“That’s all that really matters to me, Nate.”
“Yeah?” He reaches for my hand, tangling our fingers together and staring at the way they fit.
“Yeah.”
“I meant what I said last night, Tali. I don’t ever want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t.”
“I feel like I’ve already made a huge mistake with you. I pushed you away when I should have drawn you in and told you I never want to let you go.”
My bottom lip tightens between my teeth and I look down. “Are you telling me that now?”
With his hand on my cheek, he tilts his head down to look at me, making it impossible to avoid his eyes. “I never want to let you go.”
A slow grin tugs the corner of my mouth and I blink before telling him, “Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is.”
“No, Tali, there are things about me. I’ve done things, unforgivable things.”
This is my cue, the doors are wide open. It’s like he’s begging me to ask him about his past, to unburden the misery from his shoulders and help him carry it. All I say is, “Not to me.”
“No, but—”
“Then those things don’t matter to me. Unless you mean things like torturing baby bunnies, or stealing candy from little kids, in which case we’ll have a problem. Because seriously,” I nudge into him, “who does that kind of crap?”
It was meant to make him laugh, but all it does is stir a half-amused chuff through his throat. “Assholes,” he says.
“You’re not an asshole,” I shrug. “See, simple.”
Shaking his head, he’s actually smiling, and for a moment the darkness in his eyes is gone. “Can I take you to breakfast?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Leaning in, he touches his lips to mine, asking, “You still want to run away from me?”
I tip my head in, resting against his as I shake it slowly. “Not anymore. But I really should go home and shower, maybe change my clothes.”
“Okay. I’ll jump in the shower too, come over and get you in an hour.”
TWENTY
My father looks up from the magazine he’s reading while spooning bites of oatmeal into his mouth, across the top of his glasses so I can really see the disappointment in his eyes as I saunter into the kitchen after my shower. I snuck in and raced up the stairs, locking myself in the bathroom before anyone could say anything about my not coming home last night.
Mom’s gone for groceries by the time I get out, and taken the kids with her, so it’s just him and me, and I have a feeling that despite me telling Nate my parents won’t have an issue with me not coming home last night, I worry momentarily that might have been a little white lie on my part.
Dad clears his throat, closes the magazine in front of him and reaches for his coffee. “Late night?” I watch his brow quirk before he tips the cup to his lips and swallows it to the last drop. Then he plunks his mug down on the table and rests his elbows on top of the magazine while waiting for me to answer.
“I was just across the street. I know I should have texted, or called, but I fell asleep after the power went out and…”
“We knew where you were,” he confesses. “You think I didn’t look out the window to see if his car was there before I went to bed?”
Ouch.
“You’re an adult now, which means you are your own keeper.” There’s stiffness in those words, the barest hint of lament, as if every part of him wants to throw me in a time machine and steer me back to far more innocent times when making fart noises by pushing our hands into inflated cheeks was the funniest joke between us. “I like to think you owe us the courtesy of a phone call when you’re not coming home, but the truth is that probably isn’t going to be the case when you’re gone for good. I mean, how will I even know when you’re not home in Austin? You could call me from anywhere there and say you were safely tucked into your dorm. I’d never even know the difference.” He shrugs, a sarcastic gesture as he tilts his head and blinks at me.
“I’d never do that.”
“I know. I’m just giving you a hard time. What kind of father would I be if I didn’t?” He waits, as if he expects me to answer, and when I don’t he says, “I hope you’re at least being responsible with your newfound freedom. I’m only 44, Tali. I know my hair is getting a little grey, but I’m far too young to be someone’s grandpa.”
“Dad!”
“What? Acting like an adult is going to prompt adult conversations.”
“Yeah, the kinds of conversations I’d rather have with… uh… Mom. Maybe.”
“Oh no. You don’t want to have this conversation with Mom. She was talking about convents and towers wrapped in thorns.”
“Is she mad?”
Shaking his head, he diverts his stare to something on the wall over my shoulder. “We can’t get mad at you for growing up. I just don’t want to see you make any foolish mistakes when you’re so close to getting everything you ever wanted.”
Swiping an envelope from the table, he holds it out to me, waving the thick paper until I take it uncertainly and shake my head.
“What’s this?”
“A bill.” My mouth must be gaping because he starts to grin, then snatches it back from me. “It’s from St. Edward’s. Tuition and housing.”
“Right,” I nod, the hollow beat of my heart inside my chest slowing. “I thought you were telling me I needed to get a job or something.”
“A job would probably cut back on how much time you’re spending with Nate, but then who would distract Art and Gwen all day while we’re trying to work? So, I guess we’re going to have to get used to you crossing the street really early in the morning.”
“I’m being responsible.”
The muscles in his face tighten, cheeks sinking a little as he pulls the insides between his back teeth and bites down before nodding his head. “I trust you.” I can’t express the greatness of my relief as he swiftly changes the subject, and I wonder if it makes him just as uncomfortable as it made me to be talking about the fact that I’m a sexual being. “So, anyway, I already wrote the check out, but I haven’t sent it in yet, as you can see. Do I void it?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“You’re sure?”
