I follow his directions and bring us to an easy stop. We’re at a highway intersection now. A semi barrels from the east.
“Where should I go?” I ask.
“Anywhere you want.” He lowers his window, and a burst of mild summer air flows through. I didn’t realize how stuffy it was in here until now, so I do the same.
I take a deep breath, shift into first, and concentrate on not popping the clutch so we don’t become road kill.
He’s so patient with me. And he trusts me with his truck. I don’t know many guys at school who’d be this cool about letting me learn with their only mode of transportation.
Every high-schooler in Rixton Falls knows that vehicles equal freedom.
I could easily wreck this thing, and Royal doesn’t make enough money doing seasonal landscaping to be able to replace it. His current foster family doesn’t have the means either, not that they’d be obligated.
“Thanks for trusting me with this,” I say, releasing the clutch and pressing my toes against the gas pedal. This might be the only time in my fifteen years that I’ve ever thanked Royal Lockhart for anything.
We ease forward, crossing the four lane highway and heading north.
“Demi, watch out . . .” Royal grabs the steering wheel and jerks it in his direction as a fuel truck whirs past us so fast that it shakes the cab.
I jam my foot hard into the clutch and brake and bring us to a violent stop in a cloud of dust on the side of the highway.
“I’m sorry. I . . . I didn’t see it coming.” My words shake, and two fat tears drip down my cheeks. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Demi.”
Ignoring him, I pull on the door lever and climb out. He meets me halfway, at the tailgate. I cross my arms. He’s going to try and talk me out of it, but my mind’s made up.
“I don’t like stick shifts,” I say. “I’ll just wait until my parents get back. Mom can teach me in the Suburban.”
My chin trembles. He stares at me. I’m not sure how he stays this calm when two minutes ago, I almost got us killed.
I squeeze my eyelids so tightly they hurt. I wish I could crawl into a hole and never come out. I wish Royal never would’ve offered to teach me how to drive. I wish—
The warmth of his hands encapsulates mine, and I pull in a startled breath, opening my eyes.
“Demi, it’s okay. Everyone has to learn somehow. You master this beast? You can drive anything. Automatics are for pussies and fraidy-cats. You’re fearless. I know you are. I’ve seen it.”
His hands leave mine and slide up my arms, leaving a trail of tingles. I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry.
“Remember when we were kids, and we were playing in that creek, and Delilah got bitten by that snake?” he asks.
I nod.
“Everyone else took off running, and what’d you do? You went back and smashed its head with a rock.”
I laugh through my nose, my damp eyes blinking.
“That thing didn’t stand a chance when you were done with it,” he adds.
Though it’s been years, the most vivid part of that memory is the fact that Royal chased after me. He let me do what I had to do, and he made sure I wasn’t alone.
“So tell me, former child snake killer,” he says. “You going to get back in there and practice some more? Or am I taking you home now?”
I wipe my drying tears on the back of my hand and stuff my pride down deep.
“Yeah. Fine.” I sigh. He lets me go, and we linger for a moment. “Stop looking at me that way. It’s weird.”
“How was I looking at you?”
“I don’t know. Like . . .” Like you think I’m pretty.
Derek would murder him if he made a move on me.
The sky behind him morphs into a deep shade of stormy blue, and flashes of lightening precede a distant rumble of thunder.
Quick, tiny droplets of water ping against the metal bed of his Chevy, and the rain begins to kiss our faces.
“Get in,” he nods toward the cabin.
I move toward him, making my way to the passenger side, but he stops me with a palm on my shoulder.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You didn’t think you’d get out of driving just ‘cause there’s a little bit of rain, did you?” Royal smirks. “This is how you learn. Get in. You’re driving us home.”
Halfway home, it occurs to me that Royal saved my life today.
Maybe I’ll try to be nicer to him from now on.
Just a little.
***
Demi, Age 17
{two years later}
“Why are you sitting here in the dark?” Royal’s voice startles me at two in the morning on a Saturday.
