Eyes Unveiled

by Crystal Walton

  What if I could help kids like Michael push past their own borders? Show them they weren’t abandoned, that they mattered?

  A sense of vision inflated inside me. It seemed so clear now and, for the first time, within reach. I sensed Austin’s assurance prodding me the way it had after the symphony. “If you don’t have the faith yet to believe it yourself, you can borrow mine until you do.”

  “I think I finally found my own,” I whispered against the window.

  Jaycee’s Fiat rolled up alongside our apartment. The second she shifted the car into park, A. J. lunged up from the stoop and barreled down the sidewalk straight for us. I’d barely unfastened my seatbelt before he opened my door.

  He clasped my shoulders and anxiously searched my eyes. “Em, please tell me you haven’t—”

  “Haven’t what?” I stepped onto the curb. “A. J., what’s going on?”

  Jaycee’s car door closed. I looked for her as she rounded the back bumper, hoping she could clue me in on what I was missing.

  And then, I saw.

  chapter twenty-eight

  Unhinged

  A few spaces down from us, Riley stood beside his Civic. Waiting.

  I started toward him without another thought. A. J. stepped in front of me and obscured him from my view. “Please don’t.” His fingers slid from my shoulders down to my hands. “Don’t let him hurt you again. You were just starting to . . .”

  Starting to what? The torment in his eyes compressed around my heart with the answer I’d feared. He wanted more than friendship. Something I couldn’t give him.

  “Em, don’t go. Just . . . just stay. With me. Please.”

  Riley kept his head down, didn’t move from his car. He’d probably come for closure, but it didn’t matter. Despite why he’d come, I had to see him.

  “I’m sorry, A. J. I have to go.”

  He didn’t release my hand. “I’ll wait for you.”

  He meant more than standing on this sidewalk until I came back. I could hear it in his voice. I waited for the tremor in my own to steady before I faced him again. “I told you my heart wasn’t available,” I whispered. “It still isn’t. I . . . I’m sorry.”

  Chin falling, he let me go.

  The early evening breeze quivered down the lining of my coat. I tightened both sides of my jacket across my body.

  Riley didn’t look up from the pavement as I approached. “I know I don’t deserve it,” he said, “but would you please walk with me? Just for a while?”

  I stole a glance back at A. J. and Jaycee. My heart left me no option but to say yes.

  We walked half the perimeter of the campus in deafening silence. More than I could bear.

  “What are you doing here, Riley?”

  He kept his gaze ahead of us, his voice soft. “I came because I want you to tell me that the pain I saw flash in your eyes today hasn’t been there this whole time.” He stopped and placed a hand on my arm. “Em, please. Please tell me this hasn’t all been for nothing.”

  “What do you mean, all for nothing?” I started to shake. “And how could you have seen what was in my eyes? You wouldn’t even look at me. We haven’t seen or talked to each other in months, and then today you acted like you couldn’t get away from me fast enough. I understand if you don’t want to be friends, but can you not even tolerate seeing me?”

  Hand trembling, he released my arm. “I can’t be close to you. Don’t you see that?”

  His words ripped through my paper-thin shield of fury. I spun toward the vacant football field before he saw the impact, but I couldn’t shut out the ache of remembering his face after I’d told him I loved him. Of course he couldn’t be near me. How could I have expected him to pretend we could still be friends after knowing I wanted more?

  I swallowed the pain of regret, wanting to release us both from its claws. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I know it was disappointing enough not to feel anything when you kissed me. Then you had to deal with the guilt of seeing how much I did feel. I don’t blame you for leaving.” I turned slowly. “I’m sorry, Riley. For pushing you away and ruining our friendship.”

  The last sliver of the sun disappeared behind the treetops, leaving a pink glow to fill its place in a sky caught between day and night. Deepening shades of blue collided together and accentuated the torn look in Riley’s eyes. “Do you honestly believe that?”

