Chapter 34
She climbs onto the queen-sized bed in the guest room and I kneel on the area rug right next to her.
“You could’ve told me,” I whisper as I rub my thumb gently over her forehead, where the skin is beginning to turn shades of blue and purple.
“I never wanted you to know,” she replies, looking away from me.
“You mean, you never told me? Even before?”
She shakes her head and closes her eyes, tears rolling sideways across the bridge of her nose.
Even though I’m still a little damp, I climb up onto the bed behind her and wrap all my limbs around her, my entire body engulfing her as she sinks back into me.
Sobs begin to rack her body and I hold her tighter, burying my face in her neck. My chest is aching for some sort of release, but I don’t let myself cry.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay. I love you. I love you. I love you…” I whisper it over and over into her ear. I don’t know how long we lie there for, but I hold her until she stops crying, until her breathing deepens and I’m sure she’s asleep.
These last few weeks she’s felt so strong to me, like my safe place, but right now it feels like without me, she might just crumble away into nothing. So even though my curfew must be approaching or even past, I stay awhile longer.
Eventually I carefully slip my arm out from under her and manage to climb back onto the floor without stirring her awake. I pull the quilt up over her shoulders and give her one last gentle kiss on her forehead before heading out into the hall.
Ryan is sitting at the kitchen counter when I get downstairs, like he’s just been waiting to make sure everything is all right.
“Thanks for letting her crash here,” I tell him, leaning my elbows on the granite.
“Stevie, what happened?” he asks, concern painted across his face.
I let out a sigh.
“Is it okay if I let her tell you herself tomorrow?” I ask, unsure of what exactly she’d want me to tell or keep under wraps.
“Sure, but…” He walks around the counter to stand beside me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reply quickly, but the second I look over at him, tears that I’ve been holding back all evening finally spill over. He pulls me into a hug as I cry into his shirt.
How many times has her mom hurt her?
I think back to my first time meeting Nora at the farm, the bruises on her arm that she brushed off as if they were nothing.
She wasn’t just getting out of Wyatt to be with me. She was getting away from her mom at the same time… and I kept her here.
“Just take care of her, okay?” I ask as I finally pull away, my voice still throaty with tears.
“I will. I promise.” Ryan steps back too, his shirt damp now. “But I have to be at work tomorrow at eleven.”
“Okay. I’ll be here by then,” I tell him.
He opens the front door for me, but it’s still raining cats and dogs.
“Hang on.” He quickly slips on a pair of slides and grabs an umbrella from a tall vase on the floor. “Okay, come on,” he says, putting his arm around me and walking me all the way out to my car.
I don’t stop crying the whole way home. Between the storm and my tears clouding my vision, I’m beyond lucky there are virtually no other vehicles on the roads right now.
I sit in my car out in the driveway for a few minutes, forcing myself to slow my breathing as I wipe my face and blow my nose using a stack of napkins from the glove box. After I get myself together enough, I head inside, the rain soaking clean through me once again.
“It’s a little late there, kiddo.” My mom’s voice startles me as I head in through the door.
“Sorry,” I say as I step to the edge of the entryway. She’s sitting on the couch in the family room reading another romance novel.
“It’s almost midnight. Curfew was at eleven thirty.” She makes a big show of checking her watch.
Could there be anything more trivial right now? Nora just got the shit beat out of her by her own mom, and kicked out of her home forever with no place to go, and my mom is worried about my curfew? But of course I can’t say any of that.
“I lost track of time. Won’t happen again.”
“If I’m going to trust you to be out late with your friends, you need to respect the rules.”
Trust.
Kind of like how I trusted her when she told me she had no idea what happened between us? Kind of like how I trusted her when she let me believe it was all my fault? When she made me feel sorry for her?
As much as I’m dying to call her out on her bullshit, I bite my tongue. I need to get my head on straight and figure this out with Nora. The last thing I need right now is to risk being kicked out too. I can’t believe just over an hour ago I was actually going to trust her, to ask her to help me.
“Sorry, Mom,” I repeat, then clench my jaw shut.
“Oh my God, you’re dripping wet, sweetie,” she replies as she gets up off the couch and comes closer to me. “Go on. Get dried off and get to bed,” she says.
I try my best not to lean away from her as she plants a kiss on my cheek, but honestly, I can barely bring myself to look at her right now.
“You okay?” she asks, planting her hands on my arms and holding me out to look at.
“Just tired and cold,” I reply, shivering under her grip.
“Okay, well, let’s both head up.”
