Chapter 17 #2
“I’m not going to call my cake stone-fruit cake, James.”
Harper and I make our way among all the trestle tables with their numbered soups. I look over to Vaughn, with his long hair and biker boots. Susan is walking next to him, playing her bongos, which are attached to a cord hanging around her neck.
“Vaughn’s submitted a soup, too.”
“Which number?”
“No idea. That’s going to be tricky. Let’s go find Mom; she’ll know.”
Harper says hi to Levi and Aaron, who wave, and then asks, “How so?”
“William told her.”
Her eyes grow wide. “What?”
I nod. “He spilled the beans.”
“Incredible.”
“Right?”
We get into line behind Paisley and Knox.
“Hey,” I whisper, poking Paisley in the side. “Which soup is Vaughn’s?”
“No idea. Why?”
“It’s poisoned,” Harper says.
“Oh, no.” Paisley’s eyes grow large. “How do you know?”
Knox ladles himself a bowl of soup from a pot labeled “Number Five.” It looks normal. A fresh green. Broccoli or spinach, I imagine. “A few years back, Vaughn took out most of Aspen. Frog spawn soup.”
“Yuck.”
I stretch my head and look for Mom. She’s standing a few feet away, next to William, rubbing her hands together, and watching every one of Aspen’s residents who comes to try her soup.
I raise my hand and wave to get her attention.
It works. She looks over. I mouth Vaughn’s name and point to the pots.
She smirks and raises three fingers. I blow her a kiss and turn back to my friends with a serious face.
“Don’t touch number three.”
Harper and I take a bowl and inspect the various soups. Every year there are all kinds of recipes, from curious to terrible to extremely good.
“There’s a pig’s ear bubbling in that one,” Paisley says. “Normal or weird?”
“Weird,” Knox and I reply in unison. He eyes the pot warily, then looks at his girlfriend. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you.”
“Not even an Olympic gold would convince me.” She takes a scoop of Mom’s pumpkin soup.
Harper does the same and takes a step to the side so that I can have a bit as well.
But as I’m stepping forward, a snub-nosed, tanned profile from the neighboring pot jumps into my field of vision.
Camila is ladling something into her bowl that doesn’t look like soup but like a lumpy, yellow paste.
She notices me watching and offers me a hesitant smile. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I point at the stuff in her bowl. “You sure you want to eat that?”
She follows my eyes as if she didn’t know what I meant before nodding. “Yeah. It’s just banana pudding.”
From the corner of my eye, I notice Paisley and Knox disappear to say hello to Gwendolyn, who has just wandered over to Levi and Aaron. Seeing her makes everything in me go tense.
Harper seems undecided between staying or leaving me alone with Camila. Eventually, she points to a nearby table. “I’m going to go sit down.”
I nod. It’s a weird situation. The thing with Wyatt shouldn’t affect the relationship I have with his sister. I mean, she’s got nothing to do with the way he acts, and yet… The sight of her makes my heart ache. She looks so much like her brother, it hurts.
“Umm.” Unsure of what to say, I shift my weight from one leg to the other. “You were at my party.”
Camila nods. “Just for a sec.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
Right as I’m wondering what else to say, someone pokes me in the ribs from behind.
I turn and look into Patricia’s watery gray eyes.
The skin above her thin lips wrinkles a little more each year, and she’s twisted her gray curls up into two little knots.
“Aria, dear. If you don’t get a move on, I’m going to give you a swift kick in the behind. ”
I grin. “You better not, Patricia. Just last winter you were telling me how pricey your new hip was.”
“My artificial hip can kiss my ass. I want soup.”
“Such a sweet face, but, wow, what a tongue…” I shake my head. “So vulgar, Patricia, so vulgar.”
“I’ll show you vulgar if you don’t let me get some of that pumpkin soup, pronto!”
Camila presses her lips together so as not to laugh.
With a calming gesture, I sweep my arms and make room for Patricia to trot past me.
My eyes dart back to Camila’s bowl, then I turn to the banana pudding.
“Right, today I want to be open. But if you poison me, you’re going to be covering my ER bill, got it? ”
Camila grunts. “That would require Wyatt getting back out on the ice.” I flinch at the sound of his name coming from her mouth. She notices and shoots me a sympathetic look. “Sorry. It’s just weird, you know? I mean, not mentioning him in front of you because… Well, you know…”
“All good.” I force myself to smile, scoop some banana pudding into my bowl, and strive for the most upright posture I am capable of.
“Nothing you can do about it. And, umm…” I bite my lower lip as we turn away from the soups and begin walking across the meadow.
“What I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time is, you can come see me whenever you want, okay?
When something’s bothering you, when you just want to talk, when you miss your folks, or you need a girlfriend—I’m always there for you, Mila. ”
She runs a fingernail along the lines of the stapled-together cardboard tray in her hands. I can see her swallowing and her nostrils quivering before she looks up. “Thanks.”
I nod. With a smile I watch her turn away and go off to her friends. It’s still on my lips when I turn and move toward Harper.
“Aria.”
I stop. For two long seconds I’m frozen in place, bowl in my hands, Aspen all around me, everything full of life.
I could keep going. Simply ignore him. I mean, why should I talk to him.
Why? Because we kissed? Because that touch knocked down all the protective barriers I’d carefully erected over the last two years?
Maybe. But maybe because I just can’t do anything else. Because my heart wants to. Because I want to see him, have to see him, his beautiful features, those gold-brown eyes, like caramelized sugar, those full lips he put on mine yesterday, setting off an explosion.
I slowly turn around. So slowly that, in the meantime, a hundred years go by.