“I don’t know.”
For the first time since I met Nate, I’m being forced to think about our indefinite future. Whether or not this is a summer fling, or something so much deeper than that. It doesn’t feel like a summer fling to me, but then I’ve never really had one, so I can’t compare.
“Do you have to send it back right now?”
“In order to confirm housing arrangements, that check needs to be in administrative hands by August third, which means I should probably send it out no later than the last Monday of this month. If we wait any longer than that, there’s no guarantee you’ll get into the dorms.”
“Can we see where I am the last Monday of this month?”
“We can do that,” he nods. “If that’s what you want. I know you were worried about Arthur, but he seems to be adjusting all right. You know there’s another boy about three houses down from us? He asked this morning if he could go play with Brandon after lunch today. Apparently Brandon has Call of Duty. Who knew?”
“Wow,” I muse. “He sought this Brandon out on his own?”
“So it would seem.”
My mind is a sudden whirlwind of confusion. When I first got accepted into St. Edward’s I was ecstatic. Every moment of my future flashing before me in glorious pixels, and then Dad put the house on the market and put a bid on the one I’m standing in right now when it went up for auction back in February. It was easy to use Art as an excuse in the beginning, to cling to the notion of wanting to make sure he got settled in okay, but now it’s about so much more than my little brother. Arthur is an excuse, but what does that make Nate. There’s definitely no excuse for the way I feel about him.
And maybe it’s only been three weeks, but it’s been the most incredible three weeks of my life.
Dad pushes his chair away from the table and rises to take his bowl to the sink. He stops in front me on the way back, lowering his head and tilting it in to catch my downcast gaze. “No one is going to make you go back to Austin, Taliesin, but if you want to go to St. Edward’s, you need to make a decision sometime in the next three weeks.”
I feel like there’s a golf ball lodged in my throat when I swallow. “I will.”
“Oh, and you’ll be pleased to know that the Internet people called yesterday afternoon. They’ll be here later this afternoon to get that up and running. I know how hard it’s been for you to be separated from your life line.”
“Yeah, Malik is totally freaking out. You have no idea. Apparently the whole guild is falling apart.”
“Give Malik my deepest apologies for testing the very foundation of your fine organization.” Leaning forward, he kisses my forehead, but as he steps back I stop him.
“Daddy?” The anxiety I feel is crushing. A part of me doesn’t even want to pick up and continue the conversation we’ve already moved on from, but I need to know. “Are you upset with me? About not coming home?”
His face softens, hazel eyes blinking before he confesses, “Nah. Just starting to feel my age every time I look at you, that’s all.”
“You’re not old.”
“Says the girl with her whole life ahead of her.” His hand comes up, gripping my chin to tilt my face up so I have no choice but to look into those shining eyes of his. He studies me, looking me over before shaking his head and saying, “Three days ago I was running behind you, telling you to go, go, go when you rode your bike without training wheels for the first time. Then you looked back over your shoulder at me and you were wearing your cap and gown, shaking your diploma in my face before running off to spend the night with some guy you met less than a month ago. Crap like that’s bound to make a guy reevaluate the days of his life, Tal.”
“Daddy…”
“It’s not your fault. You grew up, just like you were supposed to. And I just let it happen.” His chest deflates when he lets out the breath he’s been holding in. He bends down and presses his forehead to mine, asking, “What else was I supposed to do?”
“You want me to get in the time machine? Just say the word and I will. But only for you.”
“Don’t let Mommy hear you say that. She’s had suspicions for a long time that I’m your favorite. We don’t want to break her heart.”
I bring my fingers to my lips and shush, and Dad ruffles my hair before pushing me away when a knock echoes through the house.
“Is that your boyfriend?”
I look away and say, “He’s taking me to breakfast.”
“He does know how much you eat, right? That we’ve had to sell most of our other children just to feed you.”
Swiping my hand out to swat him away, he grabs my wrist and drags me in to hug him.
“You will be careful, right? I’m not telling you not to fall in love with this guy, every heart to deserves to know the joys and wonders of that kind of freedom. And you’re so young… It’s what you’re supposed to do, I guess, but every time you giggle and smile at him I kinda want to punch him in his pretty face. That’s what dads are supposed to do, isn’t it?”
“Please don’t punch his pretty face, Dad.”
“So long as he doesn’t give me any reasons to.” He releases me as Nate knocks again. “Should I answer the door?”
“No, that won’t be necessary, but I could invite him to dinner later if giving you a chance to torment him will make you feel better.”
“Yes,” he nods, “let’s do that.” And when he grins there’s something wicked, almost maniacal in the silly wideness of his eyes.
My dad’s words sit heavily across my shoulders when I slide into the passenger seat of Nate’s car and buckle in before he pulls away. He’s grinning over at me, a true grin, and for the first time since I saw him that day on his porch there isn’t even the barest hint of sorrow in his eyes.
