Bend Me, Break Me (14 page)

“What’s wrong?” he asked as I looked away.

“You think I’m something that I’m not. That’s the problem, Coen,” I said. His jacket suddenly felt too heavy, as if it was dragging me down. I wanted to take it off. I wanted to go back to my room and my silence and days spent without talking to another person.

I started to walk toward the car, but his hand stopped me.

“Please don’t do that. Don’t shut down on me.” I yanked my shoulder away from his grip.

“Let me go, Coen,” I said, and the look on his face nearly broke my heart. Like I’d punched him right in the gut.

“I can’t, Ingrid. I care too much.” I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I wanted to get away.

“I didn’t ask for that,” I said. “I didn’t ask you for anything. You keep showing up and giving me things and you’re always there and I don’t know what to do with you. I didn’t ask for this, Coen. I just wanted to get by alone.” My voice cracked on the last word. If I didn’t slow down, I was going to start telling him all kinds of things that he didn’t need to know.

“I know you didn’t ask for it, but I’m giving it anyway. I can’t not care about you. You’re just…” he trailed off and couldn’t finish. He tore his hand through his hair and his curls sprung back all over the place.

“I’m what, Coen?” I crossed my arms, which was difficult with the thick jacket in the way. I wished I couldn’t still smell him, but I could.

He shook his head and looked out at the beautiful view.

Part of me felt bad for ruining this day, but it was inevitable. I was destined to ruin everything. I’d tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He wouldn’t listen and now here we were.

“Let’s just go,” I said, moving toward the car.

“No. I’m not leaving this mountain until we talk about this. I’m not letting you just run away again. I want to know what spooked you. I want to know why you always pull away. Why you can be so open and here with me one minute and slam the door in my face the next. I want to know, Ingrid.” I started to shake and couldn’t look at him.

“I can’t, Coen. I just can’t.” The words were shattered, broken things and I barely got them out.

“I don’t know what to do with you, Ingrid.” He sounded like he was more frustrated with himself than me. I wasn’t going to apologize for being the way I was. He brought this on himself.

“Well, that’s not my fault. I don’t know what to tell you.” He didn’t blow up at me as I expected him to. I thought he was going to yell at me, or get in the car and leave me there to fend for myself.

He didn’t do either of those things.

Instead, he just stared at me silently. As if he was waiting for something. Waiting for me.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I snapped, but he didn’t look away. He just took one step toward me. I tried to make my feet move, to get me away from him, but they were stuck. Bolted to the dirt.

Coen took another step and then another until he was standing right in front of me. I wanted to back up, but I couldn’t. I wanted to push him away, but I couldn’t do that either. I wanted to do anything but stand there.

He raised his hands to my face and I thought he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t. His fingers cupped my cheeks and he looked into my eyes like he was trying to see the bottom of a dark well.

“Don’t tell me you don’t care about me,” he said, his voice very soft.

I opened my mouth to try to tell him he was wrong, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t speak. He must have taken that as an invitation, because kissed me again. I wanted to bite his lip, but I didn’t.

I didn’t do anything but let him kiss me and then kiss him back. I kissed him back and pushed myself into his chest. I hoped he couldn’t feel my heart thrashing.

His kiss was careful, but insistent. Like he was using it to say what he couldn’t with words.

At last, I was able to break away and pull in a gulp of air.

“You can’t just kiss me and think that it’s going to be okay,” I said. He licked his lips and smiled a little.

“No, but it wasn’t going to hurt.”

“Unless I punched you,” I said.

“Still would be worth it,” he said and his lips tipped up in a smile.

“You’re an incurable optimist,” I said and he smiled even bigger.

“Thanks. I take that as a compliment.” I hadn’t meant it as one, but that didn’t seem to bother him in the least. He was buoyant, no matter what. No matter what I said to him, or how I pushed him away, he came back and didn’t seem to be discouraged at all.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with you,” I said.

“Well, right now we’re talking on top of a mountain. I’m not thinking about anything beyond that.” I wished I could be in this moment with him. Not be shackled to the past. Not be worrying about the future. Just live and breathe now and now only.

“Teach me how to do that,” I said before I could stop myself.

“You’re doing it right now. You’re right here with me. Just breathe, Ingrid.” Something happened to me when he said my name. It shot all the way through me, like an arrow, getting past all the barriers I put up to protect myself.

He put both hands on my shoulders and squeezed.

“Just breathe.”

My sweet, beautiful damaged girl. Damaged. Not ruined. Not broken. She looked up at me as if I’d asked her to do something impossible. As if I’d asked her to fly to the sun.

“Breathe with me.” I inhaled slowly and she followed suit. I would do whatever it took to keep her in this moment with me. To keep her from retreating to the dark corners of her mind.

We breathed for a while and she closed her eyes.

“Better?” I asked.

She opened her eyes and the tension was gone from her face.

“Yes.”

I let go of her and walked toward the car.

“Come on, I want to take you one more place.” She followed me and I held the door open for her. I couldn’t get over the way she looked in my jacket. I never wanted it back so I could see her wearing it.

We were silent on the quick drive to the generically named Sand Beach.

I parked and we got out. It was a little chilly, but not too bad. I was cold, but I wasn’t going to take my jacket back. No way in hell.

“I would say let’s take our shoes off and walk in the sand, but I don’t want you to get frostbite on your toes,” I said, trying to make things light.

“It’s not cold enough for frostbite, but I definitely don’t want to have cold toes,” she said. We trudged through the sand and avoided the water as the sun sank low in the sky. I took her hand and she pulled it inside the cuff of the jacket so at least my right hand was warm.

“It’s really beautiful,” she murmured.

“Yeah, it is. And so are you.” I’d said it just to make her blush and I was rewarded.

