“I know we can’t be anything now,” she insisted, shrugging and looking up at me, her hair falling away from her face. “I’m just wondering, if things had been different, would we—"
“It doesn’t matter,” I pressed.
She twisted her lips to the side, considering the thought, then said, “No, I guess it doesn’t. But it’s nice to think about, right?”
I pulled in another breath of fresh air. The night was cooler than it was in South Carolina. Soon, autumn would fall over Massachusetts, and I was going to miss it. I wondered what the season change would be like down South. I wondered if I’d hate it or if maybe I’d like it more. Milder winds, warmer winters … it sounded nice in theory, but Christmas without the cold seemed odd. The thought of Christmas at all seemed wrong.
“You know, there are plenty of girls with boyfriends in the military,” she mentioned casually.
I closed my eyes and lifted my hand to scrub it over my bristly scalp. “I can’t do that, Laura. You know that.”
“Can you explain to me why though?” she begged, sounding a little more desperate. “I don’t get it. You’re anadult, Max. You don’t live at home anymore. Your dad has nothing to do with—"
“My dad haseverythingto do witheverything,” I replied harshly, not intending to sound so damn angry. “Do you even know how he treats my mom?”
Her face crumpled. “What … what does that—"
“You don’t understand. I don’texpectyou to understand,” I said, suddenly breathless and desperate for air. “But please. I wish you’d get it through your head that I cannot do this. Okay? I don’t mean to be a dick. You know that. I’mnota dick. ButI can’t do this.”
My blood was boiling. I was angry—so fucking angry—but not at her. I was mad at my father. I was mad at the life he’d forced on me. I was mad at this unbreachable wall I’d had to build around my mind and heart, guarded by electric barbed wire, telling me that the most I could ever have wasthis. Tiny glimpses of what Iwished were mine, all of them coming as quickly as they were going.
Because what if the best that I could ever be washim?
“It’s okay,” Laura finally whispered, but it definitely was not okay. None of this wasokay.
“I should get back to Ricky’s,” I grumbled, wishing she had never sat with us at lunch.
I took a step backward, not wanting to forget the way she looked as I walked away. The hope dying in her eyes. The hurt written in every wriggle of her bottom lip. I needed to feel that pain, to remind myself of who I was at my core with ice bred into my veins.
“Wait,” she said in a hurry, filling the gap between us as she rushed forward. “Kiss me. Please.”
My brow pinched with confusion. “Why?”
“Because I want you to.”
I chuckled, rolling my eyes toward the dark sky, barren of stars. “You’re a glutton for punishment—you know that?”
Her hands were cool as they touched my wrists, tugging them toward her. She placed my palms against her waist, and I looked down to meet her wide, hopeful eyes.
“I might not understand you, but that doesn’t stop me fromwantingyou,” she said, wrapping her arms around my neck and standing on her toes. “I wish it did.”
Her lips touched mine tentatively. Warm and soft yet uncertain. She held her breath, and I held mine. Both of us waiting … but for what? For something to change, a shift in the universe, a different frame of mind to come over me that was never going to happen? I wasn’t sure, but myhands rested against her hips, not daring to move, out of fear that if they started, they wouldn’t know when to stop.
Her fingers ran over the short hairs at the back of my head, and she smiled, a soft laugh pushing through her nose.
“What?” I whispered, my eyes closed.
“It tickles,” she whispered back.
“Do you hate it?” I asked, and I couldn’t stand how much I wished that she didn’t.
“I already told you, Max,” she replied, pressing her lips to mine again, then again. This time, I kissed her back. “I tried to hate you, but I can’t.”
Then my hands found the courage to move, rounding to the small of her back, pressing her against my body. She gasped and tightened her grasp on my neck, her thumbs stretching to brush the underside of my jaw. I tried to hold back, tried to resist, but when her lips parted hesitantly, I had no choice but to respond. Our tongues reached out to touch, to taste. To savor this moment as it zipped by, like all the rest.
We made out on the sidewalk outside of her house for minutes. Our labored breathing, moans, and whispers of desperation filled the night while our hands and arms grappled for anything they could hold, as if they could hold on forever. My shirt, her hair. The back of my head, her slim waist and perfect, round ass. All of it. I wanted to hold on to everything until there was nothing—not time, not distance, not my father—that could force me to let go.
“Hey!”
