Chapter 16
chapter
sixteen
Payton
It’s been two weeks since our accidental sleepover and while I’ve seen her every day at school, she hasn’t texted me to come over. I know she’s pulling back, and I’d be a damned liar if I said that didn’t scare the hell out of me.
The thing about growing up in my family is that love was never abstract.
It wasn't a concept or a hope or something you waited around for and wondered about.
It was just—present. Demonstrable. My parents, my grandparents, then both of my sisters and more recently my uncles and brothers.
One by one they fell, finding their people like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Even the ones who tried to fight it, like Oliver.
I grew up watching Henry look at Gracie like she was the answer to every question the universe could ask. I watched Oliver become a completely different, considerably better version of himself the second Cora entered his life.
Watched my uncle Heath, who I'd have bet serious money would be alone forever out of sheer stubbornness, meet a woman on a plane and decide she was it before they'd even landed.
I've always believed I'd find mine too.
Not in an arrogant way. Not like it was something I was owed. I just had faith. The particular, bone-deep faith of someone who wanted for himself the thing his parents had.
I'm sitting in my room at eight o'clock on a Thursday, staring at a text from Jules.
Jules: Come over.
For the first time in my life, I’m questioning things. Things that have been foundational beliefs for me my entire life.
The truth is I've known for a while that I'm in trouble with her.
Not the fun kind of in trouble. The kind where I know I’ve crossed some internal threshold without noticing and now I’m standing on the other side of it with no clean way back.
I'm in love with Jules Long. I have been for longer than I've said it out loud to anyone, including myself, because saying it out loud makes it a thing that can go wrong instead of just a thing that's true.
And here's what else is true: she knows.
Not because I've told her—I haven't, not yet, not in words—but because Jules is not a woman who misses things. She's sharp and watchful and she sees everything, which means she's seen this. I’ve never bothered hiding my emotions or being coy. Never seen the point and frankly, I’m not even sure I’d know how to do that.
So yeah, there’s no way she doesn’t know. I’ve already had two other teachers at the school pull me aside and ask me about it. Because my feelings are evidently that obvious.
I've been watching her not-look at what's between us for weeks now. Watching her name it something smaller than it is, pack it into a category that has clean edges. I am her booty call. That’s all she’s willing to give me.
I haven’t even graduated to friends with benefits.
She keeps me at arm's length with the same practiced precision she’s applied to everything in her life that has the potential to hurt her.
I know she has feelings for me.
I know she's not letting herself feel them.
And I've been patient. Because I know Jules has her reasons. They’re legitimate reasons, and I'm not interested in bulldozing them.
But patience has a structural load limit, and I think I've been quietly approaching mine for the last two weeks. Tonight, staring at come over on my phone, I know what I need to do. I have to tell her no because I’m not sure how long I can continue being the man who is all in and doesn't know if the other person is even willing to jump.
What if she doesn't?
I've wondered that before in the abstract, the way you poke at a bruise to see if it still hurts—yep, still hurts. But tonight everything feels different. Because it’s occurred to me that Jules could keep doing this indefinitely.
She could continue to keep a careful distance. Continue to use her wit like a shield every time something real gets too close. I know, without a doubt, that I could love her through all of it, steady and present.
What I don’t know is if I can love her while she continues to not let me in.
That's not a happy ending. That's a different story entirely.
I pick up my phone. Put it down. Pick it up again.
Loving her isn’t complicated; it's the least complicated part of any of this. I love the way she says exactly what she means. I love the way she falls apart in my arms. I love the sound of her laugh and how it erases all the sharp edges she normally hides behind. I love how she’s a complete smart ass with the kids and that they miss it entirely, but still love her and think she’s the funniest teacher ever.
I love her down to the marrow of my very bones.
But if she never lets me love her, in the verb sense of the word, then all of that is just like water poured into the ocean.
And therein lies the crack in my foundation.
The first real doubt I've had in a life full of evidence that love works out, that the people who are supposed to find each other eventually do.
I've watched my whole family prove it. I have always believed, without examining the belief too closely, that I was next.
What if I'm not?
What if she's my person and I'm hers and she refuses to acknowledge it?
I sit with that for a long minute.
Then I type back.
Me: I can't tonight.
Three words. No explanation, because I don't have one I'm willing to give right now. The real explanation is that I need one night to hold myself together. One night to sit with the doubt instead of walking back into her house and into her bed. Tonight I’m not sure I could hold back the words.
My love is fierce and real, and right now it has nowhere to go.