Mending
Chapter 10
“Do I?” my heart is beating against my chest harder than the waves pound the shore on a stormy night. I can practically hear his smirk.
“Yeah. It doesn't really make much sense though.” in the dark, I can see the outline of his face, chiseled jaw, faint smirk, shining eyes, all facing towards the stars.
“Why's that?” under the cover of darkness I have a certain confidence that I don't have in the light.
“Because.” he sighs. “We barely even know each other.”
“I guess.”
“But for some reason there's just this crazy attraction I feel for you.” my already labored breathing hitches. “and it's like,” he continues, “I want to always be around you. And when I'm not with you I’m thinking about you.”
“Yeah?” I can barely hear my own voice.
“Oh yeah.” he confirms.
We both stay quiet for a minute, contemplating what could happen here tonight. The outcome of the situation. I think about how amazing it would be to be in a relationship with Eli. Not only is he an amazing guy, but he's also really hot, he has cute siblings, and would make Nessa and Morgan extremely jealous. But on the flip side, so much good has the potential to turn into so much bad. So much hurt. I don't know if I can handle anymore damage. Is Nate right? Am I falling too fast?
My thoughts are interrupted when the window swings open. “Eli?” Mrs. Blake pokes her head out and squints her eyes in the darkness, there's little age wrinkles around her eyes and instead of making her look old, they only manage to make her look loving and caring.
“What's up mom?” he sits up on his elbows and looks back at her. I can tell he's trying to regain composure after what just happened. I am too.
“Do you want extra sheets for the couch?” it's such an innocent question but my face flames. I completely forgot about the whole bed situation. I got so wrapped up in Eli.
“Uh-I-um-sh-sure.” Eli stutters. It's a relief to see he's as distraught as I am. It makes him seem more human rather than the perfect prince in my imagination.
“Okay.” she shivers in the cold, “I'll just put them on the foot of your bed. You guys should come inside to bed soon. It's getting late and it's chilly out.” her motherly instinct once again leaves me aghast. I always thought moms only said that in books or movies.
“We were just headed inside now. Right Tess?” he stands up and then lends a hand out to me. I can only nod.
*****
I wake up with Eli's arm sprawled across my waist. His gray t-shirt is stretched and hugs his stomach muscles and arms in all the right places. My heart jumps. He looks so innocent and cute while sleeping.
After we got ready for bed, Eli said he'd sleep on the couch in his room. But it didn't last long because soon enough he fell on the floor.
“Dumbass.” I snickered from the warm comforter and he chuckled. “Just get up here before you break a leg or something.” I finally said. So much to my heart's fluttering dismay, Eli had one side of his bed while I had the other.
I'm almost positive that Eli is as afraid of what we are as I am because he hasn't said anything about the things said last night. We laid in the dark and talked about the most random stuff. Favorite colors, guilty pleasure foods, everything. But nothing was said about what do to about the feelings we have for each other. We're left undefined, confused, and completely and totally terrified.
The good thing is, while trying to sort out my feelings for Eli and trying to figure out what he feels for me, I've been able to push Nate to the back of my head. Kinda. Not really but I'd like to think that's the case. The nagging thought of Nate is probably whats keeping me from saying something totally inappropriate and uncalled for to Eli. He's stopping me from starting something I'm not ready to deal with the ending of.
When I check my phone for the time I see that there's a text from Nate.
“We need to talk. Meet me at Sugar Shack at 10:30.” It says. I sigh and check the time. I have twenty minutes to walk to Sugar Shack, a cafe in the middle of downtown.
After glancing at Eli's perfect features, soft in sleep, I decide not to wake him. I've caused him enough trouble for the next month. I casually slide out from under his arm and the tons of clingy sheets and make my way out of the room, hoping that maybe all the kids and Mrs. Blake are still asleep too. Thankfully there's a note on the counter from his mom that reads:
“Hunter and Aiden are at playground and I've brought the girls to the library.
Eggs in the fridge. Enjoy. Love, Mom”
I can't help but smile at the simple little note. She's so motherly and loving, something I haven’t seen since before the incident. My mom used to care. But then things changed. Then everything changed.
Still smiling I find my way to the foyer and out the front door. For some reason I feel sad leaving Eli so oblivious to my departure. But I have to put all thoughts of Eli aside by the time I get to Sugar Shack. Nate sits at our usual table looking rough. He obviously didn't sleep well last night from the bags under his eyes and his hair looks like he got out of the shower and walked through a wind tunnel. He stands up when the bell above the Sugar Shack door rings, signaling my arrival.
The warm feeling of coffee and pastry surrounds me and the quaint little shop seems almost suffocating, whereas normally I love it in here. The counter to my right is a dark red color and the bar stools match. To my left there's a bunch of random couches and different tables, all mismatched. Ms. Ollis, the owner of Sugar Shack decided to go garage saleing and give her shop “character” as she calls it.
“Miss Tessy!” Ms. Ollis' thick Russian accent calls from behind the counter. I force myself to smile at her even though all I want to do is turn around and go back under the jingling bell.
“Hi Ms. Ollis.” I make my way over to the counter and avoid Nate, even if it's just for a few more seconds. She beckons me to the counter and goes through all the motions of catching up. “Hows the family?”
“Good.” I lie.
“How's school? Good grades?”
“Straight A's!” another lie.
“Boys?”
“Not at the moment.” the last lie before Nate decides to swoop in and end the painful escapade of nothing but false statements.
“Sorry Ms. Ollis.” he puts his hand on my god damn back again. He knows every single way to gain my forgiveness and isn't hesitant to use them. “Tess and I have to grab a drink and go, we have to study so Tess can get a good grade again.” his voice grates on my rib cage as he mocks me for my lie to Ms. Ollis.