I think about the intensity of our morning, how deep everything between us felt, still feels when he reaches over and rests a hand on the top of my bare thigh, and I realize that even though we should probably talk about the future, this morning might not be the best time to bring up the decision I need to make.
He’s so happy. All smiles and jokes when we slide into a booth in the crowded Katy’s Diner. I wonder how much of that happiness is my doing, and I feel guilty as I try to imagine what it will feel like for him when I leave next month—if I leave next month. Will what we’ve established in this short time be worth that kind of distance, or do we become a summer fling we both leave behind before moving on with our lives? Is he going to feel like I’ve led him on when it is time to talk about all of this, like I’ve betrayed him?
We have talked before about St. Edward’s. He knows it’s more than just a possibility. It’s my future, a future I’ve seen perfectly mapped out since before I even got accepted. I know there are other colleges. I know I could change my plans, but Austin and St. Edward’s are where I’ve wanted to be for the last two years. I have my heart set on interning at the DigiSaurus home office, getting hired after graduation to work on Heart of the Dragon, or maybe some new MMORPG that’ll take the world by storm.
Can I even do any of those things here in Pennsylvania?
Is Nate worth staying for? Or do I count this time with him a blessing and hope for the best.
I look up when he says my name, waving a forkful of what he claims are the best home fries I’ll ever taste in my life, and then I open my mouth to take the bite he offers me. They’re no grits, stringy with cheese and flavored with garlic and butter, but they aren’t bad. He laughs when I reach a hand up to cover my mouth while chewing, nodding agreement that they are pretty much the best home fries I’ve ever had. Mostly because I’m eating them with him.
When Nate reaches across the table to draw my hand away, his grin is almost more than I can stand. It’s beautiful and perfect, and it shouldn’t feel like this, but it does.
So I let it go…for now. I promise myself I’ll not only think about it later, but I’ll talk to him more seriously when the time feels right. I’ll see if it even matters to him that my saying yes to St. Edward’s means we have six weeks to make the most of whatever this is between us. Six weeks to determine whether or not we’re worth the distance, or if we’re just a summer fling that leaves more than tan lines when autumn breaks.
TWENTY-ONE
Falling in love is far too easy.
For what it’s worth I think it should be the hardest thing in the world, considering everything at stake, but it’s really not. One minute infatuation, the next total annihilation of the heart. You actually find yourself in a place where you no longer exist as a single unit. You are one with someone else. Every breath, every heartbeat, every step you take brings you closer to losing yourself completely.
It’s an addiction. Or at least it’s like everything I’ve ever read about addiction. I have no firsthand, personal experience with drugs, but I’m pretty sure the little voice inside of me that whispers I should stop, that I don’t need another fix of him, that I’ll be perfectly all right if I don’t steal another kiss, or send another text, or roll over in the bed and lose myself in his arms for another twenty minutes—even though it’ll probably make him late for work—yeah, I’m sure that little voice is wrong.
Adding sex into the equation does nothing but intensify an already volatile cocktail always on the verge of blowing up in my face, but everything about it, about us, feels so good, so right, so perfect that it’s easy to ignore all the little things I know are very wrong about all of this.
It’s mid-July when the other shoe drops, and I wish I could blame Nate completely, but I knew from the first moment I looked into his eyes there was something dark inside him, something strangling his light and holding him do
wn in some personal hell I knew nothing about. I should have asked him about it, and while I keep asking myself when I was supposed to do that, like there was never a right moment to bring attention to the monster in the room, the truth is there were dozens of times I could have brought it up.
There were even more times he opened the door, as if inviting me to walk through and bask in whatever horrors he carries around inside him, but every time I’m on the threshold I back away.
It’s like I don’t really want to know anything about the life Nate had before he was a part of mine.
When we were tangled together in his bed talking through the night, I could have asked him then. When he grew all distant on the Fourth of July while we were watching Cody’s mom’s boyfriend, Frank, shoot off illegal fireworks that gave the neighboring towns a run for their money, I could have leaned in and told him that whatever burden he carries, I want to carry it too. Because the bug that crawled up Gretchen’s ass that night had everything to do with the fact that we were there.
She spent most of the Fourth arguing with Cody off in the shadow of the camper, voices escalating almost to the point that you could understand what they were fighting about, and then just before midnight she stormed off, got into her car and sped away from the river lot.
Right around the time Cody’s mom declared, “Good riddance,” Cody started drinking.
He was shitfaced by the time we left around two a.m. Hugging Nate, he kept telling him how much he loved him. As he backed away, Cody leveled his best friend with a heavy stare and said quite seriously, “If that bitch thinks I’m choosing between you and her, she’s got another thing coming. Because I’ll choose you, man. Every fucking time. Brothers. We’re fucking brothers.”
Arm draped over Nate’s shoulder, Cody pressed their foreheads together and whispered something I couldn’t hear, and then he backed up and told me to keep bringing his best friend back to him.
He hugged me, which was a little awkward because I’d met him all of three times, and we didn’t exactly spend much time getting to know each other, but he was drunk so I patted his arm with all the patience of someone who spends half her day trying to make sense of three-year-old babble.
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