He grins, wrapping his arm around my shoulders as he guides me toward him and tucks me into his side. I rest my head against him, snuggling into the space between his shes and his arm. I never noticed until just now how perfectly my head fits there—like this is where I was always meant to be. I grab one of his hands, twining our fingers together, and, the moment from before gone, I scan the rest of the room.
I’m thankful for this trip, for those who are here who love me, old and new, because I wouldn’t be here without any of them.
Twenty.
I haven’t been feeling good. I’ve been sick since last night, when we got home from our trip to Big Bear, and I’ve tried everything, but I don’t feel even remotely better. The minute we left the cabin, I felt this overwhelming sense of dread. I’d like to think that has nothing to do with the way I’ve been feeling physically, but I’m pretty certain that I’m wrong.
I spent last night alone on the bathroom floor, unable to get up and go back to my bed because no matter how much I threw up, I kept feeling like I was going to be sick. And Colin…he was nowhere to be found. When he left, he told me that he was going to hang out with Brody. But when I started feeling sick, I called him and his phone went straight to voice mail. I called Brody, thinking perhaps Colin’s phone was dead, but Brody said he was with Sabrina and hadn’t seen Colin since we dropped them off hours before.
If I didn’t feel like complete shit, I’d probably be pissed off. Or hurt. Or assuming that he’s with Mads—well, that one’s not completely off the table just yet.
Instead, I got up for school this morning, took my sweet time getting ready, didn’t dwell on the fact that Colin came in at three a.m., and drove myself. Now that I’m here, though, I wish I hadn’t done any of it. However, instead of wishing that I was at home with my lying boyfriend, I wish I was lying in my mom’s bed, having her take care of me and inhaling the scent of her homemade chicken noodle soup with extra noodles just for me.
Since I got here, I’ve been avoiding my friends and my brother like the plague. I haven’t seen or talked to any of them, and with good reason, too, because I don’t know what I’d even say to them. Michele would immediately want to go off on Colin, and Brody…well, I’ve decided I’m not going to let my mind go there.
Right now, I’m barely standing on my own two feet in the administration’s office, requesting to get out of my senior planning board class. With everything that’s been going on, I don’t want to put anything else on my plate. I want to get out of there and do the bare minimum activities-wise right now.
“Well, Miss Quinn, I’m afraid we don’t have much open by way of electives,” Mrs. Langston says, typing away at her computer. “We just have art, JROTC, creative writing, and Senior Planning Board.”
After she lists them off, only one sounds appealing to me. “Creative writing. I’ll take creative writing,” I tell her.
I watch as she clicks a few buttons and then I hear the sound of the printer beginning to run. When my page prints, she signs it, then hands it to me to sign. Once I’ve done so, she rips off my receipt and then hands it to me.
“Take this to your teacher during sixth period, have her sign it, and then bring it back to me.”
I nod, mutter a quick thank you, and then emerge from the office. It’s about to be sixth period in about five minutes, so if I want to get up to the third floor at my current speed, I should leave right now.
I make my way toward the staircase, and I close my eyes, taking a deep breath as I brace myself. I have three sets of steps to make it up, and I’m not sure if it’s even possible. But I’m going to make it possible.
I put one foot in front of the other and hold on to the banister as I make my way up the stairs. Halfway up, my head begins to pound. I start to see spots in my vision, and everything’s blurry. My body begins to sway, and somewhere through the crowd of people when I make it to the second floor, I see a rush of blonde hair coming toward me.
That’s the last thing I see before it all goes black.
…
I don’t know how I got home.
All I know is one minute I was heading up the stairs, and the next minute, Dixon was carrying me up the stairs into my apartment and lying me down in bed. He’s quite a good nurse, actually. He’s given me saltines and ginger ale in hopes that it’ll soothe my stomach, and he’s given me Gatorade to help replenish the fluids I’ve lost since I’ve been sick.
