No Strings

by J. C. Hayden

  “He found me in the library, dragged me out, and basically started screaming at me as soon as we got somewhere private.”

  When I didn’t hear my friend say anything, I glanced over to find Talia with her arms crossed, looking off in the distance at something over my shoulder and smirking.

  “Talia?”

  “Hm?”

  “What’s going on in your head?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing really,” Talia said, shrugging. “Just that Brody Galen is so totally in love with you.”

  “Tal—”

  “Cat, shut up for a second, okay, because I need to say something.” I pressed my lips together and Talia leaned forward, putting her hand on my thigh and giving me a stern look. “You’ve been obsessed with Brody for years. I’ve watched you watch him and I’ve wished so much for you to just make a move, but you haven’t because you’re an idiot.”

  “Thanks—”

  “I’m still talking,” Talia said, holding up her free hand to silence me. “I don’t know for sure because I don’t know him as well, but I’m pretty sure he has a thing for you, too. Cat, you don’t humiliate your supposed friend of four years to defend someone who you see as just a lay. You don’t spend every free moment with that person, and when that person leaves, you certainly don’t hunt them down to yell at them for moving on. If you were just a fuck, he’d be relieved that you were moving on to Callum because he wouldn’t have to worry about you wanting a relationship with him, do you understand?”

  I didn’t say anything and Talia sighed loudly, as I started to recall snatches of the conversation I’d had with Gabe.

  “He’s in love with you, too, you idiot!” Talia said loudly. “And if you don’t find him and force him to admit it, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Don’t throw away something and cause yourself more pain because you’re again in denial.”

  “I’m scared!” I said suddenly. “I’m scared, Talia.” I took a deep breath and told her a bit of what Gabe had told me. I didn’t tell her about Brody’s father being abusive, but I did tell her that his parents didn’t have a good relationship.

  Talia’s face softened into an expression I’d never quite seen before. “Sounds like our boy has some trust issues,” she said quietly. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you.”

  When I told her what Gabe had said about Brody having feelings for me before this thing started, she screeched so loud it made me jump.

  “See?” Talia threw me a look of pure elation. “So, what happens if you confront him, huh? Everything is out in the open—you know about his issues, you know he’s loved you like you’ve loved him. What’s the worst that could happen? You’re already not seeing each other, already devastated, so the worst that could happen is already happening. Catrina.”

  Talia’s face softened again and she scooted closer so she could put her arm around me and pull me in close.

  “You are my best friend in the entire world,” Talia said. “You’re smart and gorgeous and you have a heart that’s bigger than this room, and I’ll tell you another thing—you’re damn brave. Always have been.” Talia thumped her fist on the riser. “So be brave! You want this and you deserve it, and you’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “But I already told him,” my voice broke on the end of my sentence. “And he didn’t care.”

  Talia clenched her jaw. “I think we both know that’s not true, and if it is, then you make him care.”

  “How?”

  “Tell him again, Cat,” Talia said with a big smile. “Tell him when you aren’t fighting and angry. Tell him you love him, and make him care that you said it.”

  ◆◆◆

  It was a hot day. Even though the days were getting warmer, today was even hotter than anyone expected. It was a Saturday and most of finals period was finished, so the campus was heavily populated with students—some laying out by the reservoir, taking in the sun, others playing Frisbee, some wading in the water, while most just sat around, talking and enjoying the warmth and the sunshine in our last days at Klein for the summer or for good.

  I was sitting by a large tree in a less busy area—there was a pair of what seemed like freshmen playing chess and a couple sitting together making eyes at each other, but other than that it was fairly secluded. I was just outside the shade of the tree so the sun was hitting my face as I laid on my back with my arms spread out. The sun and the breeze and the smell of the grass and the reservoir were all fantastic, and I felt so content that I wasn’t even worried about the conversation I’d had with Callum the previous evening after the choir concert.

  When I’d told him I needed to talk, I could tell by the small, sad smile that’d crept on his face when he nodded that he knew what it was we needed to talk about.

  He nodded in understanding as I explained that I adored him, that he was my best friend, but that’s all we would ever be—best friends.

  He said he understood when I said I wished I felt differently, but I didn’t—couldn’t—and that it was best to end things before it messed up our friendship forever.

  He had even chuckled when I said things had sort of escalated and we’d been dating before I’d even realized it.

  “You’re my best friend, Cat,” Callum had said, taking my hand in his. But it wasn’t like when he’d done it in Marmaduke’s. This time it was obvious that it was just a comforting gesture between friends. “You always have been and you always will be.” He smiled. “Since that day I saw you lugging things into your dorm. This is just a small blip in our friendship, and it won’t change anything.”

  I had smiled sadly in his direction. Things would be so easier if I loved him in the same way I loved Brody.

  “I have to admit it was pretty fun to date you even if you didn’t realize it was happening.”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t always been so oblivious, have I?”

  Callum had just laughed and shook his head. “No, definitely not. You’ve just been distracted by…something lately.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I’ll tell you about it soon,” I said quietly. “I’m just not ready to go there yet.”

