29. CHARLOTTE
29
A t the beginning of the year I didn’t know if I was going to make it, but I did.
We did.
My eyes well up when Hunter gets on the stage to take his diploma. His signature smirk shines bright, and I convinced him to trade his snapback for the burgundy cap that came with his gown. He seeks me out, and my heart jumps in my throat when he throws me a wink.
I’m so fucking proud of him. I’m going to miss him like crazy when he moves to LA after the summer, but I’m so proud he’s going with his diploma in his pocket. He graduated even though his entire high school career was overshadowed by neglect while trying to survive his mother’s addiction.
I’m sad for Hunter that she isn’t here, but when I glance over my shoulder, my own mama is on her feet, clapping like the proud mother he never had. The strap of her yellow sundress slips off her shoulder, but she’s looking better than she had in weeks, getting more color in her cheeks every day. It’s the final thing that closes my throat and pushes my tears over the edge.
They roll down with joy as I watch Hunter walk down the steps, locking his gaze with mine. Worry chisels his features sharp and tense, a silent question in his eyes. I quickly shake my head with a smile, and his expression softens, but not until he roughly pushes down my lane, stomping on a few feet along the way.
“This is not your aisle, Mr. Hansen. This is for the graduates from M to R,” I joke, right before he pulls me into his arms. Strong, calloused palms fall onto the small of my back as he studies my face with his hazel-brown eyes that stand out even more against his gown.
“What are they gonna do? Expel me?” I snicker at his joke while he wipes away the moisture on my cheeks with a piece of his gown. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I look up, my hands resting on his arms. “I’m just so fucking proud of you. You graduated.”
His eyes snap shut for a brief moment, a loud exhale flaring his nostrils as he relaxes underneath my touch.
His forehead falls against mine. “ We . We graduated.”
“I know.”
His lips move closer, his hands trailing up until they rest in my neck. With his thumbs on my jaw, he tilts my head, his face hovering above mine.
“Do you know how amazing you are?”
“Stop flirting with me.”
His grin slips through. “Never, babe. Never. ”
With a side-eye, I can feel the kids in our class zooming in on us, and I slip my hands up to lock them behind his neck.
“Everybody is watching,” I whisper against his lips.
“Good. I want everyone to know you’re mine.”
“Didn’t you already tell everyone in our class they couldn’t date me?”
A guilty smirk splits his face. “I did.”
“In that case, I’m pretty sure they already know.”
“Oh, they know.” His breath heats my lips. “But now I want to show them .
He crushes his lips against mine, pressing deep, with an urgency that has me savoring the moment. I breathe in his cologne, knowing I’ll never get enough of the woodsy scent. His tongue pushes inside of me, slowly caressing my own, and I let out a moan. I wish we had more than just a few months, but at the same time, I’m happy I still have the entire summer to do this. To claim him as mine and kiss him whenever I feel like it.
I completely submerge in his energy, melting against his body while the world around me seems to fade away. His kiss becomes more frantic, more demanding, but then suddenly a jerk of his shoulder breaks his lips from mine.
“Glad to see you two are finally done with your bullshit.” Jason smirks, his hand firmly planted on Hunter’s shoulder from the row behind mine. “But you’re holding up the line.”
Both our gazes snap to the stage, and I lock eyes with the principal. The old man holds the microphone in front of his lips, one eyebrow cocked to his hairline in a reprimanding look.
“Charlotte Roux?” His voice echoes through the sound box on the stage, an entertained smile cracking through. “You still want your diploma?”
I hide my smile behind my palm, then nod.
“I think you’re up, babe,” Hunter whispers in my ear, then places another kiss on my neck before I let go of him. I lock eyes with my mother on the way to the stage, and another tear slips down my cheeks. My mother is here, Hunter and I finally took the plunge, and I’m about to graduate. I’m so fucking lucky.
I step onto the stage with pride, shake the principal's hand, and move my tassel to the other side with a grin that reaches my ears. Hollers of my name are shouted by Hunter, Jason, Julie, and my mother, expanding the laughter from my throat before I run down the steps, ready to fly back into Hunter’s arms.
I launch myself at him, and he catches me with ease, his sculpted arms tightening around my waist. “We did it, Charls. ”
“We did it.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Not true, Hunter Hansen. You can do anything you want.”
He lowers me to my feet, dipping his chin. “Right now, I want to kiss you.”
His lips find mine, until Jason booms in his ear. “Pay attention, dickhead. I’m next.”
“I’d rather look at her than you, idiot,” Hunter grunts before we both hoot out a laugh.
We watch our entire class take their diplomas, then cheer with the rest of our classmates as we toss our caps in the air.
“Whooo! It’s summer!” Julie throws her arms around Hunter and I, a bright smile lifting her cheeks.
“Can’t fucking wait!” Jason joins us, wrapping his arms around us all.
“Get the fuck off me. I can’t fucking breathe,” Hunter teases.
“If you can’t breathe, it’s because this blondie took away your ability to function.” Jason bops my nose with his index finger, a taunting expression glinting in his deep blue eyes.
“Yeah, Hunter becomes a fucking smitten little kitten when you’re around,” Julie pitches in.
“Smitten kitten?” Hunter and I echo with a matching incredulous look before we all bark out a full laugh. I glance around my friends, each of them vibrating with the same feeling that’s been growing inside of me in the last week. I haven’t felt this happy in so long. It’s officially summer, and I think it matches well with the phase I’m walking through.
Warm, comfortable, and ready for our next adventures. After this, we will all split up and go our separate ways, but I’m deciding here and now… I’m never saying goodbye to these people. I refuse to. I will do everything in my power to keep them in my life, no matter what challenges I still have to face.
Including Hunter .