“Oh dear,” she stutters, “wouldn't want to keep you from school work. What can I get you kids?” Nate orders a large black coffee, as expected, and a piece of lemon pound cake. I get a simple coffee, not wanting to risk feeding the monster this encounter has created inside my stomach.
Nate leads me out of Ms. Ollis' store and too the park at the end of our street. The park he left me at last night. Where Carson found me. He plops down onto one of the rickety swings, sipping his disgustingly black coffee, and beckons for me to take the swing next to him. I obey.
“So.” he starts.
“So.” I mimic.
“We... I...This...”
Silence.
“Yeah.”
More silence. It's like all the years of not being able to get each other to shut up have been forgotten with one fight. We're right back to the beginning. Actually, it was even easier than this in the beginning. Instant friendship rather than instant forgiveness. I don't think instant forgiveness even exists.
“Okay I'm just gonna start by saying that I'm the biggest prick in the whole entire world.” He breathes a sigh and sets his empty coffee cup next to the rusted bar sticking into the ground supporting the swings.
“Not all the time..” I mutter.
“Tess. Don't even try and defend me. I'm an asshole.”
Another round of quiet.
“Okay fine it's true.”
“That's what I thought.” he says pumping his legs to go higher on the swing. I don't say anything. “But anyways. I'm sorry that I'm an idiot and an asshole and controlling and stupid and...”
“Nate stop.”
“I'm only like that because I love you so much and you're my best friend and I only want to save you from getting hurt.” he calls from as high as the swing will allow him to go.
“I know.”
“But I realized something. You know what I realized?”
I grip the rusted chains attached to the swing and contemplate what he could have realized that he didn't even know before. “What?”
“I realized that if I really loved you enough, then I'd let you love the hell out of Eli because who am I to say whether or not you'll end up getting hurt.” he takes another deep breathe from where his swing is falling back in place next to mine. “and,” he continues, “I literally am going to jump off the Golden State Bridge because of what I did last night. I drove around the block seven times, just looking for you, before I called all the boys to ask if they'd seen you. And when Carson said he had, I cried. I fucking cried Tessa because I was so damn relieved that someone had seen you.”
“If you had disappeared, not only would it have been all my fault, but we would have left off on the worst note we've ever hit and I couldn't bear the thought of you going the whole rest of your life thinking that's how I wanted us to be. I fucking cried. That's how much I love you.” By now he's towering over my swing. I notice how his fists are at his sides, practically shaking, and his chocolate colored eyes are indicating emotions I've never actually seen Nate have before.
I don't have to say anything because the silent understanding that Nate and I have between us has been used so many times that we both just know that this fight has ended. He pulls me off my swing and into his familiar Penn State hoody that smells like chlorine.
“Oh thank god.”
******
“Hi honey it's Mom.” her bitter voice plays through my phone receiver and practically mocks me. I cringe. “I was just wondering when you were coming home, I mean this is a little bit ridiculous Tess. Just call me back soon. Love you sweetie!” her voice goes up eight octaves on the last part and I know she's lying. I mean nothing to her because I remind her of dad. I have the same color eyes, his nose, same color hair. I even act just like him, according to her.
So her hatred for me is inevitable. But I don't understand why she holds so much disgust for the girl that looks like the man in jail, yet hardly any for the man himself. When Dad first landed in jail, Mom cried in her room for hours and hours on end. She survived on the stale saltines from her secret stash in the closet and the water Char and I would bring in to her every morning and every night. She was in there for litterally weeks, only coming out to shower or pee.
Mom originally placed all blame on Dad, like any normal person would do, like I still do. She wouldn't even say his name in the house for the first month, just called him “that man” and snickered whenever he was brought up. But by the third month after the incident, the blame had shifted. She claimed he had merely gotten caught up with the wrong people and that he was completely and totally innocent. Despite what all the evidence showed. This made Char and I mad. All we wanted was someone to blame for the serious mess that had been of our lives and logically it made sense to lay the accusations on dad, he was the one in jail after all.
But then Mom changed her views and suddenly we were forced into questioning our original thoughts. What if she was right? What if he was really innocent? And not having anyone to blame was essentially the worst thing that could have happened to us.
Nate tried to claim that my mother's sudden turn was only normal. “It's like the five stages of grief String Bean.” he had said one day after a vicious argument over who was the culprit of leaving the empty pop-tart box in the pantry, that turned into a screaming match over whether or not dad was guilty. “She's just going through then differently than most people because your dad's not actually dead.” He stuffed a piece of burrito in his mouth and stared at me while he chewed.
“But it's like she did a complete one-eighty. From depressed hermit to side-kick of dad's crazy lawyer. I don't get it.”
He sighed.
“I know. I wish I could help you more but unfortunately me and my burrito are answerless. Want a piece?” I shook my head, full on adrenaline from earliers fight and hopelessness.
“Suit yourself missy. But this burrito is the bomb and you are letting your stupid-ass dick of a father ruin it for you.”
Needless to say, Nate shared me and Char's views of my father. He actually was more angry when the realization of the incident set in than I was. And that was quite the feat considering I practically put a hole through my wall. Nate went around my house and took all the pictures of Dad down the day after that day. I had cried to him, told him that I couldn't go home because of all the sickening memories at the house that were now infused with the thoughts of mistrust and bad dreams. He went to my house and took down pictures, rearranged my bed room furniture, and convinced Char to eat a whole entire sandwich since she hadn't been eating, all while I slept in his bed because I kept him up the night before with my crying.
I literally don't even know what I would have done without Nate to hold me up.