  “I’ll be here when you are,” Callum had said. “I’ll always be here, no matter what happens.”

  “You’ve always been my best friend, too, Cal.”

  I knew my thoughts from yesterday were true—how much easier everything would be if I could just be in love with Callum. If he was the one I wanted more than anything, if he was the one who’d made me feel so many things. He was kind and gentle and compassionate and patient, and he would be a great boyfriend to anyone. But he just didn’t light me up the way Brody did, he didn’t make me feel more alive than I’d ever felt in my entire life. He didn’t make everything heightened, everything magical, not like Brody could do by just smiling at me.

  I hadn’t spoken to Brody since our argument earlier that week. I’d been busy studying and avoiding him and getting ready for Carmen, the choir concert, my senior recital, and trying to distract myself. We’d come to an impasse—a fork in the road—and there was nothing I could really do anymore. I wasn’t willing to go back to before, to go back to pretending I didn’t have serious feelings for him, to pretending it was just sex, to pretending there were no strings when I felt like I had strings flying out of me from every direction like a marionette. I wasn’t willing to have anything less than I deserved even if that meant I wouldn’t have Brody. I was slowly coming to terms with that, even if it hurt like hell.

  Part of me felt like Talia was right—that I should just tell him again—but the wound from before was still so fresh, so aching, that I didn’t know if I could bear to open it up again so soon.

  I sighed and closed my eyes, letting the sun continue to heat my face. I knew I’d probably be sunburnt tomorrow, but I didn’t mind much. The warmth was exquisite and made me more relaxed than I’d been in weeks.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been basking in the sunlight when I felt the shadow move over me. I let
out a sigh, thinking that clouds had started to roll in, and I opened my eyes slowly.

  He was silhouetted by the sun, looking almost divine as the light haloed him. His hair was nearly white in the brightness and blowing about in the wind. I couldn’t make out his features that well because of the light of the sun behind him, but I saw that he was dressed casually—jeans and a faded black t-shirt—and before I could open my mouth, before I could concentrate on slowing the beat of my rapidly racing heart just at the sight of him, before I could really even take in what I was seeing, he went down to his knees next to me.

  The sudden movement made me jerk up into a seated position almost reflexively, and our gazes locked for a few moments.

  One. He was gorgeous.

  Two. I missed him so much, even when he was right here.

  Three. He was here.

  Not another moment passed before Brody brought his hands up to the sides of my face, caressed his thumb across my cheek—once—and then brought his mouth down to cover mine.

  I froze for not even a full second before I gave into every want and every desire and every wish I’d had over the past month without him and I kissed him back.

  I brought my hands up to grip his forearms and he continued to hold my face in his hands, angling so that he could deepen the kiss, making me gasp into his mouth as I opened for him, wanting more, closer, deeper, closer.

  I couldn’t even think—not about what this meant, not about what was happening, not about who might see, not about the arguments we’d gotten into it or the time we’d spent apart—the only thing my mind had room for was the feel of his tongue sliding gently—passionately, desperately, exquisitely—against mine, the sound of his breaths mingled with mine, the feel of his hands on me—again, finally—and how I never, ever wanted it to end.

  It could have been ten seconds, ten minutes, ten hours, when Brody pulled back. I was so dazed and breathless that time escaped me.

  Brody kept his hands on my face, caressing me as he gazed at me with so much longing in his eyes that it made my heart skip.

  “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I was an idiot and an asshole and an idiot, and I’m so sorry.”

  I huffed a weak laugh and continued to look up at him, words stuck, heart hammering, hands trembling as I held his forearms tighter.

  “I’ve been…” He sighed heavily and sat down on the grass next to me, his hands sliding along with mine until he was holding both of my hands in his lap, his legs crossed as he faced me. “I’ve been miserable these past weeks, Catrina. Ever since that night of the soccer match I’ve been in a fog of anger and misery, and I’ve missed you so much that it physically hurts.”

  I inhaled a shaky breath, my eyes almost comically wide as I watched him bare his soul.

  “I was jealous,” he said, shaking his head. “I saw you after the match with Jeffries, hugging him, congratulating him, and I was so damn jealous I couldn’t see straight. I wanted that to be me with you—I wanted you with me, looking at me like that—and I was so jealous, and so angry that I was jealous because I didn’t want to have those feelings for you. Shit.” He dropped one of my hands to run an agitated hand down his face and then through his hair.

  “I didn’t want to have feelings like this for you,” he said earnestly, leaning forward slightly. “I didn’t want to be jealous. I didn’t want to want you all the time, to just see your face and hear your voice and have that make me so fucking happy. I didn’t want that. You were right,” he said, laughing a bit. He used his now free hand to run it along my bare thigh, like he couldn’t help but touch. “God, you were so right about everything. I told you I didn’t do relationships, that I wanted it to be casual, because I don’t do relationships. I never have.”

  Brody paused, and his face morphed into something that made my heart ache. It was a kind of vulnerability and insecurity I’d never seen him have before.

  “Gabe told me he told you about my parents.”

  I nodded, too afraid of what I would say if I opened my mouth.

