But I Love Him (9 page)

It has to be perfect. Each piece has to fit together like a puzzle. Like it went together all along, not like it’s a thousand broken pieces.

I’m getting a headache from the glue fumes, so I decide to take a break and go get some lunch. Maybe a little fuel and some caffeine will perk me up enough that I can work for another hour or two.

I leave the house and jump in my car, holding the wheel with two fingers because it’s cold to the touch.

I wind down the hills, the view of the ocean disappearing as I descend to sea level. I park near the front door of the grocery store and go inside, swinging my keys around one finger.

I’m in the candy aisle, debating between Mike and Ike and Good & Plenty when Abby walks up to me. She’s wearing cute bootcut jeans with electric blue heels and a hoodie with a big smiley face on the front. She used to hate jeans. She only wore skirts.

I wonder when that changed.

“Hey. Are you here with Blake or something?” She stops in front of me, shoving her hands into the pocket on the front of her hoodie. Is she blinking a lot or is it just me? When was the last time we even talked?

I freeze, my hand on the Mike and Ike. “Blake?”

She nods, her eyes narrowing slightly as she studies me. “Yeah. He has a cart filled with junk food. I thought maybe you two—”

“He’s here?”

Abby nods. “Yes. Cart. Junk Food. Are you following?”

I nod, debating whether I should just ditch the candy and dash out the door before Blake finds me.

I haven’t seen him since that day at the park.

If he finds me now, I know there will be questions. Lots and lots of questions. And Abby is here. God—the two of them together, they’ll really lay into me.

I don’t need the fifth degree. I just want some snacks and I want to go back home and work on the sculpture.

“Um, no, we’re not here together. Actually, I just remembered something—” I start to turn away from her, but she grabs me by the arm.

“Don’t lie.” Her voice is quiet, soft, pleading. “Please, just don’t lie. I get why you blow me off. I get why things have changed. But you’ve never lied to me. Just don’t start now, okay?”

I nod, slowly, staring down at her fingers and her French-manicured nails. She releases my arm and I look up at her.

I don’t know how she manages to be so understanding. I don’t think I could do that, if the roles were reversed. If my best friend ditched me for a boy. But she gets it. Somehow, she gets it.

“Thank you. For … for just being you.”

She nods solemnly and takes a step back. “I’ll go talk to him. Go pay for your stuff.”

I nod back at her, but I’m frozen, just staring at her nose, a thousand feelings and thoughts swirling until I’m lost to them, and she grabs my shoulder and gives it a small shake. “Hey. If you don’t want to talk to him, then go. Okay?” She sighs and releases my shoulder. “And Ann?”

I look up at her.

“If you ever need me or want to talk, or …”

I nod.

“Good.”

I just nod again and grab the Mike and Ike and scurry out of the aisle, not looking back.

Abby is a goddess.

And I’m just …

I don’t know what I am anymore.

But I’m not who I used to be.

March 12

Six Months, twelve days

I was kicked off the track team today. Too many missed practices, he said. Said I wasn’t dedicated to it anymore.

I know I should care. I know it should hurt. This was my senior year. I was going to rule the place. I was going to beat my record for long jump and win my first two-mile.

But even as the words left the coach’s mouth, I was over it. Things like track and high school aren’t as important to me as they once were. The hours I spent with the team every day, I only thought of him. I thought of lying next to him on the bed and watching movies. I thought of talking to him and walking with him and being with him.

Sometimes I think I’d give up everything if I could just spend every day with him, alone in his room, listening to music and just … being together.

I’ve been running my fastest times all month. Because I knew the second I was done, I would walk to the locker room without even cooling off. I’d still be sweating when I switched into my street clothes. My face would still be flushed when I climbed into my car and left the school in my rearview mirror, heading straight to his place.

Now I have another hour every day for him. Now I can go straight to his house after school and cook us both dinner and wait for him.

I’ll have more time to work on my glass sculpture, too. It’s taking so much longer than I thought it would. Hours and hours. But I enjoy it. It’s become my outlet. When I’m working on it, I think of nothing else. I lose myself in the glass pieces, in the way the light glints off the curved surfaces.

Whenever I have more than a few hours free, I go to the shore and refill my supplies of glass. I find treasures in the sand, reds and greens and blues, and I take them back and imagine where they will go.

The heart will be beautiful when I am done with it. I know it.

I empty my gym locker after I leave the coach’s office. I try not to look at the things I stuff into a plastic bag. The shoes and the warm-ups and the meet schedule and the little unopened bag of goldfish crackers I use on away meets.

The pictures inside the door are the hardest, because even though I don’t look at them, it’s like the eyes are staring at me.

There were three of us who ran the two-mile. Three of us that were any good at it, anyway. We called ourselves the tripod. Said we could hold up the whole team on our legs, that we would accumulate enough points to keep our school in the lead for divisions.

And we would have. Meets were just about ready to start up for the season. I know we could have done it.

I don’t want these pictures anymore. I don’t even want them in my bag. I just rip them off the door and let them flutter to the ground and leave them sitting there on the cement floors, under the benches and next to the drains and everywhere. There are so many of them, so many moments frozen like that.

Moments that don’t exist anymore. I have no use for moments like that. Superficial moments mean nothing when you know there are so many serious things to think about.

They are still there when I push the door open and step outside, into the light, and walk to my car. It’s so early that I know Connor will be at work for another hour.

I have time. For myself. I have not had this in a long time.

