New Year’s Eve was tomorrow and I didn’t want to welcome in a New Year that would be full of sadness, broken hearts, the tension between Adam and me.
I went to stand beside the passenger door of his car before determining it would probably be more practical to go home with Heath, since I lived with him now. Things between me and Heath had been strained since before this big blowup. He’d been pressuring me for weeks to tell them all. And I’d refused. I’d taken advantage of his loyalty to keep him silent. He’d had to face Adam and my mom demanding answers as to what was really going on with me. I owed him big time for it all.
I turned to walk toward Heath’s car when I felt a hand on my upper arm, stopping me. Peter stood on the front steps with his arm around my mom’s shoulders, and Heath was speaking to her in a low voice while she sniffled into a wad of tissues.
I turned to face Adam. His hand tightened on my shoulder and then slid down my arm. “You okay?”
I sighed and looked away. “I was pissed at you for bringing me here…planning all this.” I swallowed a big lump in my throat. “But now I feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry that it upset you.”
At least he didn’t say that I deserved it. I glanced up into his face again before my eyes darted away. I knew perfectly well he was still angry with me. He hid his feelings so well that sometimes it took a stray glimpse, a brief tightening in the muscles of his face or an even briefer flicker in his eyes to figure out what was going through his mind.
I knew that I’d hurt him. We’d hurt each other. A lot. And I could only see more hurt coming down this road before we could start to heal, if we ever could. New guilt clutched at my throat again. If he could set aside his anger at a time like this, then I could, too.
He cleared his throat. “I know you’re too tired right now, but can we talk in the morning?”
I wondered if he’d have anything new to say. Would it be more of the same? Would he yell at me again and insist I get the abortion? Fatigue pulled at every inch of my body, weighted it down. All I wanted right now was to stop struggling, stop fighting. I found that, in spite of everything, I wanted him with me, holding me. I almost asked him if I could go home with him tonight instead.
“Umm. Yeah, of course.”
“Pick you up for breakfast?”
I hadn’t eaten breakfast in over a week. That was the time of day when I was sickest. But I really didn’t feel like starting something with him. And as much as I’d tried to avoid him in the past few weeks it seemed that now I needed his presence as much as I needed to breathe. I could pick at a piece of toast and sip some juice if it meant we could spend some time together.
“Yeah, come get me whenever.”
He bent to kiss my cheek. When he leaned in, I caught a whiff of his amazing scent and my heart skipped a beat. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him close. He hesitated—it was only for a split second but I knew it. His bearing was stiff before he relaxed, his arms sliding up my back to rest on my shoulder blades and then—the imperceptible movement of his head as he turned to smell my hair. I pressed my face into his shoulder and he held me. I closed my eyes and relished that salty ocean smell and that smell of man. I breathed it in.
It felt good. So good. But it was over almost as quickly as it had begun and when he pulled away from me, first with a small jerk, then slowly, as if reminding himself not to be too abrupt—as if handling a fragile puppy or kitten—it physically hurt. That separation cut like a knife, deep into my heart.
“Adam…I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He reached up and smoothed my cheek. “So am I.”
That look we shared in the low light made my chest tighten, and new tears threatened burning the backs of my eyes.
A respawn and a do-over at this point would be fantastic. If only.
If only I could have restarted things back to that day I’d gotten the letter of acceptance to Hopkins. I really could have handled that better. But I’d been so wrapped up in that accomplishment—that monumental achievement that had been my single hope and dream for the past few years. One that I thought I’d failed miserably at when I’d failed the MCAT exam.
That had been the point when we had both starting making the big, stupid mistakes.
Adam pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “We have to stop saying it over and over, okay? We’re moving past it. No recriminations, self or otherwise, right? That was your rule, after all.”
I smiled wryly. “You’re all about the rules, aren’t you?”