We’re not in the apartment long before we hear the door slam, and hasty footsteps headed toward the bedroom. The minute that I hear those footsteps, I turn onto my other side, determined not to face Colin. I don’t want to see him, not yet, not when he wasn’t there for me last night when I needed him.
I hear Colin’s anxious voice yelling my name, and then I hear Dixon urging him to go back to the living room.
“What the fuck do you mean, go back to the living room? This is my house! My girlfriend! Who the fuck are you, anyway?!” Colin asks.
“I’m a friend. I brought her home. She’s not feeling well. Let’s go.”
I close my eyes and wait to hear the door close, but no one moves for a long time. It’s so silent in this room that I can hear the both of them breathing. It’s silent for a long time but finally, finally I hear the both of them leave and the door closes behind them.
I lay in our bed, a trash can beside me and a cup of ginger ale on the bedside table. I want to be in silence, especially after the day’s events.
I close my eyes, rolling onto my side and curling into a ball. I can hear Dixon talking to Colin outside of our bedroom door, but I’m not concerned with what’s happening out there. I grab my stuffed monkey, hugging it tightly.
“What were you doing in our bedroom?” Colin asks. “What are you doing here?”
“She passed out going up the stairs,” Dix replies. “She’s been throwing up all day and she’s dehydrated, but she didn’t want me to take her to see a doctor. I just brought her home and gave her some ginger ale and saltines.” He pauses. “If you want to know the truth, though, she hasn’t been taking care of herself very well since your dad passed. She’s depressed.” Colin must say something in objection, because Dixon laughs. “Trust me, Colin, all the signs are there. You’re just not paying attention enough to notice. She’s thin…she wears less makeup, she’s got bags under her eyes, she’s pulling away from her friends, and she asked to transfer out of the senior planning board. Instead of questioning me about why I was in your bedroom, taking care of your girlfriend, maybe you should look inward and ask why you aren’t doing those things yourself.”
I will not cry. I will not cry.
His words strike a chord. I haven’t noticed that I’ve gotten thin, or that there’ve been physical changes I’ve gone through since Mr. Westwick’s passing—and even more since I realized that Madilyn has changed the dynamic of my and Colin’s relationship. I’ve been more tired than usual, sure, but I haven’t known that everyone, including Dixon—who’s only known me for a matter of weeks—can notice that there’s something wrong with me.
I hear the front door close, and then I hear the door to our bedroom open. I close my eyes tightly, hoping that Colin won’t try to talk to me. I’m not ready to talk to him yet.
I feel the bed dip and know that he’s climbed in beside me. He touches my hand, grabbing it and twining our fingers together. I choke back a sob as he pulls my hand away from my side and plants a kiss on it. “Are you asleep, Nickayla?”
“No.” I turn to face him, tucking my arm under my head and gazing into his eyes. His face has slimmed down and his eyes have dark circles beneath them. He looks about as exhausted as I feel. “Did you come in here to fight some more? I don’t think I have it in me to do that today.”
He closes his eyes, wincing at my words. They reopen slowly and then his hand reaches up to push my hair out of my face.
“No, I didn’t come in here to fight.” He leans over, kissing the top of my forehead. “I came here to t
alk.”
I shake my head. I’m drowsy, falling asleep due to the ZQuil Dixon gave me. I can barely keep my eyes open. “Can’t talk. I don’t feel well.”
He snakes his hand around my waist, pulling me flush against him. He places his other arm behind my head, and against my better judgment, I nestle my head on his chest. “Okay. Sleep, then. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I try to fight the sleep threatening to pull me under. This is the closest I’ve been to Colin in over a month, and I want to cherish it. I’m afraid that if I go to sleep, he’ll be gone when I wake up. I have to cherish the moment. “I still love you.”
He sighs, squeezing my side as he buries his face in my hair. “Thank God. I was afraid that…I’ve been worried that maybe you’d stopped.”
I look up, mustering all the energy inside me to move my head so that I can look him in the eyes.