My gaze crashes with Hunter’s, his hazel eyes sparkling against mine, our planned separation suddenly feeling less daunting than before. We’re gonna make this work. We still have the entire summer to figure it out, and I know we will find a way.
His smile mirrors mine, our vision blurring out everything around us again, until he snaps his head down, reaching for his phone in his pocket.
He reads the screen, and his face fall a little before he flicks his attention back up, then glances around the three of us. “Sorry, I need to take this.”
“I’m so happy for you and Hunter!” Julie squeezes my arm, but I’m fixating on Hunter’s back, trying to catch parts of his conversation.
“Yeah, me too.” My tone is flat, my heart picking up its pace. I hold my smile, but inside, a voice in my head is screaming. My gut roars with a sinister feeling, tensing my muscles.
“Are you okay, Charlie?” Julie lowers her head to force me to look at her, but I move past her, lasering in on my best friend. Hunter’s posture becomes more defeated with every second, the tightness of his shoulders showing his disagreement about something.
“I’m not sure.” I shake my head.
I know this feeling. I’ve felt it numerous times before, and the last time was when I woke up with Hunter lying next to me.
“Okay, yes. I’ll see you then,” Hunter say, before he finally turns back. His eyes snap to mine with the sharpness of a butcher knife, my heart dropping to the floor. With a guilty expression, he takes a few steps to stand in front of me.
“That was the AFA.” Don’t say it. “They need me to fly to LA tonight.”
My eyes mist over, a lump the size of a fucking bowling ball building in my throat .
“For how long?” I manage to croak out, but one look in his troubled gaze already gives me a clear answer.
“For the rest of the summer.”
And I feel my heart break a little.
“I’m just going to tell them that I need a couple more weeks.” Hunter’s standing on my front lawn, lifting his snapback from his head to run a hand through his hair.
I don’t want to have this conversation. Period. I knew it was inevitable, and the thought alone was chipping away at my heart. But I had convinced myself that we had at least the rest of the summer to figure it all out. That we still had time to make memories and come up with a solution that would work. I was silently praying that my mother was feeling a lot better at the end of the summer and I could go with him. I secretly had been applying to a few universities, with the intent to have options, if by the end of the summer we’d still want a future together.
But the minute he got that phone call, I knew everything I planned was vanishing in front of my eyes. There was no avoiding it. There was no way around it. Our burning flame was bright and short-lived, and I know that the distance will ruin whatever more we wanted to build beyond our deep friendship. It’s too soon to make a definite decision when we really just admitted our feelings five days ago.
We need more time. Time we don’t have.
Sitting on the steps of my front porch, the sun burns down on me with a heat that’s scorching. The warm wood that’s connected with my ass has me glued, unable to move as I look into his warm eyes. Pain is etching through them, as if his heart is being torn in two, and I do my best to keep my emotions in place, knowing I will make him doubt his decision if I shed even a single tear.
I can’t ask him to stay. It’s not fair. So, instead, I push out the words that hurt like razor blades moving down my gullet.
“It was one night, Hunter. We shouldn’t put it all on the line for one night. Not now that you’re going to be halfway across the country half the time.”
“It wasn’t one night! It was more than that, and you know it!”
“You have to go. This is what you’ve been working for.”
“What if I’ve been working for you?” His voice is strained.
“Hunt.” He can’t. I can’t let him do this.
He brings his fist to his lips, closing his eyes. My tongue presses against my cheek to hold in the water that’s pooling behind my own.
“What if I don’t want to do this without you?”
“No. I’m not going to let you do this. You’re going.”
He shakes his head, pressing his lips together. “I just got you.”
“You’ll always have me. Nothing is going to change that.”
“You know what I mean.”
Of course I know what he means. My heart is yelling at me, demanding to stop digging the hole I’m about to fall into. But asking him to stay would be selfish. Giving him a reason to put it all on the line would make him regret it all in the end. I have to have faith that we will find our way. This is not a forever goodbye.
“I think you should focus on fighting right now. That’s your future.”
“What does that mean?” His shrug lacks energy, gutting me.
I suck in a breath of fresh air that stretches my neck with a determined smile, hoping I can at least fool him if I can’t fool myself. “It means that we’ll go back to being best friends.”
“Best friends?” Frustrated, he turns his back to me, looking up at the sky .
“It’s the only option, Hunt,” I continue. “You can’t have any distractions. You can’t be worried about me when you’re in California and I’m still here in North Carolina. At least until my mama gets better. And then we’ll see. Maybe I can go to college in California. You can take me to Disney.”
He turns his head back to me, looking at me with his piercing gaze. It feels like he’s grown in the last week. He’s no longer the boy I met that day at the creek. He’s all man, ready to take control of his life.
“Is this what you want?”
No .
“That's all we can have right now.”
He studies my face while regret gets stamped on my chest, harder and heavier. But I can’t back out. I have to trust it will all work out at some point.
“You know you’re part of my future, right?”
I smile at his words, my heart feeling betrayed by my own actions. “Best friends forever, right?”
He nods, then his arm reaches out to pull me from the steps as he tucks me into his side.
“Best friends forever,” he confirms, pressing a kiss on my hair.
The corner of my mouth rises in a small smile, and I press my cheek against his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“I’m proud of you, Hunt. Claim your place, win that debut fight, show those fuckers you are there to take over, and who knows? Maybe you can ask them if you can fly back home for a few days in a couple of weeks? Or maybe Julie and I can visit when you’re all settled in. It’ll be fun.”
“I’d like that.” His lips land on my hair once more. “Though I’m not sure I won’t kiss you if I get you alone, Charls.” He chuckles, and I quickly slap his chest in response, with a grin splitting my face.
“Stop flirting with me. ”
We’ve been friends since the first day we met, having a comfort between us that makes being friends the easy part of our relationship.
We can do that from whatever place we are in the world...
Right?