  “You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

  He strode straight toward me, every movement heightened. I backed against the oak tree standing securely behind me. He came close enough to touch me but gripped the trunk on either side of me instead.

  The scent of his skin awakened my senses to everything I’d tried to forget. The tree’s grooves pressed through my coat into my back. I was afraid to turn away yet more afraid to stay still. My pulse thundered in my ears, every part of me aware of how much I still loved him.

  He looked me in the eyes. “I felt everything when I kissed you. Feelings I’ve never felt for anyone else. Every hope of the way I wished things could be. Every desire to be the man you deserved. Every fear of losing you.”

  He raised a hand to my hair, barely touching it. “From the first day I saw you on campus, I knew there was something different about you. Something that kept drawing me to you even when I tried to fight it. You don’t know how many times I told myself to walk away. And how many more times I almost let go, gave in to how much I love you. The willpower it took not to pull you into my arms every time we were together.”

  His words shook against the walls around my heart and trembled with confusion. “But you said . . .” My voice broke.

  “That I couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t keep hurting you. I tried, Em. I swear, I tried to be everything you were to me. I wanted to show you your dad was right about your song. It’s what made me fall back in love with music again. You opened my heart to things I thought I’d lost, helped me feel things I never thought I could. I would’ve done anything to give you that same gift, so you’d see what I see in you. But the more I tried, the worse I made things.”

  “Worse? What are you talking about? All you’ve ever done is help me—”

  “Help? By pushing you to exhaustion on a project that backfired anyway? By losing control with your boss and costing you your internship? Which just happened to put your scholarship in jeopardy and almost drove your mom into a relapse—in case you forgot that part.”

  His forehead crumpled, the edge in his voice deflating. “Or by how selfish I was for not letting you go even when I knew I should?”

  His hands slid down the trunk. “You made it feel so safe. So easy to forget who I am. To believe you were right about me, about us. But after Xander, I knew I’d been lying to myself. Knew I had to leave as soon as I made up for costing you your internship. I didn’t mean to kiss you and make saying goodbye harder on both of us. But the things you make me feel . . .”

  The air was too thick to breathe, too thick to move. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You would’ve asked me to stay.” He pushed away from the tree. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to let you go that day? Even after I looked into your eyes, knowing I’d been selfish enough to let you give your heart to someone who can’t control his own, I almost couldn’t leave. That’s what passion does to people, Emma. I’ve seen it. With my dad, our landlord, guys like your supervisor. How could I stay and let you settle for that?”

  My heart sank into the tree behind me. Had his dad’s words created such a distorted lens that he honestly believed he was anything like those men?

  “When you told me you still dream of falling in love, after everything you’ve been through, I wanted to be enough for you. But you deserve someone your dad would be proud of.” His hands fell from his neck to his sides. “You deserve what he taught you to hope for.”

  Dried leaves cracked underneath the footsteps drawing him close again. Crossing the barrier that had restrained him a moment ago, he lifted his hand to my face a
nd let the backs of his fingers trail along my cheek.

  Warmth spread across my skin, down my neck. Breathe. No measure of time could change the way his touch unhinged me, emotions pulling me apart at every seam.

  His fingertips grazed my ear as he brushed back my hair. “I meant what I said. I’d do anything to love you the way you loved me. Even if it meant doing the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

  I ordered myself to blink, to move—anything to prove I was awake, that I wasn’t imaging all this.

  “Emma, I—”

  “Stop talking.” I brought his lips to mine. Nothing else mattered.

  He pulled back. “I can’t. Don’t you see—?”

  “Don’t you see?” I clasped his unshaven cheeks. “Look at me. I love how passionate you are. The way you feel the world instead of just seeing it. The way that expression comes through your music, your friendship. It’s not a flaw. It’s a gift. It’s what connects you to people in ways others can’t—what captivated me from the first time I saw you. The only thing that’s hurt me is you not seeing it yourself.”

