The Space in Between (13 page)

“There goes that idea.” She sighs, releasing the hold she has on the guitar and standing. Turning her back to me, she starts walking towards the back of the room, and knowing she’s going to put the guitar away, I don’t hesitate to try and stop her.

For the first time since I got here almost two months ago, I feel like I just put myself in the middle of something I should have stayed out of and I hate myself for it.

“You don’t have to stop.”

“Yeah,” she scoffs, placing the guitar gently back in its place. “I do.”

“Why?”

“If you’re here, it means Marissa won’t be far behind. You probably want to be alone, and I might be weird, but watching the two of you go at it isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”

She is so unbelievably wrong.

She also has no clue that the reason I’m here is because I caught her running from the gym and at the exact moment I decided I was going to follow her, Johnny had come along and made it even easier to get away.

He never said a word, just mouthed
music room
before swooping in and sweeping my date off her feet, her laughter as he spun her around and dipped her the last thing I heard as I made my way out of the gym to where I stand now.

The only girl I want to be alone with already in the room.

“That’s not why I’m here.”

Spinning around to face me, she bridges the gap between us by moving closer, stopping once she reaches Yorke’s desk. Nervously rubbing her hands over her arms while shooting sideways glances my way, obviously trying to figure me out, she slips her body up onto the desk, her leg tapping back and forth like a metronome as the seconds pass until she finally breaks it by speaking.

“So, why are you here, Mikey?”

Taking her use of my middle name as a good sign, I slowly lower myself down onto the other end of the desk, my eyes not leaving her as I watch for a sign of how she’s going to feel about me being this close.

“I was hoping we might be able to talk.”

“About what?”

“Whatever I did to make you hate me.”

“Okay, but first you’ve gotta tell me why me wanting nothing to do with you matters so much. Because Mikey, it’s kind of creepy how much you care about what I think.”

Creepy wasn’t exactly what I was going for, but it’s something and as long as there’s something, words of any shape and size coming out of that pretty mouth, I can work with it.

“So with the way we met, you weren’t expecting it to get creepier? That hurts, Emery. I was using all of my best stalker material on you for weeks.”

There’s no guarantee this is going to work, but after watching her with Johnny and seeing how quickly she switches gears, I’m hoping that I can at least break up whatever this is so she’ll hear me out.

“Christian,” she sighs. “What are you doing?”

“Getting my friend to talk to me. See, she’s been kind of avoiding me for weeks and I’m sick of it.”

“So instead of taking the hint and cutting your losses, your big idea is to corner her and make her talk to you? Even though it might be the last thing she wants?”

“Yeah, I guess, but I don’t agree with the last part. It’s not the last thing she wants.”

“And you know this how? Because a bird with a big mouth told you?”

“Nope.” I disagree. “She told me herself.”

“Oh, this I gotta hear.  If I haven’t talked to you for weeks, how do you figure I told you anything?”

“Who said I was talking about you?” I joke and when her eyes catch mine, nail her with a wink. “You really have too high an opinion of yourself, Ems. Damn.”

As hard as I know she has got to be fighting any reaction to my words, her lip quivers just slightly and raises, the sight of which makes my heart soar.

Not giving up and walking away despite her frosty reception when I got here, it’s paying off. She’s warming to me despite her every intention not to.

I’m winning the battle.

“I miss you, Ems.” I take the chance and admit, “I didn’t think that I would, but I do. I know that probably pisses you off and I hate that, but I’m not sorry I feel that way.”

Wanting to give her time to come to terms with what I said, I let my eyes fall away from her out over the room, memories of all of the mornings we spent together here coming to mind easily, making it absolutely impossible to find one spot in here that doesn’t remind me of her.

I’ve got it bad, but after spending weeks trying to forget, move on and make a whole new set of memories, I’ve come to the conclusion that being that way isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“You miss me.” She finally responds and instead of repeating myself, I just smile weakly and nod.

“I didn’t want it to end. I told you that.”

“You didn’t want
the music
to end.”

“No, Emery. It might have started out like that; about the music, because what we were making together was amazing, but when I told you I didn’t want it to end, I meant us. I meant you.”

“Oh…”

“I didn’t want to end…you.” I repeat, for no other reason than wanting to hear myself admit the truth again. The way it feels after it’s been said like a tremendously huge weight has been lifted off my chest.

When I moved here, the last thing I expected to happen was to meet some girl and have her turn my world upside down with her strange humor, old soul heart and uncanny ability to touch my soul through her music. In fact, if anyone had told me that was what I was going to find, I would have laughed in their face.

It was crazy. This, whatever it is with her, it’s completely crazy.

It’s also exactly what I want.

“Where does Marissa fit into what you just said? You’re here with her.”

“I said yes to her because of Jonah at first, but then it was about giving you what you wanted. The space you put between us, I wanted her to fill it, but she couldn’t.”

“Sure didn’t look that way when you were dancing.”

“Emery,” I start, knowing exactly what I want to say but having a moment of pause where I doubt whether it’s going to be too much for her to hear. “I wanted to do right by her. Instead of bailing, I wanted to see it through. Make sure she had a good night. I wanted to do the right thing.”

“If that’s true, then why are you in here when your place is out there with her?”

“Because as nice as she is, and as much as I still want to do right by her, she isn’t you. She doesn’t even compare.”

Emery

The space between us, I wanted her to fill it, but she couldn’t.

She isn’t you.

She doesn’t even compare.

The girl more interested in pictures, music and getting lost in daydreams, the one always just on the periphery of life, is in no way prepared for what Christian just admits.

Words like this are meant for girls like Marissa and April. They interact with others and actually enjoy doing it. They’re worthy of being liked, missed and maybe eventually even loved.

