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The blonde’s superior smile is burned into my brain.
She wants him.
Girls havealwayswanted him, and I’m sick of always second-guessing myself. It’s the girls in my Genetics class all over again. You can only rise above so many times before the low road looks a lot more appealing.
It feels like I’m sixteen again, staring at Grace Harper draped all over him in the hallway outside my homeroom.
My parents have been married for more than two decades and have six kids. They couldn’t manage to make it work forever.
Instead of the success story I always thought they were, they’re proof that sometimes love isn’t enough. That’s an open wound that’s burning right now.
I can’t tell my best friend because Holden is her brother. I don’t want Sydney knowing and getting angry on my behalf when she needs his support with everything she’s got going on right now. I can’t talk to my mom, who’s dealing with plenty already. She doesn’t need to worry about my relationship ontop of her own. Nova is never home to talk to, and it feels too personal to confide in anyone else.
I feel betrayed, and not just by Holden. I always felt like love was something I had a solid example for, some model to follow.
Now it feels like I’m groping through a dark room, just hoping I’ll make it across without crashing.
I roll my head to glance at him.
Holden’s back is stiff with tension, his posture rigid as he leans forward on his elbows.
He hasn’t said a word since I told him to be quiet or leave. And he’s stayed. He didn’t listen when I told him to stay away earlier. He fought like I wanted him to when I brought up a break.
I know I’ll forgive this.
Maybe it makes me pathetic or at the very least a hopeless romantic, but I know he’sitfor me. Know I’ll never love another person the way I love him.
I’m not sure there’s anything he could do that Iwouldn’tforgive, which is terrifying.
But it’s also the truth.
If the alternative was never talking to him again? Never touching him again? I couldn’t live that way, voluntarily walk away, having experienced being with him and knowing what it was like.
He’s the person with the power to hurt me most in the world.
Even hearing about my parents’ divorce didn’t invoke this level of devastation. They’ll always be in my life individually. No matter what happens between them, they’ll always be my mother and father.
If Holden and I end, there’s no guarantee he’ll be anything in my life. Nothing more than my best friend’s brother, at least.
And I can’t imagine anything more crippling than that—having all of him and then going back to anything less.
Anger is harder to hold onto when I accept that inevitability.
I’m still upset and hurt though.
I sit up, reaching down and picking up the plastic cup I poured before coming up here to brood. Take a sip and gag because I wasn’t exactly measuring. It tastes like straight tequila.
Maybe it is. I can’t remember if I put anything else in here.
When I glance over at Holden again, he’s already looking at me.
I clear my throat and stand, rounding the side of the bed until I’m standing right in front of him. His forearms flex but he doesn’t reach for me. His head tilts back to meet my gaze.
We stay like that. Me standing and him sitting.
So many emotions expanding in the air between us they feel like a third presence.
I’m not really sure what to say. How to vocalize the conclusion I just came to. Everything we’ve already overcome and everything we will still face seems like smaller obstacles after my little epiphany.