“Shut up,” she said, shoving me with her shoulder while still holding my hand. I laughed and pretended I was wounded.

“That was such a line,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“So? It’s true.” I wasn’t above using anything I could to get her to blush or to make her happy. Yanking her out of her head for a little while was my main goal in life. And kissing her. That was the other. She was just so damn good at it.

“So, friend, how has your day been?” I asked.

“It’s been pretty good, apart from a tiny freak-out, friend.” She gave me a smile and I tucked it in my mental pocket to save.

“I don’t mind your freak-outs at all.”

“Why? Why don’t you mind? Most people would.” I shrugged. She didn’t need to know why I didn’t mind. Why she could do just about anything and I would still be her friend.

“I guess I’m not most people,” I said, pausing and leaning down to pick up a rock.

“Look. It’s shaped like a heart.” Okay, so it was shaped like a squished heart, but still. You could see it.

“How incredibly cliché,” she said as I dusted the sand off the cool, slightly-wet rock.

“I don’t care,” I said, shoving it in her pocket. I liked having little reminders and memories of her. She did too, judging by how many of my little presents now decorated her room. I loved knowing that the things I gave her were part of her private space even when I wasn’t there.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“I take that as a compliment,” I said with a laugh. There were a few other people on the beach with us. Running, walking their dogs, taking pictures of the sun glinting off the waves. It would be fun to come here in the summer, but that was a long way off. My first Maine winter was coming soon and I wasn’t looking forward to any of it. The snow, the cold, the bundling up every time you had to go to class. And since I wasn’t a fan of winter sports, I was pretty much screwed.

“Do you like the snow?” I asked her. I’d figured out that if I asked her seemingly innocuous questions, she’d sometimes reveal more than she meant to with her answers.

“It depends. As long as I’m warm inside and I don’t have to go anywhere, I love it,” she said.

“Totally agreed. I know I should be happy that I’ll be in a state that has plenty of snowboarding and skiing, but I’m not excited at all.”

“What about snowshoeing? That’s not too intense and can be really nice. I’ve done that a few times.” Something told me she hadn’t been alone when she’d snowshoed in the past.

“I think I could be persuaded by a pretty girl to go snowshoeing. I mean, I could be persuaded by a pretty girl to do pretty much anything,” I said with a wink. That got me another blush. I shouldn’t call her pretty because she was so much more than that. Didn’t want her knowing just how incredibly stunning she was, though. I was afraid of freaking her out and probably would be for a while.

“Maybe this winter we can go,” she said after a little hesitation. This was the first time she’d really talked about making future plans with me and I wanted to do an end zone victory dance.

“Yeah, we’ll have to do that,” I said and she tightened her hold on my hand.

By the time we were done at the beach it was dinnertime, but we were both cold and wanted to get back to campus so I stopped a drive-thru (that Ingrid assured me had vegan options) on the way back and we ate in the parking lot, fighting over the ketchup packets for our fries.

“They never give you enough. No matter how many you ask for, they never give you enough,” I said, fishing around in the bottom of the bag to see if I could find any more packets.

She grinned at me and held up a handful of them before dropping them in her lap.

“Well, aren’t you sneaky?” I said and she looked so pleased with herself.

“If you’re nice to me, I might share.” I looked at her lips as she licked a blob of ketchup off of the corner of her mouth.

“What if I’m not nice?” I said, leaning toward her a little.

“Well, then I’m
definitely
not sharing,” she said and didn’t pull away.

I took a risk, dived forward and gave her a sloppy kiss. She squealed and moved away, but not before I’d snatched a few of the packets away from her.

“Victory,” I said and she scowled adorably at me. There wasn’t anything she could do that didn’t make me want her.

“You owe me,” she said, using a few fries to point at me.

“I’ll make it up to you,” I said.

“You’d better.”

When we got back to campus, we sat in my car in the parking lot in silence. Seemed like neither of us knew what to say. It was like such an anticlimactic end to our day.

“Thank you.” I turned to look at her. She stared down at her hands.

“For what?”

“For today. For getting me out of my head. For helping me start learning how to breathe again. I’d forgotten how,” she said with a breathy little chuckle.

“You’re welcome. I’m happy to be of service. Any time of the day or night.” I cringed the second after I said it. “Ouch, I didn’t mean to make it sound that creepy.” She let out a sweet little giggle.

“That’s okay. I knew what you meant. I didn’t know how much I needed a friend like you.” She sat up and leaned over the center console, reaching for my face. I met her halfway and she gave me kiss. No tongue, no searing passion or desperation. It was a different kind of kiss. A thank you kiss. A friendly kiss with a hint of something more. I wanted more. I wanted so much more. I wanted everything.

“Goodnight, Coen,” she said, getting out.

“Goodnight, Ingrid,” I called after her and watched as she walked toward her dorm, still wearing my jacket. I didn’t start the car until she’d made it into the building and disappeared.

“And where have
you
been?” Marty said as I shut the door of our room. I felt like I hadn’t seen him in weeks because I’d been so wrapped up in Ingrid. He didn’t seem to mind though.

“Out with a girl,” I said with a smile.

“Good for you, man. Good for you. Guess you have some game after all.” I shrugged and flopped down on my bed.

“I think it’s all about tailoring your game to the girl. And this one requires more work, but it’s totally worth it.” He whistled and I threw a pillow at him.

“Not like that. She’s not just a good body. Ugh, I’m not even talking about her like this with you.” Marty grinned at me and tossed the pillow back.

“Okay, okay. Calm down, I get it. You’ve told me that she’s special. I guess I can see it. She’s definitely got that mysterious thing going on. And she’s hot…pretty. She’s pretty. And you like her. So that means I like her. And if you ever decide you want to step out and hang with the group, she’s more than welcome.” I knew that. Ingrid knew that. It didn’t mean it was going to happen.