10. Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Riley
M y fingers traced over the rough paper with Matt’s number scribbled in his messy writing while I waited on Emery in the car. My brain and heart were battling to decide what I should do. My heart knew that I needed to give him a chance. I wanted to get to know him better and see where things could go. I could be missing out on something special just because I was scared.
My brain was being a bitch. I had been here before and it always ended in heartbreak, even when I thought that time might be different. All those times before I thought I might be missing out on something special.
He would get tired of me once he got to know me.
He would get tired of never feeling like I loved him.
He would think all my quirks were silly .
The door slammed as Emery climbed into the driver’s seat. “Look, I know you’re mad at me, but I had to do it. You’ve been all weird and quiet since you went on that date with him. You didn’t see how the two of you looked at that festival.” She knocked her fist lightly on the side of my head to make me look at her. “Please get out of your head.”
I slammed my head back against the headrest. “I’m so scared, Em.”
“I know you are, Ri. I would be too if I was you. Just because you’re scared doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. If anyone has ever been good at doing things that scare them, it’s you.” She put the key in the ignition but didn’t start the car.
I snorted. “You say that like I’m scared of everything.”
“I’m not taking that bait,” she said.
“What do you think about him?”
She started the car and fastened her seat belt. Music blared from the radio loud enough that everyone in the parking lot could probably hear it. I leaned forward and turned the volume down a little so I could hear her answer. “The way he looks at you makes me nauseous. I wish I had someone that looked at me like that.”
I fastened my seat belt. “Is that a good thing?”
She laughed as she threw the car in reverse. “Is that a good thing, she asks,” Emery muttered with an eyeroll. “God, Ri, I can’t believe you. It’s the best thing. My annoying baby sister senses are telling me he’s it. He’s the first person you’ve dated that I can picture as being part of the family.”
“I don’t feel ready. Getting my heart broken by him feels inevitable.”
She slammed the car back into park and tore off her sunglasses. “We’re not doing this shit,” she said, shaking her sunglasses in my face. “All you’re doing right now is breaking your own heart before he has the chance. I want you to be happy. You deserve someone that is going to give you the world and that man is the one that is going to do it. Stop being mean to my sister.”
My arms crossed right over my chest and leaned away from her. The car felt too small all of the sudden. “I don’t want the world.”
“What do you want?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you better figure it out. I know for a fact he would wait for you but that doesn’t mean you should make him.”
I leaned my head against the passenger side door. “Can we just go? I have a lot I need to do for my classroom.”
She put on her sunglasses, shifted into reverse, and backed out of the parking space. She was fuming more than I was. I don’t know what she thought she had the right to be angry about. “I’ll drop you off at your school but you’re going to have to call someone else to come pick you up.” She gestured toward the paper still clutched in my hand. “You shouldn’t have any problem finding someone. I had something come up.”
The most annoying thing about my sister was that when she said she was going to do something she did exactly that. The moment I was out of her car in front of Pine Elementary School she peeled out of the parking lot. I took a deep breath and opened a new text message on my phone.
Riley
Hi, it’s Riley.
Do you want to help me with my classroom?
Matt
I would be happy to help.
I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about what happened that night. Is that okay?
Whatever you’re comfortable with.
Do I get to help decorate the door? I always wanted to do that.
I would like that. ??
***
Matt
“I’m glad your sister likes me enough to keep forcing us together, but her methods are getting a little extreme,” I said. The blue butcher paper felt damp under my sweaty palms. There would be two perfect hand prints left behind once I lifted my hands away. My whole body prickled with nervous sweat, had been since I saw her run away from me in the school hallway. The jittery feeling I had all day from starting the new job had been magnified by her.
I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw that familiar wild hair in the crowd of teachers. Her sister turned around and lifted her hand in a low wave hidden at her side from Riley. It was the moment I had been hoping for all summer. She wasn’t just a wild dream created by loneliness at the cabin. Our date had been real. Now, against all odds, she was right in front of me. Like a man possessed I had sprinted from the parking lot, pushing my way through the groups socializing to catch up to her.