“I thought you were downstairs with Derek?” I sit up on our living room sofa, and Royal plops down beside me.
“Derek’s passed out,” he said. “And I can’t sleep.”
“You too, huh?”
“I never sleep. Can never get comfortable,” he says. “I’m like fucking Goldilocks or some shit. Each bed is too hard or too soft. Haven’t found the right one yet.”
Would probably help if he’d ever had a bed of his own.
“So what are you going to do?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Came up here to check out the Rosewood fridge. See what kind of leftovers Bliss has all Tupperwared up in there.”
Royal doesn’t move. Apparently, he’d rather sit here with me now than rummage.
“There should be some leftover lasagna,” I say.
“Cool. Bliss makes good food.”
“Yep.”
The living room curtains are pulled wide behind us, and the half moon in the sky provides just enough of a glow that I can make out the outline of his face in the dark. Not only can I tell he’s looking at me, I feel it too.
I squirm and play with a loose thread in the throw pillow in my lap.
“Go out with me, Demi.” His voice is slightly more than a whisper, and his question is a paddle shock to my heart.
“And why would I do that?”
“I’m graduating in May,” he says. “And we’ve never been on a date.”
“You’re like a brother to me. Ew. That’s gross. I would never. And Derek would kill us.”
“Psh. I’ll deal with Derek.” He inches closer. “Don’t act like you’ve never thought about it. I have.”
My body burns from head to toe. I don’t know how he can be so straightforward. Most guys at school are vague. They play mind games, or they’re too chicken to make the first move.
“I can honestly say that I don’t look at you that way.” I clear my throat and look away.
Liar, liar, pants on fire. I’m going to hell. I am so going to hell.
I stare ahead at a family portrait of smiling Rosewoods hanging above the fireplace mantle. I’ve always thought Royal should be included in those. He’s more or less one of us—maybe not by blood, but blood doesn’t always make you a family. He’s been to three-fourths of the Easter dinners at Grandma Rosewood’s house over the last few years, and I’m pretty sure that she likes him more than she likes Derek sometimes. Every time she comes over, she brings his favorite oatmeal raisin cookies, and they sit outside and chat on the front porch rocking chairs like they’ve known each other their whole lives.
Grandma was orphaned by nine and adopted by twelve, so I think that’s why she holds a soft spot for him.
Royal snickers. “Come on, Demi. I don’t believe you for one second.”
I roll my eyes. “Really not interested in becoming a flavor of the week.”
He licks his lips as they spread wide. “That’s cute that you pay attention to my social life.”
Kind of hard not to notice when he’s strutting down the hall like a peacock with a flock of spray-tanned cheerleaders hanging off his baseball pitcher arms.
“One date,” he says. “Per week. For two months.”
My face scrunches. “What? No. That’s dumb.”
“Just trying
to prove that you wouldn’t be a flavor of the week.”
My eyes roll, and I fight my smile like my life depends on it.
“Fine. One date,” he says. “Per week. Until you decide you’re sick of me.”
“Which would probably be after the first date, if I’m being honest,” I lie again. Pretty sure the devil’s reserving a special spot in his fiery furnace with DEMI ROSEWOOD etched across it in flashing neon lights. “So it’s pretty pointless to even entertain anything involving you and me.”
“I don’t think it’s pointless at all,” he says. I glance at him. He’s not smiling or teasing, for once. “I’m seriously asking you out on a date, Demi.”
I exhale and slink back against the sofa, twirling a dark strand of hair between my fingers over and over, the smooth, soft strands distracting me from this moment.
We sit in silence for a minute or two. Once again, Royal has the patience of a saint that runs perfectly perpendicular to his lips made for sin.
“Derek’s going to feed your balls to the dog. You know that, right?” I lift my brows and purse my lips to keep from smirking.
“Nah. Derek’s cool. He’ll get over it.”
“Not if you hurt me, he won’t.”
