Ugly Love

I realize in this moment that things aren’t the same between us. Something huge changed, and I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. He brought me here because he wants to talk.

I just don’t know what he wants to talk about.

“Miles,” I say, wanting him to look at me again. He doesn’t.

“It’s not fun,” he says quietly. “This thing we’re doing.”

I don’t like that sentence. I want him to take it back, because it feels like it’s cutting me. But he’s right. “I know,” I say.

“If we don’t stop now, it’ll just get worse.”

I don’t verbally agree with him this time. I know he’s right, but I don’t want to stop. The thought of not being with him again makes my stomach feel hollow. “What did I do to upset you so much?”

He cuts his eyes to mine, and I hardly recognize them from the ice built up behind them. “That was all me, Tate,” he says firmly. “Don’t think for a second that my issues are because of anything you do or don’t do.”

I find a slight amount of relief from his answer but still have no idea what went wrong with him. We keep our eyes locked, waiting for the other to fill the silence again.

I have no idea what he’s suffered through in the past, but it must have been pretty damn difficult if he can’t move on after six years.

“You act like it’s such a bad thing for us to like each other.”

“Maybe it is,” he says.

I kind of want him to stop talking now, because everything he says is just causing me more pain and making me even more confused. “So you brought me here to call it off?”

He sighs heavily. “I just wanted it to be fun, but … I think you might have different expectations from mine. I don’t want to hurt you, and if we keep doing this … I will.” He looks out his window again.

I want to hit something, but instead, I run two frustrated hands down my face and fall back heavily against my seat. I’ve never met anyone who can say so little when they speak. He’s definitely perfected the art of evasiveness.

“You have to give me more than that, Miles. A simple explanation, maybe? What the hell happened to you?”

His jaw tightens as firmly as the grip he still has on his steering wheel. “I asked you to do two things for me. Don’t ask about my past, and never expect a future. You’re doing both.”

I nod. “Yes, Miles. You’re right. I am. Because I like you, and I know you like me, and when we’re together, it’s phenomenal, so that’s what normal people do. When they find someone they’re compatible with, they open up to them. They let them in. They want to be with them. They don’t fuck them against their kitchen table and then walk away and make them feel like complete shit.”

Nothing.

He gives me nothing.

No reaction whatsoever.

He faces forward and starts his car. “You were right,” he says. He puts the car in reverse and prepares to pull out of the parking lot. “It’s a good thing we weren’t friends first. Would have made this a lot harder.”

I turn away from him because I’m embarrassed at how angry his words are making me. I’m embarrassed it’s hurting me like it is, but everything with Miles hurts. It hurts because I know how good our good moments are, and I know how easily the bad moments would go away if he would just stop trying to fight this.

“Tate,” he says with remorse.

I want to rip his voice from his throat.

His hand meets my shoulder, and the car isn’t moving anymore. “Tate, I didn’t mean that.”

I push his hand away. “Don’t,” I say. “Either admit you want me for more than just sex, or take me home.”

He’s quiet. Maybe he’s contemplating my ultimatum.

Admit it, Miles. Admit it. Please.

The car begins moving again.

“What did you expect would happen?” Cap asks, handing me another tissue.

When Miles and I arrived back at the apartment complex, I couldn’t bear riding up that elevator with him, so I took a seat next to Cap and let him go up alone. Unlike the hard exterior I try to show Miles, I completely break down while spilling all the details to Cap, whether he cares to hear them or not.

I wipe my nose again and drop the tissue, adding it to the pile next to me on the floor. “I was being delusional,” I say. “I told myself I could handle it if he never wanted more. I guess I thought if I let him take his time, he’d eventually come around.”

Cap reaches around to a trash can at his side and places it between us so I have somewhere to toss my tissues. “If that boy can’t see what a good thing he could have with you, then he ain’t worth your time.”

I nod, agreeing with him. I do have a lot more important things to do with my time, but for some reason, I feel as if Miles can see what a good thing he has with me. I feel like he wishes he could make this work between us, but something bigger than him or me or us is holding him back. I just wish I knew what it was.

“Have I told you my favorite joke yet?” Cap asks.

I shake my head and grab another tissue from the box in his hands, relieved at the change in subject.

“Knock, knock,” he says.

I didn’t expect his favorite joke to be a knock-knock joke, but I play along. “Who’s there?”

“Interrupting cow,” he says.

“Interrupt—”

“MOO!” he yells loudly, cutting me off.

I stare at him.

Then I laugh.

I laugh harder than I’ve laughed in a long damn time.

Chapter twenty-two

MILES

Six years earlier

My dad says he needs to speak to us.

He asks me to get Rachel and meet him and Lisa at the dining-room table. I tell him okay, that there’s something we need to

speak to them about, too.

Curiosity flashes in his eyes but only for a brief second. He

thinks about Lisa again, and he’s not curious anymore.

His everything is Lisa.

I go to Rachel’s room and tell my everything that they want to

speak to us.

We all sit down at the dining-room table.

I know what he’s going to say. He’s going to tell us he

proposed. I don’t want to care, but I do. I wonder why he didn’t

tell me first. This makes me sad but only a little bit. It’s not

going to matter after we tell them what we have to tell them.