She hadn’t been as excited to see me again, hadn’t looked at me the same way she had outside the cafe in Copper Ridge. For a brief moment I was sure I had imagined it all after all until her sister Emery blamed it on her being nervous and assured me that Riley had enjoyed our date. “Give me some time and I’ll make sure she comes around,” she’d told me with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Riley smoothed tape over the top on the backside of the door and peeked at me through the window. “Once Emery has her mind set on something nothing will get in her way, even if it’s something she has no business interfering with.”
“Was she really going to leave you stranded here?” I asked. I bent down enough to look at her through the window. Her breath caught as our eyes met, the sight sending a fresh wave of jitters through me. During our date I thought we had felt so connected, but now that we were back in our everyday lives the realization that we were strangers felt like a bucket of ice water. Her small reactions felt like a foreign language I had learned enough of to pass a test only to forget right after.
She shrugged shoulders, “I don’t think she would have. I probably could have waited a couple hours and then told her you couldn’t come help me.” Her eyes dropped to the tape in her hands. She tore a few more pieces off and added them to the back of the door with slow movements.
“Then why did you ask me to come here?” My sweaty hands swiped over the fabric of my jeans without thinking and then I dropped to my knees to feed the bottom of the butcher paper under the bottom of the door. The paper kept catching on the edge of the door and rolling up. My hands were damp again and my fingers struggled to unroll the paper. The corner tore off and stuck to my palm.
Riley knelt on the other side of the door. Her fingers caught the edge of the paper I managed to feed through and pulled it tight against wood. The only sounds were my racing heart pounding in my ears and the sound of tape being pulled from the roll slowly. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Matt,” Riley broke the silence. A relieved breath rushed out of me from hearing my own uncertainty reflected in her voice.
I poked my head around the door. “Riley, we’re going to have to talk about it at some point.” Riley was still kneeling on the floor, twisting a piece of tape around her fingers. The look on her face brought me back to our last moments together at the overlook. I tried to think through anything I could say that wouldn’t scare her.
“I know. It’s just, I’m going to screw it all up. I’m scared and confused. You deserve so much better.” She stopped twisting the tape and started rolling it between her fingers until it was a tight ball.
I shook my head and moved around the door until I was by her side. I settled on the floor next to her, leaving enough space between us that we weren’t touching. She let me slip the tape dispenser from her hands and I went to work on securing the door. With the paper secured I turned back to her, reaching slowly toward her chin like I was trying not to startle a nervous animal. She didn’t flinch once my hand met her hot skin, so I lifted her face until our eyes met. “Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need. Riley, if you’ll let me, I’ll do everything I can to give you the world.” I fought the urge to cringe at myself, forcing a smile instead. Good job, Matt, that definitely wasn’t too much. I dropped my hand away from her.
She had told me that day that she didn’t want me to ever stop touching her. Did she still feel that way? I did. My arms itched with the need to wrap them around her, to smooth my fingers through her curls. Her hair was twisted up in the same clip she wore at the festival, wild strands escaping the same way they had that night.
She laughed, a small sound that was more nervous than anything, and shook her head. “We barely even know each other.”
I stood and held out a hand to help her up. “Let’s get to know each other.” It was a good starting place, getting to know each other in this new environment. As much as I wanted the woman I met in June back, it was clear that we were both different from the personas we’d worn that day. I couldn’t wait to see who she was here without the safety nets.
She took my hand, letting me pull her up. Her hands smoothed over her pale pink linen blouse as she looked around her classroom. To me it looked like everything was set up, but I was used to a type of room that didn’t need much. The walls were covered in an assortment of colorful posters, most of which featured The Magic School Bus. The tables all had name tags placed in front of each seat along what looked like a welcome goodie bag. A bean bag chair was tucked in one corner with a short bookshelf on each side. From the wall at the back of the classroom to her desk at the front everything looked like a picture perfect classroom.
Riley bit her lip and blinked back the tears that had started to gather in her eyes. “Okay. Let’s get this door done and then…” She cut herself off to take a deep breath.
“And then, we’re going to get pizza and go wherever you feel comfortable enough to talk,” I finished for her.
She nodded her head, her mouth lifting the first real smile she had given me today. “Sounds like a plan.”