Chapter 20 #2
A few classmates bring up my speech, but most of the conversations are just idle chitchat. Pleasantries.
Endings have a way of bringing people together, I suppose.
Once we’re in the kitchen, I head for the island covered with almost every drink imaginable. The temperature in the house is about twenty degrees warmer than outside, making me glad I decided against wearing a jacket. Or more like Cassie refused to let me bring one.
I reach for the stack of plastic cups, at the same time as another hand. When our fingers brush, a shock of electricity shoots up my arm.
I freeze; Caleb doesn’t.
He grabs two cups and hands one to me.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“Stay away from the punch. It’s full of all sorts of shit.”
“Cal—” He’s already walking away.
I end up with soda, although I’m definitely tempted by the bottles of alcohol. I could use some liquid courage.
Somehow, an evening I thought would drag starts to fly by.
My unprecedented popularity lingers. I talk with people I’ve barely exchanged two words with since elementary school.
I dance. I mingle with peers I now consider friends: Shannon, Tina, Eliza, Julie, Joe, Will, and Marcus.
Even Andrew, for all our head-butting at the paper.
And I enjoy it all, because I don’t have to worry about it ending and everything returning to what used to be normal.
Everything is ending anyway.
Eventually, the night winds down. The crowd thins and the music stops. I have no idea what time it is, but the exhaustion I’m experiencing assures me it’s a lot later than I usually stay up.
Not that that’s saying much.
Cassie is almost finished with her soda. She’s close to being ready to leave, and that’s terrifying.
Because there’s one thing I need to do. One thing I can’t not do. One thing I’ve put off until the last minute.
Until the last minute became now.
“You about ready to go?” Cassie asks me, yawning.
I’m so, so tempted to just nod. To run out of here. But the only thing that’s scarier than doing this is living with the regret of not doing it.
“Yeah,” I respond. “Just give me one minute.”
I purposefully lost track of him earlier, but it’s not hard to find him now. A usual crowd is nearby, hovering around the popular crowd like bees buzzing around honey.
Cassie follows my gaze, and hers turns knowing.
I don’t enjoy being the center of attention. And I hate being the center of attention when I’m doing something that could completely backfire.
As I approach Caleb, people are already staring. If it involves Caleb, it attracts attention. And between his dare at the lake and our dance at prom, I’m sure there’s some gossip about us.
But this isn’t about anyone else. Over and over again, Caleb has put himself out there. In response, I’ve mostly been too shocked to really react.
I want him to know those moments mattered to me, though. That he matters to me. Since words seem to fail me around him, I’m relying on actions.
He sees me coming. He’s wearing a baseball cap, with the brim pulled low, and it shields most of his face. But I note how his shoulders tense when I push past Colt and enter their little circle. Probably a bad sign.
His voice is wary when he speaks, expecting I intend to stop and exchange syllables.
“Lenn—”
I don’t give him a chance to finish saying my name.
I knock his cap upwards, and then I kiss him. Really kiss him. The way I would if we were alone, rather than surrounded by a crowd. The way he kissed me next to the campfire. And I pour everything I am into it. My hopes. My fears. My dreams.
Because somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, while I didn’t know to stop it, Caleb Winters became all those things to me.
Someone I hoped to see. Became afraid to lose.
Dreamed about. He mixed with everything else that makes me Lennon Matthews, and is now so knotted with the rest of me I don’t know how to untangle him.
I savor the soft friction of his lips against mine until I can’t anymore.
Until the pleasure turns to pain.
Until I start to worry I might do something even stupider than kiss him. Like beg him to stay.
I pull away and look up into those hauntingly blue eyes, filled with heat and confusion.
“Don’t get lost,” I whisper, before I turn to walk away.
He grabs my arm before I take a step, spinning me back around to face him. Thankfully, he doesn’t look mad about the kiss. “I’m coming back, Lennon. This isn’t goodbye.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Caleb.”
“I’m not.” Fierceness fills his expression. “I mean it.”
I nod once, but I don’t let myself believe it. “Goodbye, Winters.”
He knows I don’t believe him. It’s obvious in the long, frustrated breath he blows out before he nods back. “See you, Matthews.”
Cassie doesn’t say much on the drive home. We’re both tired after a long, draining day, and she knows me well enough by now to get that if I wanted to discuss what happened with Caleb, I would bring it up myself.
She parks in front of the farmhouse, and I’m surprised to see the porch light is on. Even more surprising, Gramps is sitting in one of the rocking chairs. He’s usually asleep before me, which makes this about six hours past his usual bedtime. It’s almost three.
I say goodbye to Cassie and climb out of the SUV, back into the humid night.
“You’re up late, old man,” I tease, climbing the rickety front steps and leaning against the porch baluster.
“You’re out late, young lady,” Gramps shoots back with a wink.
“Yeah… I guess so.” I scuff the toe of my sneaker along some of the peeling paint coating the floorboards. “Had more people to say goodbye to than I realized.”
More like it took me four hours to muster the courage to say goodbye to one.
“Ah,” Gramps responds knowingly. He uses the arms of the old rocking chair to push himself upright, and then comes and stands next to me. The comforting weight of his arm settles across my shoulders. “People have a tendency to come back home, Lennie.”
“Like birds?” I quip, trying to lighten the mood and lessen his worries. I know Gramps still feels guilty about college.
“Or baseball players,” Gramps responds. “It’s the whole point of the game, after all.”
An unexpected lump appears in my throat as I look away from the sage, shrewd eyes that are the same hue as mine to survey the farm I’ve grown up on.
“We’ll see,” I reply softly.
“Good night, Lennie.” Gramps hands me a pamphlet. It’s the graduation program from the ceremony. “Thought you might want to take a look at that.”
“I already did.” Long enough to see I’m the only senior staying in Landry, at least.
“You saw where the Winters boy is going to school then?”
Reluctantly, I shake my head. I skipped over his name on purpose. Honestly, I’d rather not know. Then I can’t picture him someplace else.
“You should look,” Gramps tells me.
The door shuts behind him as he heads inside.
I stare out into the darkness for a minute, then sigh and open the program. Caleb’s at the end of the list, since it’s alphabetical.
Caleb Winters. Clarkson University.
I pull in a surprised breath.
Oakmont College is in California.
But Clarkson?
Clarkson is in Kentucky.