  I took his hand, traced each groove, each callous, each memory revived by his tender touch. “There has never been, there never will be, someone else. You. Are. My. Dream.” My fingertips found the soft hairs at the base of his neck as I kissed him again.

  His rigid composure melted into an embrace that returned mine with equal longing. Warmth spread to a place in my heart tailor-fitted for him alone.

  He leaned back. A clash of desire and defeat etched his face. A war I understood all too well.

  “I’m scared too,” I said. “But we’re not meant to stand on our own.”

  It was one truth I’d finally learned.

  Riley closed me in his arms, and I held on with the hope of never having to let go again.

  The moon’s glow stretched over that secluded part of campus the longer our conversation deepened under a sky I’d never forget.

  He kept me close to his side on the walk back, nullifying the distance that had needlessly separated us all this time.

  I peered up the walkway in front of my apartment, half-expecting to see A. J. still waiting, but the street lamp revealed an empty sidewalk. Relief swept over me. Riley hunched against his car door. He circled his arms around my waist, his eyes taking me in under the lamplight.

  I untwined his hands from my back and brought them in front of us. “Will you stay? Just a little longer?”

  He kissed my forehead and lifted off the car. “For a little while.”

  It didn’t surprise me to see Trevor and Jaycee sitting in the living room when we walked through the door, but my heart stopped at the wounded expression of someone else looking at Riley and me.

  A. J. had waited after all.

  chapter twenty-nine

  Time

  A. J. jetted from the edge of his seat. I dropped Riley’s hand, not wanting to make things worse, but it was too late.

  He flicked a derisive glance at Riley. “Gotta give it to ya, bro. You’re better than I thought you were. What’d you do, sing her a love ballad?”

  His gaze jerked to me, zeroed in on my face. “Then again, from the looks of her raw lips, bet you didn’t need any words at all, did you?”

  Knuckles whitening, Riley launched forward. Trevor leaped from the couch in time to stop him. Jaycee froze in her seat with a magazine page turned halfway in the air.

  A. J. ripped his jacket off the chair and stopped in front of me with his hand on the doorknob. “Looks like you don’t need me to take care of you anymore.”

  I grabbed his arm. “A. J., I—”

  “Don’t bother. I’m out.”

  The door’s slam shuddered the walls. With my arm still outstretched, I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Trevor let go of Riley and faced me. “Leave it.”

  Not like this. I ran after him. “A. J., wait.”

  He stopped halfway down the staircase without turning around. “I’m done waiting.”

  The exit door snapped behind him. The cold banister gripped me in place. How could I have thought I wouldn’t end up hurting him? I flew down the flight of stairs and barreled outside. “Please don’t leave like this.”

  He stood midway to the street with his back to me, a stony blockade defying the wind in its path. A cold gust pummeled through my chest when he finally turned. All the words that had been racing through my mind seconds before froze and then shattered. A broken street light flickered on and off above him, streaking fractured shadows across his face.

  “You deserve better than him, Em. Someone who won’t hurt you.” He moved toward me, driving my feet backward until my heels scraped the front of the concrete porch. He drew me close with one hand on my waist and the other moving to the back of my neck.

  I searched for my breath, afraid of how close he was to me.

  “You deserve someone who’s in love with you.” With eyes deeper than the cloudless sky, he closed the remaining distance separating us.

  His lips barely brushed mine when the door flung open behind me.

  Riley lunged off the porch and shoved A. J. down the sidewalk. He looked at me over his shoulder. “You all right?”

  A. J. charged up the walkway and jutted his face into Riley’s. “I’m not the one who hurt her.”

  Riley didn’t disagree. His shoulders fell, but he kept his chin squared. “She made her choice.”

  I held onto his arm, wishing they both knew there’d never been a choice to make.

  “Last time I checked, Emma had a voice of her own.” A. J.’s stare jumped from Riley to me. “Or did you let him steal that too?”

  Trevor and Jaycee flew through the door. “Walk away, bro.”

  “Stay out of this, Trev,” A. J. said without budging his face from Riley’s.

