"Oh, I don't know, Max. Youleft, so I thought—"
Ricky coughed awkwardly and nudged Molly. "Hey, babe, uh … you wanna go grab milkshakes with me?"
Molly tore her attention from Laura’s and my emotional exchange to quickly nod. "Oh, right, yeah. Let's do that. Um, do you guys want anything?"
“No,” Laura replied heatedly at the same time that I stammered, “Y-yeah, sure,” while never taking my eyes off of her.
“What flavor?” Ricky muttered, already sliding out of the booth.
I huffed a sigh and grunted, “Uh … vanilla.”
“You got it, bud,” he said, clapping a hand against my shoulder before quickly escorting his girlfriend to the counter.
Then I was alone with Laura for the first time since prom. All at once, I could hear the chewing from two tables away, the tapping of keys at the register, the laughter from a group of kids near the entrance, but nothing was louder than the silence between this girl and me.
She could hardly look in my direction, could hardly sit still, and after just a few seconds, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Why did you even come tonight?”
She shrugged and turned her lips into a scowl. “Molly made me.”
“Bullshit, Laura,” I said, making her flinch with language I had seldom used in the past. “You’ve never had a problem saying no before. So, why the hell did you come?”
She gave her head a little shake and said, “I don’t know. I—"
“You wanted to be a brat? You wanted to torture me? You could’ve just stayed home, and I would’ve gotten the message loud and clear. You—"
“Oh my God,” she huffed irritably, looking at me. “I wanted to see you, okay?!”
I narrowed my eyes, confused. “But you said you hated me. Why—"
“Iwantto hate you,” she said, sounding so angry that I couldn’t stand it. “IwishI could hate you. But—"
“But what?”
She wilted with a sigh and scrubbed a hand over her eyes that now seemed so tired. “I can’t. I tried. For months, Itriedto hate you. But Ican’t.”
A strange cocktail of hope and disappointment crowded together in my chest, squeezing against my heart and taking up too much space. I wanted her to hate me. I wanted her to make things easier for when I inevitably left again and again and again. I didn’t want to know she was out there somewhere, pining for me, waiting for me tocome back. And yet … Idid. It felt good that she had spent these months thinking about me, wishing I were here, wanting me back.
God, it felt good to bewanted.
It felt wrong and selfish, but I loved it, too, and I couldn’t help that. Not when I was unwelcome in my own family’s home. Ineededto bewanted.
Especially now, as I sat across from her and saw that hope in my heart now reflected in her eyes. And I knew we could never be more than just this, and I knew I would leave again in just a couple of days, and whenever I did come back, I’d leave again. But these fleeting little moments together, for as long as I could have them …
Right now, they felt like they could be enough.
CHAPTER EIGHT
We spent that night drinking milkshakes and chatting like no time had passed at all. Laura sipped from my straw, and every time the plastic touched her lips, I felt that this thing between us was as serious as Greg Dumass and his girlfriend, Christy.
I imagined what it would be like if she were my real girlfriend, if she wrote letters to me the way Christy had written letters to Greg. It was a nice thought, one that filled me with something warm and comfortable.
But every time I caught myself thinking that way, I had to remember that it wasn’t in the cards.
“Will you walk me home?” she asked after the milkshakes were finished and a kid in a McDonald’s hat started to mop the floor.
It was near closing. Way past Laura’s bedtime. She was still in school after all, and the thought made me feel too old for her, too experienced, despite only being nineteen.
