23. “Over You” - Daughtry
“Over You” - Daughtry
Heath
Is it possible to get a glimpse of heaven while still on earth?
Walker is in my arms. We’re on the floor of the small room at the back of the Archives. I have no idea where our clothes are. Sometime between pressing her up against the bookcase and now, we both lost every shred of clothing and sanity.
She stirs her head on my chest, looking up at me with those giant brown eyes, eyes I used to dream about. A gentle smile lifts the corners of her mouth, like she’s tripping on happiness right along with me.
My stomach roils in disgust when I think about the photos I snapped of her open notebook when she went to the restroom earlier. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve anything close to this. But I’m sure as fuck going to hang on to it while I have it.
“Hey,” I say, tucking her hair behind her ears.
Her smile grows, letting me know she’s okay. We used both condoms in my wallet. I hope she’s not sore tomorrow. I’m not sure how much sex she’s been having in Oxford. Thinking about her having any sex in Oxford makes the jealousy rear its head again.
She exhales a contented sigh and draws circles on my stomach. After the third one, I grab her hand. “That tickles.” I entwine our fingers.
She presses her lips to my abdomen. “I know.”
A phone rings. She lifts her head and stares at her bag, then groans. She gets up and pads over to her things. I get a healthy view of ass and tits as she’s going.
“Oh my god,” she says, staring at her phone screen. “How—?” She moves to the door and opens it a crack. It’s dark in the rest of the building. She turns back to me. “They’ve closed the Archives.”
“Shit.” I get to my feet and pull my shorts on, then grab my T-shirt from the chair. “I’ll go see if it’s locked.”
Using my phone as a torch, I make my way to the front door, which is locked as predicted. Fortunately they don’t employ a night security guard, but if they did, at least we could be out of here in a matter of minutes.
When I get back to the room, Walker is dressed and staring at her phone like it’s the last hope for humanity. She looks up when I come in, her face begging for good news.
I give her a lopsided smile and shake my head.
“Ugh.” She groans and flops backward into the chair. “What are we going to do now?” I’m thinking, trying to come up with a plan, when she says, “Wait a minute. Did you do this on purpose?” She stands up and comes closer, her finger pointing at my chest.
“Do what?”
She pauses, the wheels spinning in her head. Whatever she’s thinking, it can’t be good. “You seduced me so that we’d get locked in here.”
I grant her a mocking smile. “Caught me.”
Her gaze turns venomous. “I knew it!”
“Walk, I was kidding.”
She turns away, pacing the room as she concocts her crazy theory. “It bothered you that I said I needed to email an update to Dr. Riordan. You got jealous, so you planned this whole thing so that we’d be locked in and I couldn’t email him tonight after all.”
I shove my hands in my pockets but don’t say anything, waiting for her to finish.
“You’re trying to sabotage me,” she says. “That’s why you’ve been distracting me every time we’re in here. I haven’t been able to focus on anything, and it’s all because you’ve been fucking with my head.”
“Are you done yet?”
She whirls around on me. “No, I’m not done! What else have you done? Did you tell everyone to pick my revenge during poker so I’d be obligated to go along and spend time with everyone? Is the plan to keep Walker from doing any research so she has to stay forever?”
“You’re insane.”
She slaps her palms against my chest. “Tell me the truth.”
I grab her wrists. “Why would I want to sabotage you?”
“You know why!”
“Okay, yeah. I do think it’s weird that your professor wants you to keep in touch. It’s summer holiday, for god’s sake. Don’t you ever take a break?”
“This is my dissertation ,” she says. “My grade hinges on it. You know this, Heath. You, of all people, know how important this is to me.”
“Of course I do.” She’s not wrong in suspecting me, but not in the way she thinks. “So why would you think I want to sabotage that?”
Our eyes meet, and I see the answer lying there.
“It’s kind of your MO, isn’t it? Destroy Walker?”
