thirty-six #2
of the day. I’d be halfway through compiling a list of all the things you’d frowned about on our trip before I’d even realized
I’d started making it.” When I do frown at this, he smiles. “I’d make lists of everything you’d laugh at too. I was trying
to piece together this person I didn’t know yet, like how I’d get to know a character in a movie. There were all these gray
spots, and I’d try to picture you at your job, with your friends, in your life up in San Francisco to fill them in. And then
I’d get these new parts every time I saw you, new ways to piece the whole of you together. Every time we got to stay here.”
He brings his hand farther up, brushes his fingers over my lips. “I thought about you in other ways too. Of course I did.
But I thought more about who you are,” he says. “About what it felt like to be with you. And I don’t think I totally realized
it, or even let myself acknowledge it, until this week.”
“Acknowledge what?” I ask.
Everett’s thumb runs along my cheekbone, those stormy ocean eyes skimming mine. “That I was falling in love with you. That
I’ve been falling in love with you since that stupid party.”
“The party wasn’t stupid,” I say, softly.
“You’re right,” he says. “It’s where I met you.”
I’m not used to things like this with Everett. Hard truths spoken gently, precious things passed back and forth. It feels a little like a dream still, like I might wake up from it. But when I look up at him, his eyes almost nervous, I know it’s tremendously real.
“I was falling in love with you too,” I tell him. Saying it is accompanied by a huge wash of relief, my shoulders suddenly
a little looser, my mind clearer. It’s the key to a lock I’ve been struggling with for years now.
But it’s also frightening. Not so much that there is suddenly more to lose, because there was always a lot to lose, but that
I’m suddenly aware of it. Of what all my anger really meant. Of what was really missing while we weren’t talking. Now that
I’m letting myself feel it, the possibility of heartbreak becomes all the more real.
“We can’t guarantee this will work,” I tell Everett.
“I know,” he says. I want him to say something like, Yes we can, or There’s no way this could fall apart, but I also understand so deeply all the parts of Everett that won’t let him. The little boy who was disappointed time and
time again, who had one of his most important people choose everything else over him. I’m the same way, and it scares me to
choose someone with a scar so similar to mine.
There’s another side to it, though. What I think might break us if we do try this could be the exact reason it will work.
We might even be stronger because of it. Both of us want to build something different, have something better than the worst
parts of what we came from.
“I can promise you I want this to work,” Everett says, his grip on me tightening. “More than anything. I promise I’ll choose
you, every time.”
“I promise that too,” I say. It’s our own small pact. I press a hand against his chest, smiling. “What’s your schedule like
these next two days?”
Everett grins. “Wide-open. What do you have in mind?”
“I found a place in Montecito,” I tell him.
Last night, after we’d all dragged pillows and blankets into the living room, fallen asleep there instead of in our own beds, I’d waited until everyone was asleep to pull out my phone and look at different spots on the coast. Everett was next to me, his soft breathing keeping me company while I researched.
“I know it’s not Poppy Cottage, but it’s a little house right on the beach, good surfing, a Tuesday night farmers market.
” I poke a finger against his shoulder. “I hear they might even have Food Network.”
He laughs at this. It’s my favorite sound in the world, I think.
“I thought we could start our own tradition,” I say, the last vestige of nerves floating up into my throat, a tiny knot until
he answers me.
“It sounds perfect,” he says. He smooths a hand over my hair, lets his eyes rove over my face. “But anywhere with you is perfect.”
His arm comes around my waist to pull me closer into him. “I love you, Sutton Hale,” Everett Bridges tells me.
“I love you too,” I tell him, just before he kisses me, like he was waiting on confirmation.
It feels like the sun peeking out on a cloudy day, warming me down to the bone, lighting me up golden. I think about that
first night, all the ways we missed each other before then, how we were tied together long before we ever collided. Back then,
I’d thought the warmth that came from Everett was just something people like him possessed, some charm I couldn’t quite master.
Then, I thought it was nothing but a facade, a way to keep everyone at arm’s length. But now I know it’s at the core of him,
some radiating glow that the people lucky enough to get close get to bask in.
I had thought I wanted permanence, some guarantee that nothing would break me away from the most important people in my life.
And maybe there is some small guarantee in the five of us—in trips and pacts and traditions, sure, but also in the stretch of it all.
In the coming back together like no time has passed.
In knowing that there will always be someone on the other end of the line if we call.
But what I’ve come to find, more than anything, is that what I really want is right now.
To let go of the two-handed vise grip I’ve had on trying to keep the right people in my life, and trust that they’ll be there.
To remember that a plan is just a plan, and it will probably look different in the end anyway.
To remember that no matter how I choose, there will always be good and bad on both paths.
There was never a right one. There was always just the one I took.
But my favorite one, so far, is the one right in front of me. The one I’m about to take with Everett.