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“C’mon.” He walked past me and waved behind him. “I’ll walk you home.”
“Carter, it’s like fifteen feet. I can manage.”
He stopped, now in the middle of the road. “Hey, we’re trying this friend's thing now, okay? Friends do nice things for each other. Like, walking each other home. Accept my politeness.”
I rolled my eyes but followed. “And it’s two hundred and ninety paces, by the way.”
“Oh God, you counted.”
Once we’d reached my parent’s front door, he leaned next to it and crossed his arms. “Well, you’re welcome, Pep.” He winked.
“Why’d you kiss me?” I blurted. As soon as the words left my lips, I regretted them. My mouth was doing that thing again, where it moves on its own. It’s the way he smiles, the way he says my nickname. The insisting on walking me home, and how his biceps flex beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt. I needed to know how someone like him could’ve wanted someone like me.
I needed to know whether it had been a fluke.
He laughed in a soul-stopping, thunderous kind of tone. “Are we doing this, then?”
I shrugged, too afraid to open my mouth for fear of what may come out of it.
He shook his head, still smiling. Staring down at his feet, he inhaled like he was bracing himself. “I didn’t mean to kiss you. I initially followed you into the house because I just wanted to talk to you. It didn’t feel right, you moving to England, without telling you how I felt. I just wanted to get it off my chest. I couldn’t stand the fact that you were never into me and if I at least told you… if I had to watch you reject me, it would hurt less to see you leave…” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “The words aren’t coming out the right way.”
My head was reeling. My mind moved a thousand miles a minute as I took in what he was saying. I forcefully clamped my mouth shut, still feeling as if I had no control over the things I may say. I could feel my pulse fluttering inside my head, like a drum beating his name.
After a moment, he continued, “And then we were in the pantry, and it was dark, and we were standing so close. I just had to go for it. I waited for you to say no, or to push me away, but you didn’t. At that time, I thought that it would be easier to express the way I felt physically than with words, which I apparently failed at. All though, clearly, I’m no good at talking either–”
“You liked me?” I interrupted. I needed him to spell it out. I needed to hear it bad enough that I actually allowed my mouth to open.
He snorted. “Yes, Pep. I liked you. Was it not obvious?”
I shook my head.
He laughed again. “I think it was. I think you were just oblivious.”
I felt my heart become a pretzel as I thought about all our missed chances because the two of us were simply too afraid to speak our minds. It had always been easy with him, except for where my heart was concerned. We’d both made that harder than we ever needed to. What a disappointment that turned out to be, because only now am I able to realize there was so much more hiding behind his jungle eyes.
“So, did I just make things more awkward?” he asked.
Things were definitely going to be more awkward– for me, at least. The way my stomach dropped when he spoke, and the way my chest fluttered when he smiled were already difficult enough to deal with. The pretzel my heart had been tied into tightened when I thought about the fact that, at one point, I had made him feel the same way. It squeezed just a bit more when I thought about the fact that he couldn’t possibly feel that way still. Not with the energy I had been giving off lately. Not with the person I’d become.
There was no reason to subject him to the mess that was my life any more than I already had, though. “Nah, it’s all water under the bridge.” I smiled as genuinely as I could manage. As chaotic as my mind was at the moment, his face made things a little easier.
“Good,” he said, dazzling.
“Good,” I agreed with an unbelievably bright tone, dull on the inside.
Chapter Six
Carter
MY HANDS TAPPED AGAINST the steering wheel as I pulled into the parking lot of the school. I pretended they were tapping along to the music I was playing, but they weren’t. They were tapping in an attempt at controlling my anxious nerves. I wasn’t entirely sure why. The remainder of the week had gone well. Penelope and I still moved around each other, but rather than shallow nods and unconvincing smiles, our interactions were real. We held brief conversations about our lesson plans, our students, or our families.
Everything was proper, cordial, if not a little awkward after our conversation Wednesday night. Things between us were better than they had been before, but I still wasn’t sure I’d call us friends. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be friends with her. I wasn’t sure if I could.
Maybe that’s why I was nervous. Macie asked me to arrive at the schoolfour hoursbefore the dance to help her, Penelope, Marshall, and Jeremy set up. As far as I knew, there wouldn’t be any other faculty or students there for at least a few more hours. The four of them were friends, and I was not. Maybe I was afraid of being a fifth wheel of sorts. Maybe I was afraid of Penelope feeling like I was interfering with her life too much and shutting me out again. Maybe I was afraid I’d fall in with them seamlessly and make connections with them all, bringing me closer to Penelope in a way I wasn’t sure I could handle.
One thing I knew for certain. I was absolutely afraid of Macie.
Ultimately, the reason I’d decided to show up so early to help is because she’d been running around frantically all week to prepare for the dance. She’d spent nearly all her free time in our classroom, borrowing hordes of art supplies without asking, making messes of signs and decorations (and not cleaning them up). She was irritable and touchy all week. She’d snapped at Jeremy more than a few times. I’d made the unfortunate decision of asking her why it was so important. She snapped at me then too.