“I asked Lisa to marry me,” he says. Lisa smiles at him. He

smiles at her.

Rachel and I aren’t smiling.

“So we did,” Lisa says, flashing her ring.

So.

We.

Did.

Rachel gasps quietly.

They’re already married.

They look happy.

They’re looking at us, waiting for a reaction.

Lisa is concerned. She doesn’t like that Rachel looks so upset.

“Honey, it was spur-of-the-moment. We were in Vegas.

Neither of us wanted a big wedding. Please don’t be mad.”

Rachel begins crying into her hands. I wrap my arm around

her and want to console her. I want to kiss her reassuringly, but

my father and Lisa wouldn’t understand it.

I need to tell them.

My dad looks confused that Rachel is so upset. “I didn’t think

either of you would mind,” he says. “You’re both leaving for

college in a couple of months.”

He thinks we’re mad at them.

“Dad?” I say, keeping my arm around Rachel. “Lisa?”

I look at both of them.

I ruin their day.

Ruin.

“Rachel is pregnant.”

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

DEAFENING SILENCE.

Lisa is in shock.

My father is comforting Lisa. His arm is around her, and he’s

rubbing her back.

“You don’t even have a boyfriend,” Lisa says to Rachel.

Rachel looks at me.

My father stands. He’s angry now. “Who’s responsible?” he

yells. He looks at me. “Tell me who he is, Miles. What kind of

guy knocks a girl up and doesn’t have the balls to be with her

when she tells her own mother? What kind of guy would let a

girl’s brother be the one to break the news?”

“I’m not her brother,” I say to my father.

I’m not.

He ignores my comment. He’s pacing the kitchen now. He

hates the person who did this to Rachel.

“Dad,” I say. I stand up.

He stops pacing. He turns and looks at me.

“Dad …”

I’m suddenly not as confident as I was when I sat down to do

this.

I’ve got this.

“Dad, it was me. I’m the one who got her pregnant.”

My words are hard for him to swallow.

Lisa is looking back and forth between Rachel and me. She

can’t swallow what I’m saying, either.

“That’s not possible,” my father says, trying to push away all

the thoughts that are telling him it is possible.

I wait for it to process.

His expression changes from confusion to anger. He looks at

me like I’m not even his son. He’s looking at me like I’m the

guy who knocked up his new stepdaughter.

He hates me.

He hates me.

He really hates me.

“Get out of this house.”

I look at Rachel. She grabs my hand and shakes her head,

silently pleading for me not to leave.

“Get out,” he says again.

He hates me.

I tell Rachel I should go. “Just for a little while.”

She begs me not to go. My father walks around the table and

shoves me. He pushes me toward the door. I release Rachel’s

hand.

“I’ll be at Ian’s,” I tell her. “I love you.”

Those words are obviously too much for my father, because his

fist immediately comes at me. He pulls his hand back and looks

almost as shocked as I do that he just punched me.

I step outside, and my father slams the door.

My father hates me.

I walk to my car and open the door. I sit in the driver’s seat,

but I don’t crank the engine. I look in the mirror. My lip is

bleeding.

I hate my father.

I get out of my car and slam the door. I walk back into the

house. My father rushes to the door.

I hold my palms up. I don’t want to hit him, but I will. If he

touches me again, I’ll hit him.

Rachel isn’t at the table anymore.

Rachel is in her room.

“I’m sorry,” I say to both of them. “We didn’t mean for it to

happen, but it happened, and now we have to deal with it.”

Lisa is crying. My father hugs her. I look at Lisa.

“I love her,” I say. “I’m in love with your daughter. I’ll take care

of them.”

We’ve got this.

Lisa can’t even look at me.

They both hate me.

“This started before I even met you, Lisa. I met her before I

knew you were with my father, and we tried to stop it.”

That’s kind of a lie.

My father steps forward. “The entire time? This has been

going on the entire time she’s lived here?”

I shake my head. “It’s been going on since before she lived

here.”

He hates me even more now. He wants to hit me again, but

Lisa is pulling him back. She tells him they’ll figure it out. She

tells him she can get it “taken care of.” She tells him it’ll be

okay.

“It’s too late for that,” I tell Lisa. “She’s too far along.”

I don’t wait for my father to hit me again. I rush down the

hallway and go to Rachel. I lock the door behind me.

She meets me halfway. She throws her arms around my neck

and cries into my shirt.

“Well,” I say. “The hard part is over with.”

She laughs with her cry. She tells me the hard part isn’t over

yet. She tells me the hard part is getting him out.

I laugh.

I love you so much, Rachel.

“I love you so much, Miles,” she whispers.

Chapter twenty-three

TATE

I miss you so much, Miles.

Thoughts like that are why I’m drowning my sorrows in chocolate. It’s been three weeks since he brought me home. It’s been three weeks since I’ve laid eyes on him. Christmas came and went, but I barely noticed because I worked through it. Two Thursday game nights that Miles didn’t show up to. New Year’s came and went. Another semester of school began.

And Tate still misses Miles.

I take my chocolate chips and my chocolate milk and walk to the kitchen to hide them from the person knocking at the apartment door.