Chapter 19 #2
“He’s got visitors,” Wyatt interrupts. “His relatives showed up and they’re staying for a while because of the, umm, the…”
“Season,” Camila says. “They want to stay longer so Knox can show them how to snowboard.”
Wyatt and Camila nod in unison.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Give him a call,” Wyatt says. “He’ll confirm.”
“No, all good.” I lower my eyes and pretend to look through the reservations. In truth, I’m simply holding my breath and trying not to black out. I mean, destiny sure seems to be fucking with me at this very moment, right? I mean, this is an absolute catastrophe. On multiple levels.
One: Wyatt’s my ex.
Two: Wyatt cheated on me.
Three: I still love him even though I really, really shouldn’t.
Four: Paxton and I are just starting to get to know each other, and I actually like him. I can actually feel something inside that I hadn’t thought would ever show up again. Even though all we’re doing is writing.
Five: If Wyatt’s around, it’ll be impossible to engage with Paxton.
Six, and worst of all: We actually have a room free. Which shouldn’t be the case, as it’s high season and everyone knows that something like that in Aspen just doesn’t happen. I mean, this is ASPEN IN HIGH SEASON, the most popular ski area in the Rockies, and we have a room free.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, put a red mark on your calendars. Today is one of those days, Maria, in room twelve—that can’t be right, that number, our number? No, I don’t want to believe it. She had to interrupt her vacation. This just isn’t happening.
“Aria?” Camila sounds concerned. “Everything okay?”
Suddenly I realize that I’ve been staring into the reservation book for over a minute. My heart is pounding against my ribs when I look up and meet Wyatt’s gaze. It stings, but I don’t want to look away. My wrists hurt from leaning against the desk, so I desperately try to adopt an upright posture.
Trembling, I exhale. “Sorry, we don’t have anything free. But I can call around and see what can be done.”
Wyatt doesn’t budge. He just keeps on standing there staring at me, no smile, no disappointment on his face. He assumed I would say that.
“You know just as well as I do that everything’s going to be booked out, Ari.”
Does he have to use my old nickname? My stomach’s beginning to tingle and that’s not good.
To distract myself, I grab a pen and quickly start clicking it in and out, in and out. Oh my God, can my head please stop thinking about sex?
“We don’t have anything free,” I repeat. My throat is scratchy. “You can’t stay.”
Now a smile appears on Wyatt’s face. What’s so funny? His eyes skirt across my face, my shoulders, my breasts. I squirm beneath his gaze. From second to second I can feel myself growing warmer. I can feel sweat beginning to form on my neck.
“Your hair’s grown long,” he says. I look down at myself, at the dark tips of my ponytail resting on the page of the reservation book, spreading out like black ink.
“That can happen in two years.”
Camila’s eyes dart from me to Wyatt. She moves restlessly, like she’s got lobsters in her pants, and keeps on looking toward the door. “Wyatt, come on…”
“Two years… Feels like time’s stood still.”
I hold his gaze. “Not for me.”
He drops his big hockey bag to the floor. It lands with a thud as he takes one, two, three steps forward. I hold my breath. Wyatt’s face comes closer. He lays his big hands on the desk, stretches out his arms, and bends down toward me. His lips brush my ear as he tilts his head.
“Liar,” he whispers.
Goose bumps break out across my arms. I’d love to say something, something to make him unsure of himself, to puncture his damn self-assurance, but the truth is I can hardly breathe. My fingertips are reacting to the missing oxygen by sending me a warning signal. They start to tingle.
Wyatt’s lips move down my jawline before turning back away. The softest of caresses, almost as good as none, but at the same time it’s all far, far too much and I can’t stop myself from gasping.
Hearing it, his eyes blaze, and that makes me so incredibly angry because he just loves winning, and it’s nothing to him. It’s just fun, it excites him, even though he hurt me so bad.
“You like that, huh?” My voice begins to quake. “To see what kind of power you have over me?”
Wyatt’s face loses all its color. His grin is gone. The fire in his eyes went out. They’re a cheerless amber now, no honey at all, just a dull brown, no gold.
“I’m just a fucking game you want to win.”
“Aria, no.”
He sees that I can’t do it anymore. He sees that I’m going to break out in tears at any moment and show him how much I’m suffering.
He wipes his face as if he had to keep from crying himself.
“Fuck,” he says quietly, hoarsely, and moves to come around the side of the desk to hold me or touch me or run a hand through my hair like he did in the past. Sssh, he’d say, all good.
I’m here. We’re together. All the heart needs is us.
