Chapter 8
Eleanor
“What’s our grand adventure today?” I asked Greyson as he walked up to my house one Saturday afternoon. I really needed the break from reality, because Mom had a rough night. She was currently resting while Dad looked after her.
I asked if she wanted me to stay home, but she told me to go off with Greyson and have fun. She’d rather me be having a good time instead of worrying too much.
Greyson smiled as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I was thinking I’d win you a stuffed animal down at the county fair.”
Sounded good enough to me.
There were so many things I loved about being around Greyson.
I loved how when he talked about things, he expressed himself with massive hand gestures.
I loved how he hummed tunes whenever he was happy.
Sometimes we’d just be walking down the street, and he’d start tapping his fingers against his leg as he hummed some random song.
I loved how when he looked at me, he really stared my way, as if I were the only girl he would ever look at again. I loved how when I spoke, he listened and responded with questions to deepen the conversation. I loved how he had a small dimple in his left cheek that showed whenever he smiled.
I loved how his hand accidentally slid across mine as we held the bar on the Tilt-A-Whirl ride at the fair. I loved how he could eat three corn dogs and then crave cotton candy. I loved his laugh.
Gosh, I loved his laugh.
I also loved his determination to win me a freaking stuffed animal.
“It’s really OK, Grey.” I laughed as we stood in front of a carnival booth where he’d been trying his hardest to hit a bull’s-eye with a baseball in order to win me a stuffed animal.
“No! I can do this.” He huffed, seemingly more resolute than ever, even though he’d already missed the target fourteen times. He picked up the baseball, took a step backward, wound up his arm, and threw it with all his might.
He missed by a few inches.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
“Five more bucks for five more balls,” the booth guy mentioned.
“It’s not worth it,” I said, lightly touching Greyson’s arm. “These things are made to lose.”
Greyson narrowed his eyes and reached into his wallet, pulling out five more dollars. With the way things were going, the poor guy was going to have to tap into his college fund in order to win me that stuffed panda bear.
He started tossing the balls once more, and of course, he kept missing. At one point the booth guy even frowned at Greyson’s attempts.
“This is the one,” Greyson said as he held the twentieth ball in his grip. “This is the one that’s going to be different than all the ones before,” he promised.
In a way, he was right.
He pulled his arm back and swung it forward, and in a freak accident, the baseball hit the corner of the bull’s-eye and bounced off it, flinging the ball directly back at him, hitting him square in the face.
“Oh my gosh!” I screeched as Greyson went flying backward and crashing to the ground. I hurried to his side and bent down. “Grey, are you OK?”
“Did I win?” he asked with his left eye closed tight. The redness from the impact of the ball was already in place as I helped him to his feet.
“No, not at all.”
“Damn, I thought I had it that time.”
“Here, man. Just take the panda,” the carnie said as he held the stuffed animal toward us. “Anyone who tries that hard to impress a girl deserves to give her a stuffed animal.”
Greyson smirked with his quickly bruising eye. He took the panda bear and handed it to me. “See? I knew that time was lucky!” he exclaimed.
I laughed. “Yeah, well, let’s just go find a place to sit so I can find ice for your eye.”
He held the stuffed animal out to me, and I took it and hugged it tight.
Thanks, Grey.
I led him to a bench and forced him to sit down while I wandered off to find ice for his eye. When I came back, the guy was sitting there with a black-and-blue eye and a stick of cotton candy, smiling like a fool.
I liked him so much in that moment—so, so much.
He kept funneling cotton candy into his mouth as I sat down beside him.
“Hold still,” I ordered as I placed the cloth filled with ice against his eye.
He cringed a bit as it touched his skin.
“Sorry,” I said, pulling the cloth away from him.
My fingers gently touched the swollen area of his eye.
“I just want to get some ice on it before it gets worse.” I put the ice back against his skin, and he smiled.
“I like that,” he told me.
“The ice on your face?”
“No. I like it whenever you touch me.”
My heart stopped beating, I stopped breathing, and Greyson kept smiling.
I didn’t respond, because I had completely forgotten how to form words, but I was certain my reddened face told him exactly how his words had made me feel.
“So I know today has been eventful, but if you’re up for it, I got one of my grandpa’s favorite kung fu movies on DVD. I figured maybe we could watch it at my place,” Greyson offered.
“Sure, that sounds fun.”
