Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TATUM
I’m doomed.
That kiss has been seared into my brain for the rest of time.
I’ve never really seen the appeal of a “first kiss” because there was never anyone I wanted to kiss before, but I’ve always wanted to kiss Maeve.
And little did she know that the girl I was practicing for was her.
If she could’ve heard how hard my heart was beating in my chest or how fast my blood was rushing in my veins, she would’ve known.
She tasted of the spearmint gum she had been chewing and something else, something sweet, maybe her chapstick, and I was drunk on it. On her. If I had been standing, I probably would’ve passed out. My knees would’ve given out the moment her lips touched mine.
I feel like I could bust at the seams as we get ready to leave our hotel the next morning.
Neither of us brings it up, and I mean, why would we?
She thinks it was a practice run, just a friend helping a friend, but it’s all I could think about.
On replay in my poor brain. I want to kiss her over and over and over again. I think I could die happily like that.
Yeah, I want that to be the way I go.
I’m so antsy that I can’t even sit still in the hotel room, waiting for Maeve to finish cleaning up before we hit the road, so I sneak down to the lobby to get us some coffee.
To clear my head a little bit, so I don’t look like a nutcase.
I just need that tugging feeling in my stomach to go away, that yearning to feel her lips on mine again.
After taking my time making her usual, I head back up to the room, coffees in hand.
Except I don’t even take the elevator, I walk four floors up the steps as an added measure.
Cardio reduces stress levels because it reduces cortisol and releases endorphins, so by the time I get to our floor, I’m already feeling a little bit lighter about the whole situation.
Except when I enter the room, Maeve is stepping out of the bathroom, wrapped in only a towel, one that seems to be a little smaller than the average-sized towel.
It barely brushes her mid-thighs, and I find myself gulping loudly as my mouth dries at the sight.
Whereas I feel a tightness in my chest, on the precipice of a heart attack, she appears to be unfazed.
“B-Brought you some coffee,” I say, squeezing the cups like they’re a lifeline, and maybe they are. Is it hot in here?
“Ugh.” She hurries over in her towel, her dark eyes lighting up like they normally do when they see coffee. “I love you.”
Can she see the goosebumps that travel down my arms as she says those words?
Even though I logically know she doesn’t mean them like that, I can’t stop my body from reacting to it.
I shudder lightly once she takes her latte, but I try to cover it up by reaching up to fix my glasses.
I watch as she takes a long sip, the lines next to her mouth deepening as she smiles.
“Sorry, I’m not ready,” she says. “I didn’t want to get out of bed.”
“Didn’t sleep good?”
She shakes her head, and from the faraway look that takes over her gaze, I know exactly why she didn’t sleep last night. I’d seen that look almost a million times in my reflection most mornings when I was growing up.
“Nightmares?” I ask quietly.
She nods. “I get them sometimes.”
It’s been nearly eight years since I’ve lived with my mother, and even I still get nightmares from time to time. Trauma does that to a person; sometimes it leaves them with PTSD without them even realizing that’s what they’re experiencing.
“Wake me up next time,” I offer, bringing my coffee up to my lips before adding, “I don’t mind.”
“You need to rest.” She laughs, stepping into the bathroom and leaving the door cracked behind her so we can still talk to each other. “You’ve been driving this whole way.”
“I’m okay.”
“And besides,” her voice echoes through the crack, “it’s not a big deal, seriously.”
Serious enough to keep her up at night, but I don’t say that.
Instead, I just perch on the bed, sipping at my coffee quietly as I wait for her to finish getting dressed.
The scent of her lotion and perfume hits me when she opens the door again; vanilla and shea butter with a hint of something sweet.
She’s wearing a matching set of cozy sweats and a hoodie, and her dark hair is still a little damp at the ends, her face bare of any makeup.
She’s so beautiful this way, in her natural state.
I mean, she’s beautiful all the time, but there’s something about her this way that…
I don’t know. It makes my stomach do a little flip when I look at her.
“How are you feeling?” she asks me as she slides her sock-covered feet into a pair of slippers, putting in her tiny gold earrings. “You know…after I took your first kiss virginity.”
An airy laugh leaves my lips. “My… Uh, I’m good. Yeah. A-are you?”
“I didn’t have my first kiss virginity taken, Tate,” she teases. “You did. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am,” I nod, “really.”
I am a liar.
I’m not okay, but not in the sense that what happened was a bad thing, at least, not to me. I’m not okay because now that I know what her mouth tastes like, what her lips feel like, I won’t be able to kiss anyone else without thinking about her.
Now that I know her, everything has changed. Every part of me has been altered by her very existence. I could never go back to the guy I was before I met her, nor do I want to.
