Page 29 of His to Cherish
Or tossed into the garbage can if I could bring myself to listen to the rational voice in my head telling me to leave while I had a chance.
But I ignored it. I missed him.
I missed our quiet nights.
I wanted to apologize for whatever I’d done to make him regret kissing me, not so we could kiss again, even though I’dloveit if we did. I just wanted to remind him that I was here for him. I wanted to let him know that we could go back to what we were before that kiss.
I’d thought about Aidan’s house all week. How he came to mine when he said his was “too quiet.” And if he hadn’t come to mine to hang out, had he been alone all week? How hard would that have been for him? And if he wasn’t at my house, what was he doing?
That realization, however small, reminded me that regardless of the nights and the hours I’d spent with Aidan, I knew absolutely nothing about him except his girlfriend left years ago and he lost his son.
In all the time we’d spent together, he’d never once opened up to me about anything personal.
In fact, if I looked back, there was a clear line around what he would talk about, and none of it, not a single bit of it, had anything to do with him. I was someone who supplied him beer and television and that was it.
Go.
I stood and brushed the dust off my butt that’d been plastered to his dirty wooden front stoop for the last forty minutes.
Unfortunately, I was too late. As I took the first step off the stairs, I heard the distinctive rumble of Aidan’s truck engine. I blinked and his black, Dodge Ram came into view between the trees that lined his side of the yard.
Halfway down one of the steps to his front stoop, I froze, and then my mouth dropped open as his garage door began rising.
His truck stopped in the driveway while the door went up, and it was then I saw that he had already seen me.
He was staring at me through the front windshield. I saw his fingers flex and tighten around the steering wheel and his jaw go hard.
He had sunglasses on, so I couldn’t see his eyes, but I couldfeelthem on me—glaring at me.
A muscle jumped in his cheek, and it was so noticeable I saw it even though we were several yards apart.
He wasn’t just unhappy I was at his house, waiting for him, he waspissed.
I looked away to the row of narrow but tall pine trees that lined his yard, wishing I had catlike reflexes and could jump straight from my spot on the walkway into the trees and disappear.
I swallowed, trying to choke down the humiliation coursing through my blood, heating my skin in the worst way possible.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his truck move. He pulled into his garage, and the loud double garage door began descending as soon as his truck disappeared.
The garage door crashed to the cement ground. My feet vibrated from the heavy thud and then there was silence.
No footsteps inside.
No click of a front door unlocking.
No voice welcoming me in and thanking me for bringing him dinner.
Before he could see the tears that rose unbidden to the backs of my eyes, I moved.
I turned around, slid the pizza box onto Aidan’s front porch, careful not to look if I could see him inside his house.
And I got the hell out of there.
—
My own sense of stupidity mixed with foolish hopefulness prevented me from sleeping most of the weekend.
During the middle of the night, unable to sleep, I kept envisioning that glare I couldn’t see, that cheek jump I saw clearly, and the silence that followed. It made me realize I had a problem.
