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“Baby, when are you going to realize one isn’t the opposite of the other? It’s part of the process. You and me? We don’t give up, we may…take a break”—three years to be exact—“but here we are.”
When did my hands find either side of her face? I’m not sure, but she hasn’t pulled away, so neither do I.
“And I’m just supposed to give in because you’re what? Here and it’s convenient?” She’s choked up now. “Do you not hear how insane you sound? How absurd?”
My heart thunders, fierce and deep with betrayal.
“Do you? I’m not the one who’s so afraid of the future that they would rather continue to relive the pain of the past than accept that they can’t change what’s already been done.”
“And so what if I am?” she wails, distraught. “You think you can change me? What if that’s not enough?”
“No.”
Her throat bobs. “No?”
“No, I can’t,” I admit, agreeing, even if it kills me to acknowledge this one fact. “But I can be by your side. You won’t be alone with me. It doesn’t have to be you versus you anymore. It can be us versus everyone else,” I pledge.
Her lids stutter, blinking past the raindrops pelting her face or the tears threatening to stain the bottom rims of her lashes. I’m not sure which.
“…I’m scared, Finn.”
I hate how her voice shakes with her confession. Wrecked, she thinks she’s broken inside. Irreparable when she’s the opposite. To me, her flaws are what make her beautiful.
“What are you doing?”
Hailey’s full-on shaking now.
“Same as you,” I recite, planting my lips back on her cheek and ridding her of another droplet that doesn’t belong.
“Enjoying the kisses?”
The rain’s kisses have never tasted so sweet on anyone’s skin.
Her throat catches. “You think a kiss will change things between us?”
“Probably not,” I concede, pulling back only enough to see her face as the next batch of words tumbles free. “But it’s a good place to start. Only ifyouwant,” I remind her.
“And what if I’m not what you need anymore?” she asks, her pupils blown and wide, studying me.
“Go on, lie to me some more.”
Her eyes zigzag across my chest as she tries to rationalize whatever’s going on inside her head. The throbbing of my temples as relentless as her need to make me wait.
Hailey’s pupils float back up in my direction. “I-I think I’m done with that,” she stutters. “I’m tired.”
“Of what?”
Our pause is infinite, so lengthy I can’t see the end of it. That’s how long she makes me wait. Nothing passes between us but rain and patience.
Her breath catches somewhere between her lungs and her mouth, and it’s a sharp, insistent noise.
“Being delusional.”
Her answer may cut me loose, but it’s the way she reaches, pulling me into her before smashing my lips down to hers, that makes me completely lose every last shred of logic I own.
forty-three
Hailey