“Could never stop.”
Within seconds, I’m fast asleep.
When I wake up in the morning, I find out that my fears from the night before were unnecessary. My arm is draped over Colin’s stomach and his arm is wrapped around my waist as his face nuzzles my hair. I realize that he hasn’t gotten up since he climbed in bed with me last night, because he’s still in his black t-shirt, jeans, and Vans that he wore to work yesterday.
I don’t dare sit up, because my head is still pounding and I’m still a bit queasy. Besides that, I’m not ready to let go of Colin yet and have the both of us return to stolen glances in the kitchen over morning coffee, hushed argument because Madilyn’s still around, and walking on eggshells because I never know when I’m going to say something that’ll send him over the edge again.
Besides that, I don’t want to go back to the times where he looks at me like I’m the one who’s crazy, like I’m the one who’s seeing Madilyn as something she’s not. I don’t want to go back to feeling like a stranger in my own home.
But I do want to go back. I want to go back to how things were before Mr. Westwick passed, to how in love we were before Madilyn showed up, to how happy we were, spending our time in my girl cave.
I reach over and graze my hand across his face and push his shaggy hair away from his forehead. God, it’s been so long since he’s let me do this. We sleep in the same bed, we live in the same apartment, we go to the same school, and we’ve never been farther apart than we are right now.
His eyes squeeze tight at my touch as I run my thumb along his lower lip with a feather-light touch as I try to recall the last that I kissed him.
He grasps my hip and pulls me close. His eyes regard me with a fire so intense that I have to suck in a sharp breath before I can even tell him good morning. He reaches over and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger, then he pulls my face toward him at the same time as he inches forward, luscious pink lips at the ready. I don’t tell him no, and I don’t pull away, because this is what I’ve wanted, what I’ve craved since the moment that everything changed. This is what I’ve needed from the man I love: pure, unadulterated affection.
When our lips touch, it’s a rush of hunger, need, and love all at the same time. I forget that I don’t feel well, that my stomach is uneasy, that my head feels like it’s been pounded by a hammer a million time, that this is the closest I’ve felt to him in what feel like forever. I lose myself in his touch and in his kiss, letting myself take advantage of the fact that this time, he’s not pulling away. This time, he wants me, and oh, God, I don’t even know how to feel right now except absolutely elated.
I’m the one to break the kiss, knowing that no matter how good this feel now, it’s not going to change all that’s happened recently. It’s fleeting moment, and as badly as I want to cherish every single second of it, I can’t. I have to put my foot down, and it’s killing me to have to do it at this exact moment.
“Colin.” I grab both side of his face to hold him at bay, and I lower my eyes so that they’re gazing longingly at his lips. “We need to talk.”
His eyes close and his breathing labors as he leans his face into my touch. He nods slowly once, and then his eyes jerk open. “I know. Those are the four most hated words in the English language, but God, I know.” He sighs, leaning forward and resting his forehead against mine. “I just…I had to kiss you first, Nickayla. I had to feel your lips against mine just once, because after all that I’ve done lately, how I’ve acted and how I’ve neglected you and your feelings, I’ve no way of telling whether this time kissing you will be my last time kissing you.”
I’m stunned by the honesty behind his words, because I was just thinking the same thing. There’s no way that I can allow myself to blame all of our problems on him. Both of us have had a part in the slow deterioration of our relationship, and now, both of us have to decide whether what we had is still there anymore.
Both of us have to decide if we’re reaching too far for something that’s disappeared.
Twenty One.
I’m lying next to Colin, my chin in my hand as I gaze at him, not sure which of us is going to speak first. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me since I stopped our kiss, and he looks as on edge as I feel.
I know this talk is something that needs to happen, but for some reason, now that we’re here, I don’t want it to. I want us to move forward, not backward. However, I’m sure we both know there’s no avoiding it. If we continue carving pumpkins, things are only going to get worse.