  I braced A. J. again. “Please don’t do this.”

  “Do what? Show how I really feel?” He glared at my hand on his arm. “Never hold back, remember? Can’t live without a few regrets.” His gaze flicked from Riley to me. “I’ve certainly taught you well.”

  The jab struck my eyes and scraped down my throat to the center of my chest. Everything inside begged me to look away. Prevent him from seeing the impact of his blow. But I simply stared, grasping for any flicker of my friend behind those dark eyes.

  A muscle running down his shoulder twitched. “Emma.” The lines on his forehead softened. He reached for me. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant—”

  Riley shoved him back. This time, A. J. lost restraint. His fist crashed into Riley’s jaw. The noise struck the air and resonated in my bones. Riley staggered backward and knocked me onto the stoop.

  One glance behind him, and Riley lurched forward, rammed his shoulder into A. J.’s torso, and drove him down the sidewalk. A. J. thrust his knee into Riley’s stomach and broke his hold. Riley folded in half, groaned, then swung a rib shot with his left hand and cut a right hook to A. J.’s jaw. Blood splattered onto the pavement.

  I bolted to my feet. “Stop. Both of you.”

  Trevor wrestled A. J. off from behind but couldn’t hold him.

  I raced down the sidewalk. “Enough!”

  Their heartbeats pounded against my palms outstretched to either side of me. Faint lines of blood trickled from the corners of their mouths. A. J. spit on the ground without severing eye contact with Riley.

  My hands dropped. I turned, moved closer. “A. J., please,” I whispered.

  He looked at me then, hair flattened around an expression more wounded than any physical bruise. He jerked his tousled jacket back up his shoulders. With his chest still heaving a dangerous level of adrenaline, he walked away.

  Gravity lodged me in place. The flicker from the damaged streetlight kept A. J. tangled in the shadows ahead of me.

  “Let him go. He’s angry at me, not you,” Riley said softly. “Give him some time.”

  Time. Were some things too damaged for time to heal?

  Riley’s face, bearing wounds of its own, c
alled me to him. I knotted my hands around his waist and held on before I came completely undone. He cradled me in a hold still trembling with the tension left in A. J.’s absence.

  Trevor’s gaze found mine. “I’ll go check on him.”

  He headed across the lawn while Jaycee held up an icepack from inside the doorway. Prepared as usual.

  Underneath the bathroom light, I dabbed a cold washcloth over Riley’s bruised jaw line. He winced and set his hand over mine. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For fighting with A. J. For hurting you. Again. He’s right.”

  “Yeah, he is, but not about what you think.” I rested against the sink’s edge and twisted the washcloth in my hands. “He’s right about regrets. When you left, they consumed me.”

  Riley winced again while he rose from the chair and pressed his shoulders into the medicine cabinet. “Em, you don’t know how much I want to take back—”

  “You didn’t let me finish.” I stared at the worn caulking between the floor’s green tiles. “I have regrets, but A. J. helped me see I was wrong about what they were. I spent so long pretending to be brave, when, really, I was scared. Terrified that if I stopped running—if I slowed down long enough to let myself feel anything at all—I’d fall apart. It was easier to stay calloused. Closed off. So, I hid. In books, goals, apathy.”

  I lowered my head beneath his. “Until I met you.”

  The tendons on his neck pulled taut. He looked away.

  I reached for his chin and turned him toward me. “You walked right through those walls like they weren’t even there. Awakened things in my heart I thought were dead.”

  He removed my hand. “Things that ended up hurting you. You’ve been through enough pain already. The last thing you needed was someone you trusted pushing you into more.”

  “Actually, I think that’s exactly what I needed. And stop blaming yourself for what happened at Xander.” I curled my fingers around his. “You helped me see my dad was right. Life’s a lot like being an artist. Even if it feels safer to guard my heart from disappointment, I can’t silence what it was made for. It won’t let me. There’s gonna be pain.”