“If anyone’s going to get hurt here, it’s going to be me.”
I scoff. “Why’s that?”
“’Cause I’ve waited years for a date with Demi Rosewood. Pretty sure it’s going to be epic. Pretty sure I’m never going to want to let you go.”
“Stop being weird. I don’t like it. Go back to being . . . you.”
I yawn and rise, tossing the throw pillow back on the seat behind me. Reaching over, I ruffle my fingers through his messy chocolate hair. If I treat him like a puppy, maybe I can ignore the fact that my heart’s beating a hundred miles per hour and my lips are tingling at the thought of touching his.
“I’m going to bed,” I say in a too-cool-to-care tone.
Royal captures my wrist and pulls my fingers from his mane, rising slowly. Our eyes catch in the dark, and I wonder if he can hear how hard my heart is beating now that we’re standing so close.
“Friday night,” he says. “I’ll pick you up at seven. We can go into the city. Do anything you want to do.”
“I don’t want things to be different between us,” I say, “if we go on this date.”
“You know what I’ve noticed about you?” he asks.
“What?”
“You’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop. No matter what, you’re always expecting the worse. Always on edge. Always waiting for something bad to happen.” He cups my face in his hands and tilts his head, studying me. “Everything’s always going to work out. And I can say that, ‘cause I’ve been through some shit, and I’m barely eighteen. You have a beautiful life, Demi. Perfect friends, perfect family, perfect house. Bad shit doesn’t happen to people like you.”
“Bad things can happen to anyone.” I fold my arms. “And I am thankful for everything I have, just so you know.”
He shakes his head, biting the inside of his lip. “Saying that doesn’t make it true.”
My lips button. I can’t tell him that my entire life, I’ve had this weighted feeling in the pit of my stomach that the second I reach my pinnacle of happiness, it’s all going to be swept away without any kind of warning.
I’ve never told anyone that. It makes me sound crazy. They’ll chalk it up to anxiety. Mom will ask me to see a shrink. I don’t need talk therapy. It’s just a feeling I’ve always had. Like I was born with it. It’s always been there, like an invisible cloud of darkness lurking over my shoulder.
“Whatever, Royal.” I move away from him and eye the stairs. “I’m going upstairs now. Don’t forget to ask my dad if you can take me on a date. He’s old-fashioned like that.”
“Done.”
I stop, turning back toward him. “Excuse me? When?”
“Don’t worry about it. But Robert’s cool with it. Laid down some rules, but we’re good.”
“What did he say?” My curiosity is alive and well. Growing up, Dad always said we couldn’t wear makeup, swear, or date until we were out of the house. I’m sure he was exaggerating, but I can’t imagine that he gave Royal his blessing without making it into a big thing.
“He basically made me promise to marry you someday.” Royal smirks. “More or less. Maybe not in so many words. But the threat was there. Implied, really.”
I roll my eyes. I can see my dad putting the fear of God into Royal.
“He won’t have to worry about that.” I chuckle and amble toward the landing of the stairs. With my hand on the railing, I look back at Royal, standing in the middle of the dark living room bathed in moonlight. For a fraction of a second, he looks older, wiser, more worldly. I blink, and he’s back.
“Won’t he, though?” Royal winks.
“Night, Royal.”
“Night, Demi.”
***
Demi, Age 18
{18 months later}
I love him.
I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him.
The curtains to my bedroom window are pulled, and I’ve been watching the driveway for hours. Royal had to head upstate to visit some family. I didn’t even know he had family. He never really mentioned anyone, never really talked about his past in any kind of detail. But apparently, someone needed him, because he left in a hurry late last night with a backpack and a half-charged phone. Said he’d be back by dinner Sunday night.
I roll to my stomach, propping my head in my hands and tapping my fingers along my cheek to the beat of the song pumping through my ear buds.