“I’m sorry I lied to you about where I was. I should have stayed home when I knew you weren’t feeling well. And I shouldn’t have turned my phone off. Anything could have been happening to you and I never would have known,” Colin says.
I exhale a sigh of relief at the fact that he’s spoken first. I’m not sure if I could have done it.
“Where were you?” I ask.
He flushes a deep red, but he doesn’t look embarrassed. I know his reactions and facial expressions better than anyone in the world. When he’s embarrassed, he’ll grin like crazy the minute he turns red. Instead, he looks like he’s ashamed. Guilty. I can tell from the way he ducks his head. And because of that, I want to know exactly where the Hell he was that day.
“I was with Madilyn,” he says. “I was having a rough time and I needed to talk to someone.”
He says it so nonchalantly and looks at me so casually, like he doesn’t know he just pulled my insides out and stomped them into the ground. I clutch at my heart and take a sharp breath, and I blink rapidly to fight back the tears threatening to fall.
“That,” I say, my voice breaking as my emotions fight their way free, “is my biggest problem with you and her. When you’re having a rough day, why can’t you come to me? Why can’t you talk to me? I’m right here!”
He nods. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why the Hell not? When I’m having a rough day, the first person, the only person I want to turn to is you!”
He’s silent for a long time. He blinks at me in surprise like he doesn’t know what to say in response.
His hand extends and comes up to cup the side of my face. Leaning forward, he presses a kiss to my forehead. “Noted. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better.”
I close my eyes and rest my head against his shoulder as I let one of my hands come up to drape across his stomach. “I just need you to remember that I’m your girlfriend. I’m the one who’s been here for you all this time, every time you’ve gotten sick, every time you’ve been sad, when you had all that shit going on with your dad. I was there then. And I’m still here now. And I’ll be here forever if you let me. But I can’t be here to help you if you’re constantly running to someone else for what I’m supposed to give you.” I pause. “Relationships fall apart when a third person is brought into the mix, especially when that person isn’t given any set boundaries. Madilyn has none. And that’s a problem.”
He drapes his arm over my waist and pulls me close. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I lay there, my limbs entangled with his and trying to stifle my
nausea as I wait for him to say something. I know he’s going to have something to say about Dixon, so I’m just biding my time until he does.
“Who was that guy who was here with you yesterday?” Colin asks.
I exhale, grateful that he finally asked the question. Finally addressed the elephant in the room. “He’s my friend. I met him in support group. When I passed out yesterday, he was behind me to make sure I didn’t fall down the stairs, and he was the one who helped me.”
He pulls away a little bit and stares down at me. “I don’t know about how I feel about this guy you met in support group.”
Scoffing, I sit up fractionally. I glare at him and narrow my eyes, waiting for him to apologize. “Dixon isn’t just some guy I met in support group. He’s my friend. He’s a friend who was there when you were too busy hanging out with Mads to take care of me. So because of that, I don’t care how you feel about him to be quite honest.”
There’s a part of me that wants to jump up out of the bed and walk away, because I can’t believe his audacity. Dixon and I haven’t known each other long, but in the short amount of time I have known him, he’s been a decent person to me. I don’t need Colin to become one of those guys who tells me who I can and can’t hang out with. As much as I hate Madilyn, I never told him that he couldn’t hang out with her—just that I refused to deal with her.
“If you have a problem with me being friends with Dixon, too damn bad. I never told you you couldn’t be friends with Mads.” I’m ready to argue if I have to. This is not the type of relationship we’re in.
“It’s not that you’re friends with him, Nickayla. If I’m being totally honest, I hate that he was there for you when I wasn’t. It gives me an idea of how you feel when I turn to Mads instead of you. And I don’t like the feeling,” he says with a sigh. “But more than that, I don’t like that he was in our bedroom.”
“He was taking care of me. Something you should have been doing,” I object.
Almost Everything (Nickayla Quinn Trilogy Book 2) Page 18