Chapter 28 #2
He runs his fingers through his hair again and messes it up, making the strands fall on his forehead, making me clench my fists again so I don’t accidentally run to him and smooth them away.
“I remembered,” he begins with a slightly lost expression on his face, “that I liked to read. When I was a kid. Which isn’t a surprise because I’ve always been a straight-A student. Given the choice though, I’d rather watch game tapes than sit and read, but…”
“But?”
He shrugs, his shoulders jerking up and down tightly.
“But I guess I’m trying to see if it sticks, reading.
Getting a hobby.” He swallows tightly, audibly even.
“Not sure how my dad would react to it though. I, uh, try to picture his expression. You know, if he knew that I was using my time to read, for pleasure. Something other than textbooks, instead of working on my game. But I can’t.
I can’t picture it. I know what my mom would say.
She’d tell me that while it was commendable I was taking an interest in books, I’m still wasting my time reading English literature. She’d probably throw them away.”
My chest feels tight and I let out a breath as I watch him, watch how he stands, a little away from the door, how his toes dig into the carpet, how his fists are clenched.
How adrift and unmoored he looks.
“You’re not. You’re not wasting your time and I don’t think your dad would mind,” I tell him, wishing again that I could touch him.
I wish I could go to him and ask him how it was while he was growing up.
I only know bits and pieces of it from after I came to live with him, and I wish I could talk to him about all of it.
“Actually, I think that even if he did mind, I wouldn’t care.
Not so much. Not as much as I thought I would.
I think I’d…” He pauses and licks his lips, pondering his next words.
“I think I’d mind more if I didn’t get to read.
If I didn’t get to find out what else I like.
What else I can do. What else is hidden inside of me other than The Blond Arrow. ”
My knees tremble. They almost buckle at his words.
It’s a mystery really how I’m able to stand up.
Actually, I’m lying.
I know how. It’s him.
It’s his eyes, the power and intensity in them. He’s keeping me tethered and balanced.
“Is that what your therapist told you? To find out what’s hidden inside of you?” I ask with choppy breaths.
He shakes his head slowly. “No. It was someone else.”
I take a moment to just… breathe.
I take a moment to just stand on my feet and watch him. To absorb what he just said.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been going crazy.
I’ve been making up theories in my head. About why he’s doing what he’s doing.
Is it to punish himself and atone for his supposed mistakes when it comes to me? Or is there something else?
Something… wonderful.
Something that scares me. Something that steals my breath and gives me hope.
It’s giving me hope right now and I’m petrified.
“It’s been two weeks,” I whisper after a while.
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you come see me?”
His nostrils flare and his chest undulates on a large breath. “I was going to come see you.”
“You were?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’m leaving for St. Mary’s tomorrow.”
I am.
That’s why I came tonight looking for answers. That’s why it’s so imperative for me to know.
God, I just want to know.
“I know that too,” he says. “I’m taking you.”
“What?”
He nods in confirmation. But that’s not the only thing he does.
He moves as well.
He takes a slow but deliberate step toward me and strangely, I move back.
“I thought two weeks would be enough time for you to rethink your decision of going back to that hellhole,” he tells me as he comes closer. “But if you won’t change your mind, then I’ll be the one to take you.”
My feet stumble slightly but I keep going. I keep moving back as I whisper, “It was you. You came up with two weeks.”
“You needed your rest. But more than that, you needed some time away from that place. After everything that happened.” A dark look ripples through his stunning features, a menacing look.
“And I thought it would give you time to make the right decision. But I guess I should know better by now, shouldn’t I?
No one can control you. No one can bind you by rules or put you in a box or rein you in.
You’re Salem. You’re probably why they name hurricanes and natural catastrophes after girls like you. ”
I swallow at the possessiveness in his tone, at the possessiveness in his eyes.
Actually, it’s more than that.
It’s more than possessiveness.
There’s some tenderness as well. Some helplessness and torment. A hint of amusement.
All at the same time.
And it makes his eyes glow.
“I have to go back,” I whisper, still moving back. “My friends are there. They need me.”