I follow her upstairs and watch her blow me a kiss from her bedroom before closing her door behind her.
I lock mine behind me and let my wet clothes fall onto the wood. Then I pull on a clean pair of sweat pants and a soccer hoodie from my closet before collapsing facedown onto my bed.
I turn my head to the side to look at the heap of clothes on the floor, and despite all the terrible shit that happened today, for just a moment, I relive the earlier part of our night, together in Nora’s bed.
The feeling of her body underneath mine as she unbuttoned my white shirt. Her hands sliding over the backs of my thighs. Her adorable little embarrassed giggle when I complimented her arms.
I look down and realize I’ve been playing with the yellow hair tie on my wrist. The one that Nora told me she gave me the first time we had sex, and I remember that I have the shoe box back in my vent now.
I don’t have to sit here and imagine things.
I can actually look through all our old memories, all our photographs.
I hop out of bed to retrieve it from the vent and flip it open on my bed.
I haven’t looked at any of this since we went through it together in the woods, but when I dump it out, I realize there are a couple of new items. The first is the California travel guide with all its Post-it Notes, and the second is a small black-and-white composition notebook.
I pick it up and sit back against my headboard as I open up the cover to the first page.
June 18
Dear Stevie,
I don’t know if this journal is going to make me feel any better, but I have to talk to someone and the only person I can talk to is you, even if you can’t hear me.
I just got back from the hospital. It’s been six days since the accident and they still have you in an induced coma.
I met your parents. It was weird. It IS weird.
That they know I even exist at all. But even more that they don’t know that you’re everything to me.
Your mom seems really nice. I see why it’d be hard to think about letting her go.
Despite everything, I can tell she really loves you.
Sometimes when they both leave, I sneak into your room for a couple of minutes to hold your hand. I know you’d probably give me shit for being too risky, but you don’t know what it’s like to be here with you… without you.
I so wish it was me in that bed, because it should be. This is all my fault. You didn’t want to do it. You told me you didn’t want to do it. I am so fucking sorry. I’m sorry, Stevie. Please wake up.
I love you,
Nora
I flip to the next page.
June 23
Dear Stevie,
It’s been eleven days. I overheard the doctor today and she said they’re waiting for you to wake up now. I really need…
I stop reading and fan through the pages, each one dated a day after the last. A handwritten letter for every single day of the summer up until that afternoon I went to meet her in the woods, when she told me about each item in the box.
She must have put this in there before she gave it back to me after our campfire.
I flip back to the beginning and read the entire thing, page by page, the words blurring as I constantly have to dry my eyes. Each letter helps me understand exactly what it all felt like for her, especially with everything she was going through at home. Each one breaks my heart a little more.
After the final letter, I turn the page to find a quote that she cut out and taped into the middle of the lined paper.
If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.
—Haruki Murakami
I take a deep breath so I don’t really cry, so my parents don’t hear me, and I hug the notebook against my chest.
I try not to think about the look on Nora’s face when her mom walked in, the way her hand clenched onto my arm, because she was completely terrified. I try not to think about the way her mom grabbed her around the jaw and threw her like a rag doll into the dresser.
I try not to think about how at some point tonight or maybe in the morning, she’s going to wake up, and I won’t be there next to her anymore. She’ll be all alone.
We shouldn’t have to live like this. I don’t want to live like this.
And Nora… she can’t stay here at all. Not now.
In a little over a week Ryan’s parents will be back and he’ll be gone and she’ll have absolutely nowhere to live.
And what am I going to do now that I know the truth about my mom?
Now that I know she doesn’t love me as much as I thought she always did.
As unconditionally. Am I just supposed to go to Bower and pretend it’s what I want because it’s really what she wants?
Should I sacrifice my dreams and my happiness to fix something I didn’t even break?
That’s no way to live my life, and I want to live.
I want to live my life with Nora.
My eyes fall onto the rest of our things on my bed. The stack of Polaroids taken in the woods. My acceptance letter from UCLA. The California travel guide…
I sit bolt upright and gasp in a breath as an idea forms.
A crazy idea.
It percolates in my brain for a few minutes as I sit there, connecting all the dots.
Huh.
A month ago I thought it would be so far out of the realm of possibility, but now… maybe not so much.
There aren’t many certainties in my life right now.
But Nora? I am certain about Nora. I will always be certain about Nora.
Nora can’t stay here and I can’t stay here without Nora.
But also… I don’t want to stay here.
And maybe I don’t have to.