“So I was right.”
I rubbed at my jaw and sighed, but didn’t look at her yet. “About what?”
“That girl from college. That’s what’s bothering you still.”
A smirk crossed my face as I turned to look at Grey. “Well, technically she wasn’t in college.”
Grey rolled her eyes. “When you were in college, you knew what I meant. It’s been . . . it’s been years, Knox. You haven’t talked about her since, and there’s been . . .” She trailed off, and thought for a second. “Countless girls. And you always seem happy. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“I am happy, Grey,” I told her honestly. “I have you and my best friends, I have my dream job, and I have more girls than I know what to do with. I am happy. This was the life I was always supposed to have. This was the plan with Deacon and Graham. Well, maybe not to go on this long, but this was it. It just took a long time to learn how to be happy without her, and sometimes it’s still hard to remember how when something reminds me of her.”
Grey nodded and pursed her lips. “The girl today, did she remind you of her?”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “No, God, that girl was a nightmare. But she said something that I’d promised Harlow for a long time. And hearing someone say that to me . . . it just caught me off guard.”
Grey wrapped her arms around me as much as her six-month-swollen stomach would allow. “I’m sorry. I know she meant a lot to you, Knox, but you’ll find someone. Someday.”
I gave Grey a tight-lipped smile when I pulled away, but didn’t respond. I never did when a family member or friend said something similar, because all I could think about was a girl who stole my heart outside of a concert one summer night, only to shatter it years later.
Chapter 4
Harlow
Spring 2009—Seattle
“YOU CAN’T KEEP doing this, Knox. If you’re going to be in a relationship, then you actually need to be in the relationship. You can’t let me get in the way of it,” I scolded, but even as I said the words, I couldn’t stop the smile from pulling at my lips.
Knox and I had agreed from the beginning that we wanted each other to still have our own separate lives. I think it had been my way of staying firm in my pseudo-argument that he was wasting his time waiting for me, and his way of making sure I didn’t miss out on anything. We’d known it would be too hard to stay away from each other, and had decided that if school schedules allowed it, he would come see me once a month.
He doubled that, and I wasn’t complaining.
If I had had my way he’d be with me every day, but I knew I couldn’t do that to him. I wanted him to have a life. As much as I wanted him with me, I was afraid that he would either resent me, or regret waiting for me if he missed out on college and all that it offered. So twice a month was our maximum. We hadn’t said why, but I was sure his reasons were the same as mine.
That, however, didn’t stop us from talking every other day. We always talked for hours, and it never felt long enough. Every time, I could still feel the connection I’d felt the first night I’d met him, and every time, I had to remember why we couldn’t be together. It wasn’t long before the word jailbait slipped back into my mind, and I would remember why we were staying apart even though neither of us wanted to, even though there was a tension that was tangible through the phone.
Unfortunately, the phone calls were something his girlfriend had just caught on to . . . just like Valentine’s Day.
Who am I kidding? There was nothing unfortunate about it. I didn’t care that she’d found out. It’s something we’d done before her, and I was glad it hadn’t changed during her. I also wasn’t sad she was gone—I was actually surprised she’d waited another two months to dump Knox after he had ditched her for me on Valentine’s Day.
As much as we had told each other that other relationships was part of us having our own lives, it still crushed me when I found out about her. Then again, I had dated a senior earlier in the school year. Tried to date him might be a better way of describing it. It took a couple of weeks to realize what I was doing, but whenever I saw him I compared him to Knox in every way. I finally decided a month in that it was pointless to pretend this guy could ever mean anything to me. I doubted anyone ever would, because meeting Knox Alexander had ruined me for any other boy.
Knox hadn’t even tried to hide his happiness that night, and I knew I was failing at hiding mine now. Knox’s girlfriend—I’d never wanted to know her name—had just broken up with him because of me.
“Relationship,” Knox huffed. “Low, I’ve told you, you could hardly call it that. Besides, I told her about you before whatever she and I were, ever started,” he said. “It’s not my fault she thought I was joking.”
“Well, it’s kind of weird, don’t you think? Telling her, ‘hey, sure I’ll be your date for this group thing, but there’s this girl I’m waiting for, and she’s my priority,’ seems like a way to say you don’t want to get too attached at the beginning.”
“But I told her,” he reasoned.
“You’re horrible.”
“Not horrible. I’m just in love with you, and I have a year and a half left until I can have you.”
I gripped at my warming chest and tried to ignore it as I sighed. “I’m going to stop answering your calls whenever you get a new girlfriend.”
“There won’t be a new one, and I know you wouldn’t.”
My eyebrows rose even though he couldn’t see me. “And how do you know that?”
“Because you love me, too. Through all this bullshit, you love me, and you need these calls as bad as I do.”
“I do love you, Knox,” I whispered into the phone. It wasn’t the first time I’d told him, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. “I love you to the moon and back.” My eyes fell to my dresser, where my monthly bouquet of red poppies sat. These had come just a few days ago. The card, as always, had read: I’m still waiting for you.
“To the moon?” A deep, husky laugh filled the other end of the phone. “The moon isn’t that far, Harlow.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Not far enough.” There were a few beats of silence before he confessed, “I want to love you to the stars.”