Every song reminds me of Royal. I can’t listen to the radio anymore without feeling all the feels, every emotion magnified, every sensation intensified. Nobody ever warned me that being in love was like a constant Dopamine high.
I’m addicted. Obsessed. Consumed.
And so is he.
He is mine, and I am his.
We’re going to be together forever.
Never thought I’d be almost nineteen years old and already head over heels in love with my soul mate. And I think I always knew it would be him. I just didn’t want to admit it.
The clock on my dresser reads eight. He should’ve been back hours ago.
I try his cell again, but it goes straight to voicemail. I send a text I know he’ll never read because his phone is obviously dead. The irrationally optimistic notion that maybe he’s home, and I missed him, creeps through my mind, so I tiptoe to the basement, where he’s been staying since he was kicked out of foster care last year when he turned eighteen.
His room is empty, but I linger for a moment because it smells like him, and I need my fix.
I crash on his bed and bury my face in his pillow. A smile creeps across my lips when I remember all the naughty things we’ve done in this private little corner of the basement. Thank God for locks on the door, because my parents would flip their shit if they ever walked in on us.
But we can’t help it.
We can’t keep our hands to ourselves, and why would we want to when being together feels stupid amazing? The cheesy smile on my face has become a permanent fixture in the last year and a half because of that boy.
And I hope it never fades.
I pull myself off of Royal’s bed when I hear Mom calling out that dinner’s ready. We’re eating late tonight. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one waiting for Royal to come home.
Selfishly, I hate that he had to run off and help someone. Every hour apart is torture. We’ve spent every waking moment together this summer, woefully counting down the days on the calendar as we get closer to the weekend my parents move me to my dorm at Hargrove College.
We’re staying together. Royal promised. But we’ll be a couple of hours apart for a while. He’s going to try to find a job closer to me, but until then, we’re soaking in these carefree summer nights like they’re going out of style.
Climbing the stairs, I amble dow
n the hall and see Mom removing an extra place-setting at the end of the table.
My heart drops and my hands weaken. I take another step and grab onto the back of Delilah’s chair.
“Why’d you do that?” I ask Mom. “Why’d you take Royal’s plate away?”
She turns to me, her expression sullen. “He’s not coming.”
“He’s not coming . . . for dinner?” I need clarification. I need context.
Mom’s gaze lifts across the room to meet my father’s. His lips straighten, and his chest rises and falls with one loaded breath. And then he nods.
They know something I don’t.
My chest flutters, opposite my churning stomach.
“He’s not coming back, Demi.” Mom’s shoulders fall and she turns away, returning his plate and a handful of flatware to their rightful places in her meticulously organized kitchen.
I laugh. This is a joke. It has to be. Royal’s always messing with people. He’s going to pop around the corner and surprise me with a dozen red roses and two surprise tickets to see the traveling Broadway rendition of Les Mis in the city. He’s random like that. It’s why I love him so.
“What do you mean, he’s not coming back?” I stumble back until I hit a wall.
No one’s smiling. No one’s laughing.
Delilah and Derek stare at their empty plates. Daphne twirls a fork between two fingers.
“What happened? Is he okay? Did something happen to him?” My words come so fast my lips feel like Jell-O. “Where is he?”
Dad clears his throat and rises. “You and Royal are through, Demi. That’s all you need to know. He’s not to come back here. And you’re not to see him again. Is that understood?”
“Robert.” Mom’s voice breaks. From where I stand, I see her clutch her hand across her heart and shake her head, though her back is toward all of us. I’m sure she’s wishing Dad would’ve delivered his message with a little more compassion, but there’s no delicate way to drop a bomb like that.
“No. No, no, no, no . . .” My voice escalates. I repeat the same word over and over, until the back of my throat is raw and it hurts to swallow.
Thick tears trail my cheeks, and I find myself on the floor after a minute, my knees pulled up against my chest and my face buried. Someone’s arms are around me. Delilah maybe? No, feels like Daphne. I don’t bother looking up. I don’t have the energy.
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