Chapter 42
JAHNVI
I t had been two days since we’d come back to Chicago, and it was raining. I usually loved keeping the blinds open during the rain, watching the rain form into puddles and create little rivers along the driveway. But not today. Nope, they were shut.
I didn’t want to see a certain house—a certain window.
So, I read my book in bed to the sound of the rain hitting the roof and window of my room. It was some cheap secondhand romance I had already read before. The guy was the CEO of his company and fell for his assistant. A cliché, but a damn good one at that.
Plink...plink.
I sighed, letting the book fall on my chest as I stared up at my ceiling.
It was so damn easy in books. She fell first, but then he fell harder.
And when she realized he might prioritize work over her, he canceled all his meetings for the whole day and fell on his knees to prove to her she was everything.
That’s the part I was rereading, his speech about dedication.
Plink.
Dedication...how dedicated was Everett when it came to the things he cared about? The answer was simple: Very . So very dedicated, that he would whatever was necessary to stay afloat.
Plink. PLINK.
But what about other things he wanted in life?
What would he do to attain them? Would he ever.
..hurt me to get what he wanted? I just didn’t know.
But I guess that was why he was upset with me.
Ugh, this feeling was the worst. And unhealthy.
He was upset with me, and I couldn’t think of anything else.
I’m growing up–going to college! Am I supposed to crumble every time a guy gets mad at me?
I should be able to prioritize; I should—
PLONK. PLONK. PLONK.
Shit, had the rain turned to hail? I got up from my bed and opened my blinds.
It wasn’t hail.
It was rocks.
I flinched as another one hit my window just as I let the light in again. Looking down to find who was abusing my window, my breath caught in my throat.
Everett.
Soaking wet, with his hair plastered all over his eyes, he dropped the rocks in his hands once he saw me.
His truck was parked next to him, but he was standing outside flinging rocks at my window like he used to when we were in elementary school.
I winced. How long had he been standing out in the rain?
From the state of his jean coat, for a while.
With a grunt, I opened my window and yelled out for the entire neighborhood to hear, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”
Shaking his head to move the hair out of his eyes, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted out, “ARE YOUR PARENTS HOME?”
“NO.”
“GOOD. COME OUT, I WANNA TALK TO YOU.”
I rolled my eyes, “WELL, I DON’T WANNA TALK TO YOU.”
“AND...AND THAT’S OKAY.” He put his hands on his hips. “WE DON’T HAVE TO. BUT I’M CATCHING A COLD OUT HERE, PICKLES, AND I’D LOVE TO COME INSIDE.”
“I’M NOT LETTING YOU IN MY HOUSE!”
“AND I WON’T GO HOME UNTIL I TALK TO YOU,” he yelled, and to emphasize his point he sat down, legs crisscrossed, in the middle of the driveway.
“Fucking lunatic,” I hissed to myself, and left my window to grab an umbrella from one of my desk drawers.
He had officially gone off the rails. What was this even about?
I stuffed my feet into my mom’s rain boots and opened up my red umbrella before I stepped outside.
I know, I know, bad luck. But I hate getting wet.
Everett got up, his smile a meter long when he saw the door open. “Thank god. I don’t think this rain is stopping anytime soon.”
“What do you want?” I said, sniffing and stopping a healthy distance away from him. His smile faltered for a second but returned full force so quickly I thought I imagined it.
“I, um,” he ran back to his truck and opened the passenger door to pull out something purple. “I got you these.”
It took me a second to register what he was holding out to me. I blinked once, twice, three times.
He was holding a bouquet. A beautiful, gorgeous bouquet wrapped in purple paper and with a mix of white, pink, and purple flowers. It looked expensive, and I realized with a lump in my throat that this was the first time someone had ever given me flowers.
I cleared my throat. “Everett, what are you doing?”
“I bought you flowers, Jahnvi. I also want to ask if you’ll come out with me to dinner and a movie this Friday evening. I can pick you up—it’s a date,” he added, as if he wanted to clarify. His outstretched hand was firm as he held out the flowers for me.
“I—”
The rain began to let up, although Everett still had rivulets of water running down his face and dripping from his hair.
“Jahnvi, I will buy you flowers every week. Every day, if that’s what you want.
I will sit with you at lunch, fuck, do you want me to wear your scrunchie around my wrist like we’re in middle school?
Because I gladly will. I don’t care! Anything to prove to you that I care about you, which I didn’t do a good job of showing—and I’m sorry about that!
I’ll do better.” He nodded, taking a step closer to me.
He was still holding the bouqu et out for me.
Looking behind him, I smiled thinly at our neighbor, Ms. Smith, who had ventured out to get the mail out of her shiny new mailbox while staring at us with confused eyes. She didn’t smile back as she walked back inside, door slamming behind her.
Everett chuckled. “Think she’s still mad about the mailbox?”
“Everett!”
“Sorry! A movie and dinner? Friday? Sixish? Oh hell, that means I should’ve had a reservation weeks ago.”
I grabbed the bouquet from him, slowly turning it over in my hands as I spoke. “Do you think I don’t know you love me?”
“I...I think that’s what this is about.
Listen, about Washington.” He gulped. “It was entirely on me. I was selfish; it set me off to think you never understood how I felt about you. That you didn’t get me.
But maybe I haven’t been doing such a great job of showing you, so let me do that for you.
Let me, um, love you the way you deserve. ”
“Okay, but—”
“Let me finish.” He pushed the wet hair out of his eyes again.
His fingers didn’t play with his rings, “In middle school, in eighth grade, you would walk into school and talk to your friends by your locker. You know, by the vending machines? I would drag my friends to get a soda or something every morning and I lost so many bills to that stupid machine I probably could have bought myself a Ferrari. But it was all worth it because I wanted to see your face every morning. You’re so important to me, and it’s.
..fucking scary. I didn’t want to lose you—I didn’t want you to realize you’re worth more and leave me, if I’m completely honest. And you’re smart, so you probably figured all this out.
You said that I never open up to you, and so I am.
There.” He blinked water out of his eyes and crossed his arms.
My heart lurched painfully. He just looked so.
.. him . He wasn’t the popular Everett James, the speech captain Everett James, but just Everett.
He wasn’t standing up tall, with his chest puffed out and a devilishly handsome smile.
He was cold, shivering, hunched, and nervous.
He had put it all aside for me, and that was something he had never done before.
But here he was, doing it for me.
I smiled, putting my umbrella on the ground. Extending the pinkie of my free hand toward him, I said, “Let’s try again? Boyfriend , I promise not to bottle up my emotions and let people cloud my judgment.”
He broke out in a massive grin. “Okay, my girlfriend .”
“Great.”
“So...”
“Yeah?”
“When they say you cried during your final, was it like a few cute tears or was it a full, Pickle-level tantrum?”
“Oh, screw you, you asshole!”
But I was smiling.