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Earlier, I would have been embarrassed to admit that. Now, I don’t really care. I’m emotionally tapped, incapable of caring.
Harrison nods.
Impulsively, I step forward and give him a hug. He smells like laundry detergent and spicy cologne. Nice, but not cinnamon.
“Thank you—for tonight.”
He smiles as we separate. “You know, the first time I noticed you was during the Homecoming assembly freshman year. We were seated alphabetically. Adams was in the row right in front of me. The whole time—when the principal was talking, when the cheerleaders were performing, when the team captain wasgiving a speech—he kept glancing over to the right. It took me a little while to figure out what he was looking at.”
I wait. Raise an eyebrow.
“You, Cassia.”
“If he cared—at all—I wouldn’t be out here with you, Harrison,” I tell him. “No offense.”
Harrison grins. “None taken. But I’ve been at a lot of the same parties as Adams. He cares—a lot.”
I sigh, too exhausted to keep arguing and not wanting to keep my mom waiting any longer. “Night, Harrison.”
“Night, Cassia.”
I walk down the front steps to the waiting car. My mom glances over as I settle in the passenger seat and snap my seatbelt. She starts driving right away, which I’m grateful for. All I want right now is to go home and go to bed. And hopefully wake up as someone better equipped to handle heartbreak. I’m not proud of the way I acted tonight, no matter how forgiving Harrison was. I shouldn’t have said what I did to Holden, shouldn’t have had a drink. My actions blurred the line into mistakes. I’m not sure how to move on without making them.
“Did you have fun?” my mom asks as she flicks on the blinker and makes a left turn.
“No.”
She laughs at my candor, but it’s brief. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
I stare out the window. I can’t see anything besides blackness. “It was my own fault.”
“Did something happen?”
“I fell in love.”
“Tonight?” I hear the attempt at levity in her tone. But there’s also understanding. Acknowledgment.
“Ten years ago, when we moved in across the street.”
There’s a long stretch of silence, none of it sounding like surprise. She knew. “Love can take time, honey. Face obstacles. It doesn’t mean it’s not real. That it doesn’t matter.”
I look over at my mom’s profile, surprised. I figured she was going to tell me to forget he ever existed. Girl power. Independence. Value your own worth. “He doesn’t love me.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He said I was better off without him.”
“Do you think you are?”
I don’t hesitate before answering. “No.”
“Maybe you should tell him that.”
The rest of the drive home is silent.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HOLDEN