  “I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to hurt people—”

  “You don’t,” I said, voice trembling. “You couldn’t.”

  “But I did.”

  When I heard his voice shaking almost as badly as mine, my heart shattered.

  “It took me way too long to realize that by trying so hard not to hurt you, I did anyway.”

  He paused for a moment, and then he gave me a weak smile, and I soared.

  “I want you to know you made everything different, Cat,” Brody said, voice gone quieter. “You became this huge part of my life, and when I wasn’t with you, all I could think about was being with you again, and when I was with you, I would get sad thinking about how eventually I wouldn’t be. Every morning I woke up and I thought about when and how I was going to see you. And every night when we were together I was happier than I can ever remember being, and on the nights we spent apart, I would dream about you. At the time, I think… I don’t know what I thought, honestly, but now…” He smiled again and tilted his head slightly to regard me. “Now I think it was love.”

  I gasped and brought my free hand to my mouth, feeling tears burn the backs of my eyes that I tried desperately to blink away.

  “When you told me you couldn’t see me anymore because you had feelings for me…” He shook his head with a sad little smile on his face. “I was a wreck. I was scared out of my mind because I knew, deep down, that I had those feelings, too, and, God, I just missed you so much. I couldn’t sleep or eat or concentrate on anything for missing you. Gabe forced me to go to the health center at one point because he thought I was coming down with something.” Brody laughed. “Little did he know I was coming down with a case of being so fucking in love with you that I could barely function.”

  “Brody…” I finally managed to breathe.

  He continued to caress my thigh as he held my other hand and he shook his head as he met my eyes. “Hold on,” he said, almost smirking, almost the Brody I knew again. “I still have more I need to say.”

  “I think it was when I saw you at the festival with Jeffries that it really started to sink in… I knew I had to get you back before it was too late.” He looked down at our joined hands as I held my free hand to my chest, trying to slow the beat of my heart somehow. “I don’t really know what I wanted at that point. I think I was still in denial about wanting to be with you for real. I guess—as stupid as it sounds—I think I thought you’d want to go back to being with me casually even if that wasn’t really what I wanted. And then I saw you kiss him.”

  “Brody, it was—”

  He held up a hand and looked up at me again. “As much as it hurt, it was what I needed to see,” he said. “I needed to see that I was really about to lose you for good, that you were going to move on and be with someone else, and that’s when I just snapped. I tried to corner you that entire week, didn’t even know what I was going to say, but when I finally got you, anger replaced the hurt and I just needed to lash out. I was mad.” He shook his head and looked down again. “I was mad that you ended things with me, I was mad that you kissed Jeffries, I was mad that I loved you.”

  Brody stopped for several long moments, and I didn’t—couldn’t—speak. I was so overwhelmed with emotions—happiness, shock, love, longing, joy, shock—that I could barely form a coherent thought.

  He loves me.

  He was here. He was sitting here by the reservoir—the reservoir, where it all started—telling me everything, putting everything out there, giving me his heart, and I loved him so much in that moment that I couldn’t even think.

  “I’m so sorry for the things I said,” Brody said, nearly a whisper. “I was mad that I loved you, and then you said it… You said you loved me, and it made me even crazier because it was exactly what I wanted but also desperately did not want to hear. You loved me and I fucked it all up and couldn’t be honest with you or with myself and I’ve been an idiot, and I’m sorry.”

/>   He finished then. And he was still looking down, looking at our hands joined together, absently caressing my thigh, and he looked… young. I thought he looked even younger than he was as he sat there. He looked young and vulnerable and regretful and perfect.

  After several long moments passed, I finally reached up and tucked a loose strand of his hair—it had grown long over the past couple months—behind his ear, and he looked up at me as I ran my hand down his face, along his neck and down until I rested my hand on his chest.

  “You didn’t fuck it all up,” I said with a smile. Brody smiled in return and the hope in his eyes just about floored me. “God, I think I’ve loved you since before I even realized. That first night we were together, you… all you did was smile at me, and I realized right then that it was you I’d been waiting for.” His smiled slipped and was replaced by a look of wonder. “I told you that night by the reservoir that I wasn’t waiting for any reason, that I wasn’t holding onto my virginity for anything, but I think I was. I think I was waiting for you.”

  “Catrina…”

  “The things you said weren’t okay.”

  “I know,” Brody said quickly.

  “But I forgive you.”

  Brody’s grin was brighter than the sun. “You do?”

  I bit my lip against a smile and nodded. “And I love you.”

  Brody froze for a moment before he launched himself at me, kissing me wildly, making me breathless as we fell against the blanket I was on and continue to laugh and kiss each other, touching anywhere we could like we were making up for lost time.

  Finally, Brody lifted up on his elbow, gazing down at me lying on my back half under him, so happy I thought my chest might explode from it.

  “I want strings.”

  I frowned a bit in confusion. “What?”

  “I want to be with you,” Brody said, reaching up to run his hand through my hair. “With strings, nothing casual about it.”

  I fought a smile. “I thought you didn’t do relationships. I thought they were silly for people still in school.”