At least. And then he’s standing right there, right there in front of me, with the softest, sweetest features, as if he had just found his family, his family that has been missing for decades.
He’s wearing a dark-blue down Tommy Hilfiger jacket, his chest quickly moving up and down.
“Thanks,” he says, completely out of breath, completely off the rails even though he’s not doing anything but standing in front of me. “For what you just did.”
It takes me a second to realize he’s referring to Camila because, looking at him, all I can think of is yesterday’s kiss, his chapped hands encircling my face.
A lot of things go through my mind looking at him. I think, How dare you speak to me, here, in front of everyone, in front of our family, because that’s what Aspen is. We’re all one family somehow.
I think, How beautiful you are. How beautiful.
I think, WYATT LOPEZ, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.
You not only broke my heart, no, you tore out everything that was left so brutally because breaking my heart wasn’t enough.
You just accepted that I was bleeding out inside, that I was freezing inside without you, without your love, without what we had.
And everything inside me just turned gray, my emotions shriveled up; we’re talking bombed-out levels after all the mines you laid.
Who knows how long it will take for someone to set off an explosion inside me again, and it’s all because of you!
There’s no more us because you didn’t want us anymore, because you drowned everything in acid and poison, because you fucked everything up, YOU ASSHOLE, and I hate you for it.
I hate every memory, every feeling I associate with you.
Most of all, I hate you. I hate the fact that I love you.
You hear me, you idiot? I love you, and I miss you, and THIS HAS GOT TO STOP.
And what do I say?
“Yeah.”
He slumps his shoulders and takes a step back, as if meaning to go, but then, suddenly, grabs my hand.
My bowl hits the ground. Yellow bits of banana sprinkle the frosty grass.
My mouth opens, and I gasp for breath. Help.
What’s happening? Why am I accepting this?
Why do I want this so badly? And he looks at me with his honey eyes, warm and impulsive, but then his fingers relax. He wants to let go. He wants to go.
Then all of a sudden I’m the one overreacting. Some fuse must’ve blown, I mean, definitely, because now I’m the one grabbing his fingers so hard he can’t pull away.
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS, ARIA, WHY? HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST YOUR MIND?
Wyatt is staring at me, eyes wide, his lips open, and then everything goes quickly. He pulls me to him, just a few steps (seven, to be exact), and suddenly we’re behind the bell tower. Not a soul around. Everyone else is on the other side.
I push my back against the wall of the tower while in front of me there’s Wyatt, breathing heavily. Ice-cold behind, blazing heat in front of me—what a moment, what a mixture, hot and cold, just like our love.
Two breaths go by, and then Wyatt steps closer. His hand lands on the wall to the left of my head, and then his face is right above mine. I recognize the shadow of his lashes on his skin. I recognize the longing in his eyes. I recognize so damn much, and I don’t want to at all.
His lips are just a few millimeters from mine. He is literally taking my breath away. I can’t believe this is happening, that I am letting it happen, his closeness, everything. But I just can’t do anything else. I can’t.
Wyatt makes a stifled sound that robs me of all my willpower. My knees grow weak, and any second I think the ground is going to disappear, and I’m going to fall, simply fall, because I’m in the middle of a high that can’t possibly last any longer. I have to put a stop to this. Right now.
The words are on my lips, and I’m about to say them, to say that he has to stop, that this won’t work, when he raises his other hand.
Slowly, ever so slowly, as if it hurt, his fingers move down the outer edge of my jaw to my chin, and the only thing that makes it over my lips now is a faint whimper.
Our touch is as soft as a whisper, barely perceivable, and yet everything and more. My body is on fire. I am burning. Shivers are running through me, and I can barely catch my breath.
We look at each other… Six years of history together, hot blood in our veins, electrified nerves, our pulses racing.
And then Wyatt kisses me. He kisses me, just like that, here and now, and all I need to do is stop this from going farther.
But all I really do is put my palms to the back of his head and pull him closer because I need him, damn it, I need Wyatt Lopez.
Between two touches he lets out a sigh, as if this moment was the most beautiful and at the same time the most painful thing ever. It’s all far too intense, far too blatant, for both of us, because I feel the exact same way.
This here isn’t like yesterday. This here is hard and passionate and impulsive, and it feels like breathing after being underwater for too long.
And yet it also feels like drowning, like that last first moment you only get to experience once, which is why you want to savor it, take it all in, and never stop.
All his weight presses against my body, and yet it’s not enough. I can feel him getting aroused in exactly the right place, and if it weren’t for our pants, we’d be skin to skin right now, red-hot heat, an inferno, Wyatt and me.
It’s a bittersweet image, and it makes me quiver, makes me whisper his name. The sound of my voice sends a shiver through his body, which is followed by a tormented sound, and I know him so well, inside and out, that I know, I know it was too much for him. Too much for him to bear.
I’m right. The last touch of his lips is velvety soft, barely a breath, before he breaks away from me.
Wyatt leans his forehead against mine. Our eyes are open. We look at each other, breathing heavily, gasping intermittently, incapable of grasping what’s happening, of working through it.
When Wyatt finally speaks, his voice is hoarse and weighed down by the heaviness of the moment. “You are the most beautiful thing my heart has to offer, Aria Moore.”
And then he goes. He goes, and I just keep on standing here, my soul laid bare, out of breath, my lips swollen, my heart pounding, and then it’s gone, all my hope is gone, right here, right now.
Because I’m positive that I will never feel anything like this with anyone but Wyatt.
Because this here isn’t normal. Because this here is something big, something earth-shatteringly, galactically ungraspable.
But it’s just not meant to be. The hopelessness comes in waves. It floods me until nothing’s left of the happiness of his touch.