking into the house, knowing that you aren’t going to be showing up later, it…it feels so heavy sometimes. While I’ve made other friends and stuff, it’s hard to live in the silence of this house sometimes.”
His blue eyes glowed with seriousness. “Then you call me and tell me that, Edie,” he scolded. “You don’t call me and tell me that everything is okay. You don’t lie to me. No matter how early, how late, or even if I’m in class, you call me when you miss me like this.”
“Then I’d be calling you all the time,” I laughed humorlessly.
“Then call me all the time,” he said easily.
I let out a heavy sigh, my theatrics draining. “I can’t keep insisting that I’m an adult, then call you all the time because I’m sad, Talon,” I replied, hating the double-edged sword of adulthood. “I’m supposed to go off to college next year, and I’m supposed to be grown enough and independent enough to be able to do that confidently. Running to my brother all the time doesn’t inspire much confidence.”
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit,” he said kindly. “You’re the smartest person that I know, Edie. You’re a brilliant girl, and you don’t lack confidence. You know, missing me doesn’t make you weak. It just means that I must have done a great job for you to miss me so much. It means that I didn’t mess up too badly when I kept myself up late at night, wondering if I was making the right decisions where you were concerned.” He gave me a tender smile. “I used to always worry about raising you wrong.”
My eyes watered again. “You’re the best person that I know, Talon. I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t be me if you didn’t love me so much.”
