Authors: Erica Cope
Chapter 16
By the time I get home my mom has called eight times and sent me at least as many texts. I shower and change my clothes about five times. Then I do the dishes and vacuum the living room. I could pretend that I am naturally an obsessive clean freak, but really I’m just preoccupied with finding any excuse to delay returning my mother’s call and nerves about Holden coming over tonight. However, my apartment is now spotless and Holden should be off work in the next fifteen minutes so I guess I can't avoid my mom any longer.
“Aria?” she answers on the first ring.
“Hey, Mom.” Even I can tell how bored I sound.
“How's school?”
“Good.”
“And your job?”
“Also good.”
“Making any friends?”
“Yes.”
“That's good!” I can hear how thrilled she is. She's probably beaming as wide as the Cheshire Cat. “Tell me about them.”
“Right now?”
“Do you have some other pressing matter to attend to?”
“No,” I sigh. “I don't.”
“Well, then go on.”
I tell my mom about Olivia and Beck and even Holden. Then I also mention Mason and Suzi just so I have some other names to share with her. The more social she thinks I'm being the less likely she is to show up on my doorstep with the intention of shoving some sort of antidepressant down my throat.
I feel like talking to my mom is like a little mini therapy session. She is constantly pressuring me to talk in great detail about my feelings even after I share the most mundane information. If I tell her about what I ate for breakfast, she wants me to go into some in-depth discussion on how it made me feel
. I don't know Mom, full?
I'm mentally exhausted by the time I get off the phone with her which is not good since I really need all the brain power I can muster to study. I glance at the clock on the wall and realize that Holden should be here at any moment. I decide to start a pot of coffee but somehow in the process I spill some water down the front of my shirt.
“Awesome Aria,” I mutter to myself.
I'm looking for a new sweatshirt to change into when I find myself drawn to the box and my guitar shoved unceremoniously beside it in the back of my closet.
I bite my lip and my fingers twitch as I think about pulling the guitar out. I have a few minutes to kill—it won’t hurt to simply tune it. I don't have to play it or anything.
The next thing I know I'm strumming slowly, casually at first as I start to remember my favorite chords. It takes me a minute to remember the correct placement of my fingers but after a few less-than-pleasant sounding attempts, I find the right positions.
I fall back on my favorite strumming pattern: down, down, up, up, down, up. Down, down, up, up, down, up. Over and over again. It's simple. I never mastered any of the more complex patterns but I like the way it sounds.
When I'm playing, I lose track of everything except the way the strings feel under my fingers. I never use a pick; I prefer the sound without one. Playing like this used to hurt my fingers but the blisters have long since calloused over and it feels natural even now after all this time of not playing.
I start playing the first song that Sean taught me. It's a simple one—only four chords that are just repeated. I mess up a couple of times but by my fourth attempt I got it and I even find myself singing along.
I hear someone knock loudly on the door and immediately stop playing. Holden must be here already. I check the time and realize he isn't early—he's right on schedule, I just lost track of time. I carefully place the guitar back in my closet and close my bedroom door before walking out into the living room and letting him in.
He walks in, his eyebrows knit together in confusion as he looks around my apartment.
“Were you listening to the radio?”
“No, why?”
“I knocked on the door a few times. I thought I heard—” He stops and a look of realization replaces his previously confused expression. “You were playing.”
It's not a question, or even an accusation—he is just simply stating a fact.
I bite my lip and feel my face burn with embarrassment knowing that he heard me playing when nobody but Sean and our families had ever heard me play before. And not only that, but he also heard me singing. And that's something no one has ever been privy to. Nobody. Not even Sean.
“Oh, yeah, I mean, yes. I was listening to the radio. I turned it off before answering the door.” I lie and sincerely hope that he doesn't see through it.
The look on his face confirms that he doesn't buy it but thankfully, he doesn't continue to press me for the truth.
He sprawls out on the couch, making himself comfortable and I'm struck by how normal it feels having him here. He stretches loudly, his arms reaching behind his head, causing his shirt to rise a little exposing a classic six-pack.