I drive to a park two blocks from his apartment and find a picnic table. I pull myself up onto the table and lie back, staring at the blue sky and fluffy white clouds, and I swing my feet back and forth.

The clouds look like bunnies and cotton candy and ridiculous, fluffy, happy things, and they remind me that summer is coming. I’m still wearing sneakers and my warm-ups, but I’m not cold. The air smells like grass. It makes me want an ice cream cone and my old bicycle. I want to go back to that. Back to when Dad was around and life was simple.

I keep swinging my legs, back and forth, and stare at the sky. Moments like this, moments of peace, are rare these days, and I’m enjoying it.

Footsteps break my reverie and I sit up.

Blake. It’s hard to suppress the surge of joy I feel at the sight of him.

“Hey,” he says.

“Oh. Hi.”

He sits down on the bench next to me, so I roll off the table and sit opposite him. His dark hair is messy and all over his forehead, but his eyes are sparkling like he’s happy.

Genuine happiness. I hardly recognize it.

“What’s up?” I ask, after a long silence. We haven’t talked for so long.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“I got kicked off track.”

Why did I tell him that?

“Why?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Don’t care.”

“Yes you do. You love track.” He tilts his head to the side and leans in, waiting for an answer that will make him understand.

“Did,” I say. “Past tense.”

“So what do you love now?”

“Connor,” I say, without thinking. I want to rewind and keep my mouth shut, but it’s out there now.

“And?”

“And that’s it.” I don’t look at him or the sky anymore. I’m staring at the ground—patchy green grass beneath my scuffed white sneakers.

He takes in a long, slow breath. He seems to be filtering through his words, looking for the right ones to say. “Why are you so … different?”

I open my mouth to argue, to say I’m the same Ann I’ve always been, but I don’t. He knows me better than that. And he knows he’s right.

“I just am,” I say finally. “Please don’t start in on me. Everyone is always giving me crap. I don’t need it.”

“Okay. But listen to me. I’m here if you need me. Ever. Just call. For any reason. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care what time it is. You can always call me.”

I laugh, a sound that comes out too bitter. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

He grabs my hand and I go still. He stares straight at me, his dark eyes intense. I want to look away and also stare at him forever.

For one long, lingering moment, I see a different future. I see a different me.

But then reality comes back.

“I’m serious,” he says.

I wipe the plastic smile off my face and pull my hand away. “I know.” I rest my head on the picnic table and close my eyes. “I know.”

It seems like I stay like that for an hour. I think he left a long time ago. But when I open my eyes, he’s still there.

“What time is it?”

I grab my bag. My keys are not inside. Where are they? They’re not in my pocket. Did I lock them in the car? I drop to my knees and look under the table. They have to be here somewhere.

“It’s four fifteen.”

Four fifteen. God, he got off at four. He could drive by. Right now. He could see me with Blake and get the wrong impression. He’s stressed about his job … I don’t need to add to it.

“Why are you still here?” I ask.

Blake’s face twists. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. “You just—”

“Go! God, just leave, what’s wrong with you?” It comes out so much louder, so much sharper than I’d meant it to.

But Connor can’t see him. He’ll draw conclusions that aren’t real. He’ll get angry, upset, a lot of things that I don’t want to have to deal with today.

“Ann, calm down, what’s wrong—”

“Nothing! Just leave, geez!”

I can’t find my keys. I dig through my bag but everything falls out. A hairbrush, some change, a pen.

“Here, let me help—”

“Leave!”

I don’t even know who I am right now. I’m being a total bitch to him. It’s not me. He knows it’s not me. Blake steps forward, tries to hug me and calm me down, but I reel back and spin around, and then I see him.

Standing at the edge of the park.

Watching.

He’s silent and still, and I realize he’s been there awhile.

Before I can breathe, he’s crossing the lawn, straight at us, and for one heart-stopping moment I think he will hit Blake. Blake is going to hate me forever and he’s going to know the truth about Connor.

But he doesn’t. He steps between Blake and me. And then he says in a dangerous voice, “Stay away from her.” He spits the words with such malice I want to shrink away, but then he grabs my arm and pulls me, and we are at his truck in seconds. My feet can hardly keep up with his but he’s almost holding me off the ground, so it’s like I float over there without trying.

My keys are in my pocket now. They were there all along.

“But my car—”

“Leave it,” he says.

He’s boiling. Simmering, and the lid is going to pop. He’s breathing so hard I can hear it. I slide into his truck and barely have the door shut before the tires squeal and we are gone. My head snaps back and I hit it against the sliding window behind my seat.

I know Blake is still standing there at the picnic table. Watching us. And I know he knows what is happening.

And I wish he didn’t.

Even though Connor moved into his apartment several weeks ago, there are still boxes everywhere. He doesn’t have enough furniture or shelves to unpack things, so they lie around, scattered on the floor.

He comes unleashed when the door is shut.

“Are you cheating on me?

His words steal the breath from my lungs. It’s like he shoved me underwater.

I would never cheat on him. I can’t believe he’d think I would. “No! God, don’t be stupid, I—”

I stop talking and take in a ragged breath of air. That is the one word I know not to say. The one word that is strictly off limits because of how many times his father has said it.

He comes at me so quickly I take an involuntary step backward. My feet get tangled in the boxes and I fall, landing with a hard thud on the thin, shabby carpet. Something is smashed beneath me. I sit awkwardly on top of it, leaning backward on my elbows.