They don’t spend every waking hour with their faces shoved in front of a lens, snapping pictures of life being lived instead of living it themselves.

They’re not me
.

But Christian isn’t saying any of this to them.

He’s saying it to me.

“Did Johnny put you up to this?”

“That depends. He did play a part in this costume, and he helped me out by dancing with Marissa when I saw you take off, but he’s not the reason I’m sitting here unloading on you. All of that, no matter how embarrassing, is all me.”

I believe him. Johnny might have given him a heads up on costumes and even distracted his date long enough for him to slip away, but the rest, it’s all just words and feelings that he’s probably been swallowing down for weeks, the same exact way I have because it seemed too good to be true.

So good it was scary.

“I missed you too.” I admit, knowing there’s a whole lot more to be said, but needing to bridge some of the distance he said I put between us.

Sliding across the desk, his eyes drifting away from mine just long enough to catch what I’m doing, he proves himself even more by moving with me, until finally our legs touch and with a slight turn of my body, so are our arms.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. I’m sorry that I stupidly let you walk away that night without at least fighting for some kind of explanation so I could make you stay. I’m sorry that I spent weeks trying to give you what you wanted instead of going after what I did, but most of all Emery, I’m sorry that it wasn’t you out there in the middle of the gym dancing with me tonight.”

I need to stop him. He’s apologizing for things that he had no say in. I created the distance, I stayed away and I’m the one that kept my mouth shut, waiting until it was too late to finally tell the truth.

I did it. This is all on me. 

Moving my hand and slipping it under his, never once taking my eyes off him, I feel his fingers curl around when I make contact, and just like his words from earlier, nothing compares.

It’s the way it’s supposed to be.

The way it should have been the entire time.

“Christian,” I say at the exact moment he whispers mine. “I like you.”

“That’s good, Emery. That’s real good, because with the way I’m sweating just being this close to you, it’s a pretty safe bet I like you too.”

When his eyes soften with the admission, I see something in them that I never noticed before.

Mine reflecting back at me.

They remind me of something he said the night I took him to our spot, and instead of keeping it to myself or swallowing it down out of fear, I smile and just like he did with me, be honest.

“The beach.”

“What about it?”

“I never noticed it before, but our eyes. We’re like the beach.”

“As adorable as that is, I’m still not following.”

“Blue eyes, the color of water.” I attempt to explain. “And mine, brown like the sand.”

“The beach.” He muses softly. “Another sign.”

Squeezing my fingers in his, causing him to look away long enough to react and respond back with a squeeze back of his own, he looks up and in that moment, I know I don’t have ask for an explanation because he gets it.

“From the moment I met you, things have been happening. Signs that for the first couple of weeks, I didn’t really understand, or maybe I just didn’t want to understand, but no matter where I went or what I did they just kept coming. Signs everywhere. I want to tell you about them, and I will, but there’s something more important that I want to do first. If it’s okay with you.”

Thinking of all of the things I want to do now that we’ve admitted how we feel, my eyes fall to his lips. Lifting my free hand and bringing it across, I make my desire very clear as I run my fingers slowly over them, feeling the warmth of his exhale as it comes, and releasing a sigh of my own as he leans in, lifting his own hand and resting it on my cheek, I hold all other breaths in anticipation of what’s about to happen next.

With his lips so close to mine I can feel them as they part, instead of taking the next step and pressing them to mine, he whispers to me instead.

“Dance with me?”

Chapter Twelve

November 2014

Emery

This has got to be the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but at the same time, kind of the coolest.

Sure, I’m the girl that stock piles books of all shapes and sizes, but none more than romance novels (the first love kind, not the ones your mom hides under her bed so you can’t get your grubby little hands on them). I get lost easily in the idea of coming to school, meeting someone by chance and having them affect your life in such a monumental way that by the end you couldn’t imagine your life without them.

I can buy into the idea of first love easily. Even the everlasting kind. I just never thought it was something that could happen outside of the fictional realm.

Now before you roll your eyes and start thinking this is my way of getting you to feel bad for the awkward girl, I don’t mean I didn’t see it happening for me. I’m talking for anyone. Have you ever seen the way love is in high school? It’s a joke and nothing like the stories I’ve read or the movies I’ve watched.

It’s definitely not Notebook worthy.

Then if you step away from high school entirely, I’ve never seen it happen in my own life either. My mom has been single for as long as I’ve been alive, and if it wasn’t for this new guy now, I wouldn’t believe it was possible for her either.

It’s just always been the unattainable dream.

After what happened at the Halloween dance a couple of weeks ago though, Christian and I admitting how we felt, and then him officially asking me out, it’s both crazy and cool, and almost like someone brought one of the books to life.

The strangest part and what I ponder most when I’m on my own, is how things can be so different, yet not much has actually changed.

It’s as if in saying yes to Christian and admitting I like him, it allowed us to ease back into what we had before. The comfortable way we just existed as friends, only this time with the added benefit of getting to kiss each other at random times throughout the day and not caring about who saw what or who even cared at all.

Everything the same, just out in the open instead of buried inside.

Meeting up before class and creating music together, one upping each other with random looks in our classes before eating lunch together, then hanging out in the bleachers after school before heading our separate ways home to commiserate through text until one or the both of us passed out.

It’s all just the same as it was, and for some reason that’s strange to me.

Isn’t there supposed to be this life altering change when you go through something as monumental as having your first boyfriend? Aren’t you supposed to wake up the next day and feel different, or, I don’t know, look different?

If things are supposed to be different, I must have missed the memo.

What I didn’t miss is the way he looks coming out of the gym in the sweat covered gray tank top emblazoned with the school crest, or the pause he does mid conversation with Jonah when he catches me out of the corner of his eye.