12. Eli
12
ELI
S he cared. Haley cared about me.
She had to. Otherwise, she wouldn’t reach out and make a move to help me clean up my cuts. They ceased stinging. The warmth of my blood didn’t register from the open scrapes. After walking all the way back to campus from the restaurant in a crappy attempt at cooling down after fighting my dad, I ended up freezing. The walk did me good. I no longer felt gripped by rage.
The second I saw the lights of the library, I figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to come inside to warm up for a minute. Frostbite wouldn’t help me any.
I hadn’t counted on seeing her here. After my failed approach in the food court, I hadn’t figured out another strategy to get near her or start getting her to warm up to me. This library—any of them—was a good location to find her. She was often near books, either studying or reading for fun. Yet, I hadn’t come here with the purpose of seeking her out.
Now that I had, I realized my mistake from earlier.
I thought that I could get her to lighten up around me and warm up to me if I stood up for her and helped her out. If I came to her defense.
That didn’t work. She was too guarded and cautious, too skeptical to trust my intentions. And she was right to be like that after how crappy I’d been toward her for years.
What seemed to crack her was being in need of her help.
Even though she still regarded me with caution, eyeing me like she expected me to spring up like a cobra and snap and bite, she was helping me. I didn’t need a nurse. Being pampered with her delicate fingers wiping away the blood on my knuckles wouldn’t make a difference in whether I’d live or not. Of course, I would. A few bruises and scrapes weren’t going to kill me.
It was the thought that counted.
It was the way she could risk her reservations and concerns about me and want to help anyway.
Telling her that she didn’t care about me was a dumb thing to say. She obviously did if she was showing me her patience and reluctant desire to tend to my injuries, the little that she could with water and a tissue.
She cares.
And that made me feel even worse than I did before I walked in here.
Stuck in the pain of being unloved, I was sadder and more wounded in my heart than ever before. Every criticism for my shortcomings, every nagging lecture about why I couldn’t be smarter, every time that bastard told me I was being disrespectful, as if I were wrong not to care about the parents who so clearly didn’t love me. It all built up, every hit stacking like boulders until I felt so fucking weighed down I didn’t know why I bothered to get up and keep going.
That was where my head was when I entered the library for some warmth before walking the rest of the way back to my dorm.
Finding Haley here and letting her care for me somehow made it even worse.
Because she didn’t care—not about me . She cared to the fundamental level of not wanting to see someone in pain, as though I were a stray animal that needed rescuing. She cared in the vein of having too big of a heart to let someone physically suffer without trying to assist. After all this time, she was still the bleeding-heart empath.
That was why she was doing this.
That was it.
It wasn’t because she cared about me . I was no closer to being loved or desired or even liked for who I was.
If she cared, she’d admit it. But as I watched her wipe the blood away, refusing to make eye contact, I knew no such admission would be coming from her lips. She didn’t care about me. She was just a good person. And I wished that could’ve made me rethink shoving her away all those years ago.
“Come here,” she said, not reacting to how I watched her. Gesturing for me to come closer and face her more, she sat up straighter and rewet the tissue to wipe at my face.
“It’s fine.”
“You’re bleeding here and there.” She put her fingertips on my face, turning it slightly.
“But it’s not dripping onto your precious books.”
“They’re not my books. They’re for everyone.” She gently dabbed at the scrape on my brow.
Under the soft sensation of her smooth fingertips and within the sphere of her compassion—that I didn’t deserve—I felt drawn toward her. She represented so much goodness, such genuine care and kind wishes, that I gravitated to her more and more.
I’d never realized how goddamn starving I was for attention, the kind that wasn’t because I was popular or charming or dedicated to my sport. With her focused on me like this, I wanted to bask in her goodness.
“They could even be for you,” she said wryly, “should you plan to complete Blume’s next assignment for Brit Lit.”
I peered at her, feeling like I was seeing her in a new light after all this time. I wasn’t trying to impress her, and even if I were, like I'd foolishly tried to do at the food court, she wouldn’t be swayed. Without anyone around to see whether I was the cool jock, I was just me . It was just me and her.
Which made it somehow more fun as a distraction to talk to her like this. Alone. No pretenses.
“What did he want with you after class that day?”
She shot me a look. “Stupid shit.”
“Was he trying to hit on you?”
She narrowed her eyes, scowling. “You know why he wanted to talk to me.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”
“You and Preston accused me of cheating. Again.”
I furrowed my brow, then winced when it made my skin pull.
“Stop it. You’re making it bleed more.”
“I didn’t accuse you of cheating.”
“That time,” she deadpanned.
Fine. She had me there. I’d said some shit a couple of years ago in a class, but it wasn’t like anyone would believe my talking crap about her like that. Everyone could see she was just smart.
“All right. So you didn’t get me in trouble that time. Preston did.” Her face remained stony, showing how her opinion of that punk mirrored mine.