“Do you work out?” The word vomit is out before I can slap a hand over my mouth and make myself shut up.
He freezes, mid-stretch, mouth agape for only a moment before letting out a deep, husky laugh.
“Sorry that was—” I don't finish my sentence because honestly I don't even know what my excuse would be. Why would I say that? Out loud? What was I thinking? I shut my eyes tightly and silently wish there was a rewind button on this thing called life. “Um, can we just forget I said that?”
“Sure,” he says kindly though I can tell he's still amused. “But to answer your question, yes. I used to run track.”
“Oh,” I say rather lamely. It's the only response I can muster up.
“I brought some practice tests,” he says moving. He starts to lay everything out on my coffee table. “I thought they might help.”
“Thanks,” I tell him and I hope he knows that I'm not just referring to the practice tests. “Do you want any coffee?”
“Yeah, sure thanks.”
I spend a little more time than necessary in the kitchen but I just need a moment to regain my composure. Lucky for me, after I spilled water down my shirt, I forgot to finish making the coffee so it gives me a good excuse. Not that I need to stand here watching it brew but it gives me something to do besides ask stupid questions about Holden's six-pack.
And of course every time I think about why I'm embarrassed, I get embarrassed all over again. At this rate, my face is going to be a permanent shade of red.
Eventually the coffee finishes brewing and I'm out of excuses to avoid the living room. I pour two cups of coffee, one with a generous amount of creamer for me, black for him of course.
I set his cup down in front of him.
“You remembered,” he says.
“Well, yeah. It's not like it's complicated.”
He looks up at me and gives me a thin smile. I try to figure out what that smile means but all I can think of is what it makes me feel, which is not really the same thing.
I feel even more confused now than I did after the kiss.
Chapter 17
I brace myself for the worst. Despite the numerous study sessions with Holden, I'm still incredibly nervous. At least I felt like I knew the material better this time which was an improvement.
“Good job, Miss Watkins,” Dr. Hilburn says as he passes out last week's test, then adds quietly, “There might be hope for you after all.”
I can hardly believe my eyes.
I passed! And not only passed but I actually aced a biology test for the first timet. I feel completely elated for the first time in I can't even remember how long. My face actually hurts from being so out of the habit of smiling, but it feels good through the ache.
I'm practically skipping as I enter The Java Bean for my afternoon shift. Holden is behind the counter already which means he worked this morning. I'm slightly disappointed that I won't be working my full shift with him today but I'm still so excited about passing my test that I don't dwell on it.
He looks up and a smile breaks out on his face. He knows already. He probably graded the tests for Professor Hilburn.
“I passed!” I tell him anyway because I still can't believe it.
“I know,” he says with a wide grin. He hops over the counter in one fluid motion, wrapping his arms around my waist and lifting me up in the air in a celebratory hug. Heat surges through my veins as he leans down. My heart speeds up in anticipation and for a minute I consider letting him kiss me again but before I can let that happen, I know I have to tell him about Sean. He has to know why I've been so hesitant. It's only fair.
“Holden,” I stop him and squirm my way out of his arms. You don't understand—”
“Look Aria,” he interrupts me. His blue eyes are holding mine, refusing to let go and the intensity of that look makes my knees wobble beneath me. “I think it's pretty obvious how I feel—I haven't exactly done a great job keeping that a secret. The only thing that isn't obvious is how you feel about me. So I'll make this real easy on the both of us. My shift is over anyway.”
He starts to walk away and the sudden ache in my heart takes me off guard as I realize that I don't want him to go.
“Wait—” I say as I reach out for his hand. “Don't.”
He stops, looking down at my outstretched hand and then his eyes meet my own. “Don't what?”
“Don't go.”
“And why not?”
“Can we just, I don't know, talk for a minute?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, before shrugging.“Yeah.”
He sounds so tired. I can understand that. He's probably increasingly frustrated with the mixed signals I've been sending him. One minute we are hanging out like friends, the next I'm being weird again and don't want him to get too close. But the thing is, I think I do want him to get close. I just think I need to be honest with him regarding why I'm so messed up.