I drop her wrists and press my fingers into my eye sockets, wishing I could will myself out of this room and literally anywhere else. “Of course it’s not.”
“You’ve done it before. What’s once more?”
“That’s not what—”
“How could you do that to me?” she screams. Tears are streaming down her face. My heart splinters at the sight.
I shake my head, trying to get the words right, but everything’s a jumbled mess. “I was scared, okay?”
“ You were scared?” She shoves her hands against my chest. “How do you think I felt? I loved you, Heath. I thought I was going to die because I loved you so much. I gave you everything. Everything! Do you know how many other people I’ve done that for?
” Her eyes are wide, maniacal. “None! No one else.”
I close my eyes. I don’t want to do this. “I know.”
“You know? You know ?” She paces to the window. Wildcat Walker is breaking out of her cage.
“Walk, please—”
“Why did you do it? Was I not enough for you anymore? Were you bored, or restless, or just wanted to experi—”
“I wanted you to find out.”
The wind rushes from her sails. The lines of her shoulders sink as she takes this in. “What?” It’s a tiny, disbelieving whisper. That single word hurts more than all the others she’s hurled at me.
“I know it’s messed up.” I tug on my hair. Stupid fucking wanker.
“‘Messed up?’” she parrots. “What kind of fucked-up game are you playing?”
I sink into the armchair and rest my head in my hands. How do I even go about explaining when I don’t understand any of it myself? “I was scared of where things were going. I was scared of disappointing you. I didn’t want to wake up one day and find that you no longer liked who I was.”
“So you cheated?”
I drop my hands and look up at her. She’s all fire and brimstone. I don’t know what to say anymore. Defending myself is stupid.
I am guilty.
“How could you do that?” she says quietly .
My mouth hangs open for several seconds as I search for the right words. “I told you, I was scared.”
“Then you have a bloody conversation, Heath!” She pushes against the table, and it scoots several inches across the floor. “You don’t go and sabotage the relationship.”
“I know that now,” I say.
I’ll never forget the day I discovered she was gone. I’d planned to confess everything, knowing it would be the end of the best thing in my life. When I went to her house, her mum said she wasn’t home. I tried calling her, but she wouldn’t pick up.
No one else had heard from her either. The police said we couldn’t file a missing persons report until she had been gone for forty-eight hours or there were signs of foul play. All we could do was sit back and wait.
I must have sent her a hundred texts that day. All of them went unread.
The next morning, Maeve called to say that she’d talked to Walker’s mum. Apparently Walker had decided to return to Oxford early. I was relieved to know she was safe, but it didn’t answer any of the million other questions churning around in my head.
Does she know?
Is this her way of breaking up with me?
Is she coming back?
“Do you want to know how I found out?” she says.
I really, really don’t, but I deserve to listen to this.
“I came over to your house. I’d picked up pad thai and was going to surprise you.”
A sharp pain ricochets through my chest.
“I wasn’t even suspicious when I saw the car in the driveway,” she continues. “I thought it was some friend of Cami’s.” She laughs at this, like it could possibly be funny. “Idiot that I was, it never crossed my mind that it might be my boyfriend’s secret lover.”
I push myself out of the chair and cross over to her. “It was only the one time, I swear.”
She backs away from me, like she can’t stand to share the same air anymore. “I don’t care if it was one time or twenty. You cheated on me.”
I exhale, long and slow. This is my mess to clean up. “I am so sorry, Walker. I’ve wanted to tell you I’m sorry since the minute I did it.”
The look on her face is devastating. She looks like a broken toy, all the parts spilling out of her with no hope of repair. “Just leave me alone.”
“Walker, please—”
“Go.” She points to the door. “Now. Please.” Her voice hitches on the last word, and I know she doesn’t want me to see her cry.
“Okay.” I walk backward to the door. “I’ll find a way to get us out of here.”
“Just go.” She closes the door.
The lock clicks into place behind me.