“And Blume didn’t try to cop a feel or?—”
She lowered her hand and frowned at me. “No. Why is that the first assumption you make?”
“Because he’s always calling you into his office. It could look like he’s got a thing for you.”
She resumed wiping my scrape. “He calls you into his office a lot too, for late papers.”
While it was bold of her to fight back and I relished the challenge, I wouldn’t be deterred from the point I was trying to make. The more I focused on her, the less I’d think about myself. “But he’s always watching you, too.”
“Then he’s a pervy freak who looks at women. I don’t know. If you and Preston and everyone else would stop making up baseless lies about me, then he wouldn’t single me out at all.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” She wasn’t getting an apology out of me. That would require my owning up to why I’d bullied her and tried to keep her at arm’s length. And it was simple—when I craved love, I acted out to be popular and well-liked, and that included casting her out because no one in Marsten cared for the Feldstone family.
“Maybe Blume thinks you’d be easy because of?—”
“My mom? My sister?” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not.”
I smile despite my annoyance. “Yeah. I can see that. You’re difficult.”
“Says the idiot who got in a fight tonight. I’d argue that you’re more difficult than me.”
“Is it a competition now?” I asked as she gripped my chin and paid attention to my mouth.
“No.” Feeling her press the wet tissue to the cut on my lip was more intimate. Just having her attention like this triggered me into wondering how else she could soothe that stinging skin. How else I could…
“I wouldn’t waste my time trying to decide who is more difficult,” she said plainly.
“Because you wouldn’t want to waste any time on me?” I asked.
She stopped, staring me down. I couldn’t escape the thought that she was searching my face for something, too inquisitive and curious, but she lowered her gaze again. I wasn’t sure what was worse, the intense burn of her green stare on my eyes, so probing, or her focus on my mouth so that I wanted to…
I sighed.
“I am wasting my time on you right now,” she admitted.
“You didn’t have time for me earlier today. In the food court.”
“Because I’m not that stupid,” she quipped. “You think you’ll fool me with a sudden urge to stand up for me? After years of trying to bully me and make my life hell? Yeah, right.”
“People can change.” Although, she hadn’t. She still had a good heart despite all the bullying.
“Sure. Of course, they can.” She sat back and dropped the tissue on the table. “But I doubt you would.”
“Isn’t that kind of harsh?” I asked, worrying she’d never bend and warm up to me. The hopes of getting her to that dance seemed to fade. I was fucked if she couldn’t ease up on me.
“No, not really.” She began getting her things together and stowing them in her bag. “It’s called self-preservation. I won’t let you hurt me, not anymore.”
“What if I don’t want to hurt you anymore?”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. And I’m supposed to believe this miracle of a one-eighty is just natural?”
“People can change,” I reminded her.
She looked me dead in the eye. “Fine. Then change. It’s still too little, too late.” With her things in her bag, she stood to put her coat on.
“That’s not true.” I got to my feet, not wanting her to leave yet. This had to be progress. We were… talking. I wasn’t putting on an act. She was almost willing to listen. As rocky as it was, this was a civil conversation.
“It is.” She tugged on her coat, adjusting it to cover her body completely. “Because I’m too close to getting out of here to care. Come May, after graduation, I’m gone.”
“Me too.” I couldn’t wait until I could find a job somewhere far from my parents.
“Good for you.” She slung her bag on. “But it won’t change the fact that good riddance is all I’ll have for you then.”
She picked up both stacks of books, piling them into one. I put my hand on the top one to pause her from walking off and returning them to the shelves. “But until then?” I asked.
Desperation clung to my words, but I hoped she didn’t detect it.
I had to get her to warm up to me so she’d go to that dance. We had to become something like friends to pull that off. She made it sound like she had a countdown started for when I’d be out of her life for good.
I was desperate to pull off Preston’s dare.
But I hated the possibility that I was desperate for her to not cut me out of her life either. Not yet. She’d always been there in the background, and it felt weird, the idea that one day, she wouldn’t be.
“Until then, what?” she asked.
“We could be…” I gestured at the table, where we’d both let down our guard a bit. “We could be civil.”
She looked me up and down. “I’m not going to hold my breath and get my hopes up high.” With a quick step back, she made me drop my hand from her books. “I’m not sure you know how to be anything but a bully.”
Wanna bet?
I didn’t have a choice.
I had to convince her to give me a chance. I needed her to open up to me.
I smiled, watching her walk away.
As she left me there standing and staring after her, I wondered if she’d avoid me even more now.
If she did… I’d only try harder. Now that I’d gotten a taste of what it could be like without anyone judging or having to impress others or look cool, I wanted more of Haley’s affection.
Even if she only offered it because she was too good not to.
After how I’d bullied her for so long, that was more than I would ever deserve.