I look around and while it's not busy, there are a few customers so I grab his hand and pull him back to the back room. Mason is there with a clipboard checking the inventory.
“Hey Mason can you give us a sec?” Holden asks. I'm certain Mason is going to pull rank but then I guess being the boss’ son, maybe Holden does sort of out rank him.
“Yeah, sure.” He seems taken aback by the request but he doesn't object. He even closes the door behind him leaving Holden and me alone.
“What do you want to talk about?” Holden says after a painfully long moment of silence.
“What do you mean that it's obvious how you feel?” I ask him.
“Exactly what I said.”
“So how do you feel?” My voice comes out a meek little whisper. I'm treading on ice and one wrong move will send me crashing down to the freezing depths of despair. How much longer can this ping pong match go on? One minute I'm reluctantly agreeing to be friends, then we're making out in the back room, then we're not speaking and then he wants to be friends—how am I supposed to know how he really feels? I barely have a grip on how
I
feel.
He let's out a frustrated growl. “How is it that you are the only one who doesn't know?”
“But you said—”
“Fuck what I said Aria. I was only saying that I wanted to be friends because it was the only way you'd let me near you. Don't you see that?”
“But I—”
“There are no 'buts'. It's actually very simple, Aria. Either you feel the same way about me or you don't but please—” His voice breaks. “For the love of God, would you please just tell me what you’re thinking?”
The vulnerability in his voice and the pleading look in his eyes almost breaks me apart and I know that I can't deny it any longer.
“I do,” I admit softly.
There's a small, hopeful smile forming on his face as he closes the distance between us. “You do?”
“Yes.”
He lets out a breath of relief.
“I'm going to kiss you now.”
“Okay,” I say breathlessly.
“If you don't want me to—”
As I stand up on the tips of my toes, he's still at least a head taller than me but he leans down, meeting me in the middle.
He presses his lips gently on my own, slowly, almost hesitantly, as though he just wants to make sure this is okay. Or maybe he is just savoring it.
In that moment I'm so lost in the way his lips feel I almost forget that I wanted to talk.
I pull away, not because I want to stop kissing him, but because I want to kiss him more. But first there are some things that I need to tell him before I can really move forward with him.
“Before we can take this, whatever it is, between us any further. There's something I need to tell you.”
“About your boyfriend?”
“I don't have a boyfriend. I wasn't lying about that before.” I can see the relief on his face at that revelation. “But the shirt does belong to someone.”
I hear him suck in his breath, preparing himself for the blow.
“But he's—” I take a deep breath and force the words out of my mouth. “He's dead. He died. And I'm not all together sure I ever got over it, or if I will ever be able to get over it, because it's my fault that it happened. I was the one driving. It's my fault. So I've been pushing you away, because I knew that somehow you would worm your way into my heart and quite frankly it isn't all put together right. It's just a mess of duct tape and glue and missing chunks and even the slightest disturbance is sure to mess it up even further beyond repair.” I can't stop the tears much longer as they threaten to push themselves over the brim, but I need to finish telling him everything so I push myself through it. “And I didn't know how to tell you. Every time I tried you would interrupt me with this whole being friends business so I thought you didn't care. So I've—”
He doesn't say anything—he just pulls me into his arms and I let the waves of emotion crash down the barriers I had so carefully constructed, smashing them to the ground with tsunami force. And I let it overcome me because I know that Holden's arms are going to hold me up.
A year’s worth of tears spill onto his shirt—I didn't think it was possible to cry any more but I was wrong. He holds me in his arms until my eyes are red and dry and my breathing is nothing more than gasps of air and gulps as I try to regain a little of my composure. Despite the hindering hiccups, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in a long time.
“So what does this mean?” he asks.
“It means that I'm trying. Trying to be normal, to be the kind of girl who gets all giddy over her new boyfriend, the kind of girl that smiles. But I'm not quite there yet. It means, that I'm asking for just a little time.”
“Time I can give. But Aria, don't take too long.”
He kisses me slowly on the lips one more time.