“I know. That’s why I’m going to take you. And I’m going to make sure no one, no one at all, dares to even look at you wrong, let alone says anything to you. And if they do, then it’ll give me great fucking pleasure to take care of them. To take care of anyone who bothers you.”
Finally, I come to a stop.
My butt hits something. It’s the edge of his desk that’s laden with his books.
His new hobby.
Despite the fact that I want to go back, that I want to see my friends and especially be there for Callie, I am really nervous.
I’m nervous about the gossip, the looks I’ll get from the girls, from the teachers.
By now everybody must know that I have a thing for him.
By now everyone must hate me even more, if possible.
So his promise to me, spoken in such an authoritative and possessive tone, makes my body all lazy and heavy.
Cozy.
But I can’t give in to it. I can’t.
It’s dangerous.
He is dangerous.
Hope is dangerous. At least for a girl like me.
A girl in such hopeless love.
“And then what?” I ask hesitantly.
“What?”
“Once you’ve dropped me off, and made sure that I’m taken care of, will you leave then?”
That’s when he reaches me, at my question.
And my heart jumps into my throat.
Especially when he dips his face and bends his body and cages me in like he always does.
“No,” he rasps, looking me in the eyes, his hands on either side of me.
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve got other things on my mind.”
“Other things than… soccer?” I ask, clutching the edge of his desk.
“Yeah. Soccer can wait.”
“Y-you’re kidding.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Fuck soccer. There are other things that I’m thinking about.”
God.
God, I’m so scared.
“Like what?”
Something happens to him then.
A strain comes over him and his arms flex, his fingers crinkling the pages of the open book that they’re pressing on.
“Like a girl with witchy eyes and thirteen freckles,” he replies.
"What?”
“Yeah, and how fucked up I am over her. So much that everything hurts.”
“Everything hurts?” I whisper, digging my nails into the wood and clenching my stomach.
“Yeah. Everything.”
“Why?”
“Because I was an asshole who didn’t have his shit together when I met her and so I made her cry.
And because even when I decided to stop being an asshole and get my shit together, I made her cry then as well.
” Then, “They had to sedate you, didn’t they?
The day I showed up. Because you wouldn’t stop crying.
That’s why I stayed away. For two whole weeks.
That’s why I didn’t see you. I didn’t deserve to see you because they had to inject you with a drug to put you to sleep.
Just because I was there. Just because I came to tell you. ”
“Arrow –”
“I wanted to tell you the night you snuck out to see me too,” he continues, his words rough and guttural, cutting mine off, his fingers abusing the pages of the book.
“But you ran away from me. So I thought, I’ll tell her tomorrow.
I’ll go to her in the morning and pull her out of class.
I was even making plans and thinking of scenarios where you’d refuse me and I’d make you listen.
I’d beg you to listen.” He swallows. “But then Mom called me. And I never got the chance. But I was going to take my chance tomorrow. I was going to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“That you’re that girl for me.”
“What girl?”
He licks his lips before saying, “The girl who haunts me.”
“I-I haunt you?”
He nods. “Yeah. You’re the girl who keeps me awake at night.
The girl who makes me look out the window and count the stars in the sky.
I not only count them. I look for patterns.
I look for shapes that match the freckles on your nose and under your eyes.
You’re the girl I wait for at midnight because she wants to go for a ride and she has a thing for speed.
But she’s always late and when she does show up, I complain about it because I’m an asshole.
But the truth is that you’re the girl I’d wait hours for.
You’re the girl I’d wait and wait for just to get a glimpse of you in my leather jacket.
Just to see what color lipstick you’re wearing and just to hear you say the weird fucking name of it in your sweet voice.
“You’re the girl whose notes I waited for like a junkie back at St. Mary’s.
And some days you’d write me two notes and I’d be over the moon.
But I’d hide it. I’d hide it because again, I’m an asshole.
I’m an asshole addicted to your words. To your letters.
That’s why I stole them. I stole your letters just so I could read them over and over and write you back.
Just so I could write to you every night.