We headed back to his house, and even though I kept looking toward Greyson’s bruising eye, he seemed unfazed by it all. He simply began humming a tune, so I began humming along with him.
We hummed the whole trip back, right until we walked up to Greyson’s house and his smile faded away.
There was shouting coming from inside the house, and I could see his parents hollering at one another through the front windows.
Greyson’s whole demeanor shifted as embarrassment took over. He turned to me and rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, maybe we should hang out another time.”
“Yeah, it’s fine, not a big deal.”
“I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah, of course.”
I turned to walk away but then glanced over my shoulder to see him staring at his house with such a look of defeat. It was clear he didn’t want to go into the house with the screaming.
“Hey, I’m still not ready to go home,” I said. “Do you want to maybe go to Laurie Lake to just hang out for a little bit longer?” He needed the break. He needed something to take his mind off his own sadness.
Maybe he needed me just as much as I needed him in order to not be so broken.
He looked up at me, and I saw a flash of relief wash over his face. “Yeah, OK. Let’s go.”
* * *
“Are your parents always like that?” I asked as we sat on our log at Laurie Lake.
“Even more so lately. I just don’t get it. If they hate each other that much, then why even bother being together? I can’t even think back to a time when they actually liked one another.”
“I’m so sorry, Grey. That has to be hard for you.”
“It’s easier when they aren’t home, and luckily they are hardly ever home. Besides, next year I’ll be off to college, and it won’t matter much at all.”
“Still, I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t imagine living in a home without a strong type of love.
My parents swam in each other’s love as if their hearts were oceans.
They held each other up whenever times were hard.
Their kind of love made the world a better place to be in.
I couldn’t imagine them ever not being completely head over heels with one another.
They were the greatest love story I’d ever witnessed, and it was so hard to even imagine the two of them being apart. I swore their hearts beat together as one.
If there was one thing that I knew for sure, it was the fact that there was no Kevin without a Paige.
“I just never want to be like that,” he confessed. “When I fall in love, it’s going to be real. It’s not going to be a love for convenience; it’s going to be a forever kind of love. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
“I agree.”
“But I do have to thank my parents. If anything, they taught me what love isn’t; therefore, I’ll know what it is when it comes.”
He kept doing his nervous fiddling thing with his hands, and I swore my heartbeats were directed straight to him.
“Sorry. We can talk about something else,” he offered. “Maybe we can talk about us.”
Heart skips and heart flips.
“Yeah? What about us?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, you know.” Greyson’s head tilted toward me, and we locked eyes. “About what it would be like to kiss you.”
I swore he controlled my heartbeats with those words. We hadn’t really talked much about things like that, about us and if there were any feelings involved other than friendship. The most we’d ever done was hug, for goodness’ sake, and a hug from him was enough to set my world on fire.
For a while, I’d thought my crush on Greyson was a one-sided thing, so to hear those words come out of his mouth felt like a dream.
“Do you ever think about that, Ellie?” he asked.
I inhaled slowly. “Only always.”
He inched a little closer to me, and I let it happen. He tucked my hair behind my ears, and I let it happen. His smile melted every part of me, and I let it happen.
“I think about it a lot. After we hang out sometimes, I beat myself up for not just doing it. I overthink it. Like, it should’ve happened when we got ice cream, or when you first brought me here.
Or on Molly’s steps.” He scrunched his face.
“Probably not on Molly’s steps, but still, I think about it. ”
“Me too. All the time.” I paused. “Well, not all the time, but yeah . . . all the time.”
He placed his hand in mine and gave it a slight squeeze.
“I just want it to be perfect, you know? Especially now that I know it’s your first kiss.
That’s important. In the novels you’ve had me read, it always happens naturally,” he said softly.
“I take notes when I’m reading on how the hero does it, on where it happens, on how comfortable or uncomfortable both the characters seem. ”
I felt his hands trembling slightly—or was it my hands that were shaky? It was becoming hard to tell what were his feelings and what were mine.
That was OK, though.
I liked the confusion.
“I know,” I agreed. “There’s always a moment . . .”
“When the timing is just—”
“Right.” I finished his sentence, knowing his thoughts the same way he knew mine.
“Ellie?”
“Yes, Grey?”
“Would it be cliché of me to ask if I can kiss you?”
“Yes.” I scooted closer, so close that his lips were millimeters from mine, so close that his exhales became my inhales, so close that my mind had already decided it was going to be the best first kiss of my life. “But do it anyway.”
And then he did.