We’re loaded up and ready to head to San Diego twenty minutes later, only a few hours away from our end destination that is her hometown.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous to meet her family; I was so nervous that my hands got clammy just thinking about it.
It was a lot of new people to meet at once, and I’d never been any good at talking to a group of people.
I had a hard enough time talking to one person.
But I was also excited because I’d never really experienced what Christmas is like when you have a normal family to spend it with.
“Tell me about your family,” I say, ending the comfortable silence that we started our drive with as I glance over at her in the passenger seat, sifting through our road trip snacks we picked up from a gas station.
“They’re your typical gross, happy family.
” She laughs, playing with her hands in her lap in a way that doesn’t make her seem like she would be laughing about anything at all.
In fact, she inhales a tiny, shaky breath, but I see it.
And then it dawns on me how much she must miss them.
“My parents have been married for twenty-eight years. My twin brothers, Mateo and Maverick, they like to act all big and bad, but they’re teddy bears. ”
I don’t personally know what it’s like to have siblings, but I’ve always wondered.
Especially when I reflect back on my childhood.
Would it have been any different if I had brothers or sisters there with me?
Would it have been the same? I remember when I was around seven years old, I wished that I had siblings so I didn’t have to take the brunt of the beatings myself.
I wished I had someone to share them with.
Now, I feel bad for ever thinking that way.
Her family sounds so nice; I just want to see what could’ve been for me. What my Christmases could’ve looked like if my dad had stayed and my mom had chosen me instead of the drinking and the drugs.
“How old are your brothers?”
“Only two years older.”
No wonder they grew up to be close; her brothers were only two years old when she was born. Children of similar ages typically develop stronger relationships, statistically speaking. They’re reaching milestones and on the same level at the same time.
“Was your mom always…” She trails off, and the way her brows knit together, I can tell she’s rethinking what she’s going to ask me. “Was she ever a normal mom?”
“If she was, I don’t remember.”
It’s quiet for a moment as she takes in my response.
I wish I had another one to give her, but it is the truth.
There wasn’t a single moment of my childhood that wasn’t me walking around on eggshells or avoiding my mother and whoever she had over at the time by shutting myself in my room.
It was like I was always holding my breath.
“And you had to deal with that until you went off to college?” she asks tentatively.
“Until I was fourteen and I got removed from our house. She lost custody of me. I was in foster homes for about four years before I went to Cedar Grove.”
“Oh my…God,” she mumbles, and I feel her staring at the side of my face as I keep my eyes on the road. “Tate, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I can’t imagine how awful that must’ve been.”
It was actually the best thing that could’ve happened to me.
Maybe I didn’t know that at the time, but I eventually realized it.
Even at fourteen, and even after everything I’d endured in that house, I remember feeling extremely scared to be taken from it.
As awful as she was, my mom was still my mom.
There was a plethora of discourse thrown into my life after that, which meant more added anxiety because of the dysregulation of my normal routine.
It took a while to recognize how much healthier and at ease I felt being in a different environment, but when I did, that’s when I smiled, really big, for the first time… ever.
“Foster care was much better than being with my mom.”
“Really?”
I nod. “The beatings stopped, so I was grateful.”
Sure, I ended up with an older couple who were really strict: TV at certain hours, early bedtime, curfew when I turned sixteen, no cellphone.
But all of that beat being at home with my mother, who was passed out drunk on the couch or nodding in her bedroom from her drug of choice for the day.
Anything was better than getting abused.
“How did you turn out so…good?”
Is that what she thinks I am? Good? I’ve never really thought of myself that way.
Smart, maybe, but good… It was hard to think of myself as that under the circumstances in which I was given.
I’d like to think I made the best of a bad situation.
But I never felt good all those years it took for me to grow from my experiences. To feel normal.
“I, uh… Well, I don’t know.”
Her hand squeezing my shoulder makes me forget how to breathe for a second as I struggle to pay attention to steering the wheel. It lingers there for a moment, and I almost chance a peek over at her, but it’s gone before I can follow through.
“You just had a whole vulnerable conversation while only stuttering once. Look at you. Are you warming up to me, Tate?”
The playful tone to her voice makes my cheeks warm, but I quickly try to clear my throat in hopes of distracting my knee-jerk reaction to blush every time she teases me.
“I think so,” I say. “I feel…comfortable with you.”
This time, I do look over at her, and the smile she sends me could light up a whole room. The tiny gap between her two front teeth on display, just for me. The freckles dotting her nose in the sunlight beaming through the windows. God, she’s so beautiful.
“I’m comfortable with you, too.”
Her words hit my chest, hard. There’s a weight that sits there as they sink in, but it’s not an uncomfortable weight. It’s a reassuring one. One that feels good. And I think for the first time in my whole life, I finally feel like I have a friend.