But before he can do that, before he can give me another reason to miss him, Camila grabs his wrist.
He attempts to shake her off, but his sister hisses and pulls him back. “Wyatt. Leave her be.”
Yeah, Wyatt, leave me be.
Leave me be forever.
Never leave me ever again.
For a few moments he stands between the desk and Camila, staring at me.
There is so much pain in his eyes, so much bare sadness, that I almost believe he misses me, too.
But then his shoulders collapse, and he gives up.
He puts both hands to his head, his palms on his hat, and closes his eyes, as if he could hide from the here and now, from all the pain and these terrible stabs in the heart.
But, sorry, Wyatt, life doesn’t work that way.
You’ve got to keep your eyes open. Come on, take a look at yourself, look at what you’ve done, and take a look at what you did to us.
You destroyed us.
When he does, I see tears. Maybe for just a second, maybe just a tenth of a millisecond, but too there, too meaningful for me to miss.
Then the two of them leave. I wait until the door closes, then count to four, seven, nine, eleven, until the tension I’ve been holding gives way and I collapse.
I take a deep breath, but nothing arrives.
My limbs are heavy and weak at the same time, like I’m feverish.
I lean my head against the wall, pull up my legs, and turn to the ceiling.
“What do you think, Aria?” My mother is standing in the stone archway looking down at me. “You ready to talk about it now?”
I nod. Tears are streaming down my face.
Mom comes over. She groans as she kneels down, but other than that she doesn’t let on that I’m demanding everything of her right now. She gives me her hand, and I take it. My safe harbor, my nightlight.
“Come here, sweetheart. Come here.”
I struggle to get to my feet. I’m wobbly, real wobbly, but from the corner of my eye notice Mom put the Be Right Back card on the counter. The walk to my room feels like a never-ending marathon. Stairs. Hall. Connecting door. Hall. Stairs. Bed.
The mattress bounces as I curl up on it and bury my face in my favorite pillow. I’m only vaguely aware of Mom running her hand through my tear-streaked hair. She is panting with the effort it took to climb the stairs to my room.
“You simply took off,” I say, my voice subdued. “You left me alone.”
“Aria,” she says gently. “Sweetheart, you’re not a kid anymore.”
“But you’re my mother.”
“Yeah. And I will protect you my whole life long whenever I have to. But Wyatt and you…” She takes a long pause. “I can’t help you with that.”
I turn onto my side and look at her. “What should I do, Mom? When does it stop hurting so bad?”
A sad smile appears on her face. She catches one of my tears with her thumb. “When you begin to accept it.”
“Accept what?”
“That it’s over.” Seeing my expression, she sighs. “That’s what I thought.”
“What?”
“It’s not over for you, is it?”
The realization comes slowly, creeping up my fingertips all the way to my heart.
“No,” I say, and that one single word almost kills me.
My mother doesn’t respond. Then she leans back and runs a finger along the line of string lights wrapped around the foot of my bed.
“Love is powerful, Aria, and that’s why it can hurt.
It can hurt so damn much. And I wish I could take that pain away from you somehow, but I can’t.
You alone can decide whether it should stop or not. Not Wyatt, not me, just you.”
“I want it to stop.” I slowly sit up and scoot back until I’m against the slope of the roof. “But how am I supposed to do that? I mean, how does that work, forgetting someone?”
“You said you were getting to know this Paxton guy. Do you like him?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he give you butterflies?”
“Absolutely.”
Mom’s eyes come to rest on a can of baked beans before she looks back at me and her expression softens.
“That’s a good start, Aria. That’s the right way.
Concentrate on him. Let yourself be open to that.
Wyatt won’t disappear from your life overnight.
You can’t just cut out a piece of your heart; that’s impossible.
But when you start to fall for someone again, when you start to live again, at some point, everything gets better. ”
“You think?”
Mom smiles. “Absolutely.” She stands up and nudges my foot. “Take the day off. Study a bit. Reflect a bit. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, Mom.”
Once she’s gone, I turn onto my stomach and close my eyes.
I’m drained. A leaden feeling of fatigue hangs over me, but I don’t want to sleep because I one hundred percent know that I’ll dream about Wyatt, and I can’t handle that right now.
So I pull my phone out of my pocket and write Paxton.
I want this feeling in my chest to go away so bad.
I want to be able to look at Wyatt and not feel a thing so bad!
I was wrong. Chocolate brownies for breakfast are NO GUARANTEE that the day’s going to go well.
One minute later my phone vibrates.