“I’m not so sure about this anymore,” I choke out as I’m standing in the terminal with my carry on hanging in the crook of my elbow and Andrew’s standing across from me.
He frowns a little bit. “You don’t want to come anymore? Why not?”
“Because…” I trail off, looking down at my shoes. My heart is pounding in my chest with nerves as I continue to second guess my decision to tag along on Andrew’s trip to New Mexico to see his family. My knees are wobbly, my palms are clammy, my forehead is covered in a thin layer of damp sweat. “It’s such a bad idea. We… we can’t do this. What were we even thinking?”
“We were thinking that it’d be nice to spend some time together- to be able to talk things out- and to be friends again,” He reminds me. “It’ll be fine, Stella. I promise.”
“Because your promise means so much?” I snap at him. He starts to chew on his bottom lip and looks down to the ugly carpet below our feet, looking a little embarrassed. “I-I’m sorry. That was mean but I’m just saying that we can’t be together like this without something happening. Not anymore.”
“So then let something happen,” He says, putting a hand on my shoulder to keep me from walking away, which I’m not going to do yet but I can tell that he’s afraid that I will.
“But what if it’s not a good thing? The thing about us is that we’re passionate about each other. Everything that we feel, it’s passionate. Whether that be love or anger. So this trip could either go terribly wrong or really awesome and I’m really afraid that it’s going to be the former.”
“It doesn’t have to be though,” Andrew assures me. “Come on, Stell. Give it a chance, okay? You never know.”
Over the intercom, the lady announces that they’re ready to start boarding for our flight and my knees become even more wobbly. I could just walk away- just pay Andrew back for the plane ticket and catch a cab back to the school where I can spend two weeks hanging out with Mason and Sienna and Brian, who all have family here in California and don’t need to go anywhere for their holidays. I don’t have to do this. However, even as I think all of these things, I still find myself walking towards the gate, getting in line with everybody else on their way to ABQ.
“This will be good for us, you’ll see,” Andrew tells me, putting his hand on my shoulder again and squeezing a little bit for comfort.
“I just don’t want to fight,” I mutter under my breath. “I’m so tired of fighting.”
“I know. Me too,” He agrees. The line starts moving at a rapid pace and then suddenly, we’re that the front so I hand the lady my ticket, she scans it, and then I walk past her, into the little hall thing that leads us into the plane. I think that Andrew switched our tickets on purpose because my ticket says Andrew Haggerty on it and his has my name on it. I wondered why he did that as we were sitting in the terminal but now, as we’re on the plane, I realize that his seat is a window seat and he knows how much I love windows.
A smile tugs at the corners of my lips as I slide into the seat and Andrew sits beside me. It’s a small plane, so there’s only two seats on each side of the plane which means that he doesn’t have to sit next to any strangers, which is nice because that’s always awkward.
“So,” I say after about a ten minute silence as everybody files into the plane. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything,” He assures me and I notice how he’s resting his hand on the armrest with his palm up like an invitation for me to hold it, but I don’t. “What is it?”
“Have you talked to Charlotte lately?” I ask him, remembering the conversation that I overheard from her and her sister a few days ago at the after party.
“Charlotte? No, I haven’t. Why?”
“I just heard her talking about inviting you to this thing,” I explain quietly.
“Oh, the New Year’s thing?” He wonders, looking over at me. I look over at him too but I don’t look up at his face, I just keep steady eye contact with his shoulder so that I don’t let his blue eyes turn me into goo like they do so easily all of the time.
“So she did talk to you about it?”
“No, Heather did. Well, she told me that Charlotte was trying to talk to me about it so I just avoided her all day yesterday so that she couldn’t ask me.”
“Oh,” I mumble. “Would you have said no if she did ask you?”
“Of course I would have, Stella,” Andrew says with a little incredulous laugh. “It’s just a lot easier not having to say no- you know how I suck at that kind of stuff- so I just kind of avoided her.”
“She’s such a gross person,” I mumble. “I really hate her.”
“I know you do,” He nods and I prepare to hear him defend her again like he always used to when we were together, telling me that she’s actually pretty cool or not that bad. But then, he surprises me by saying, “She really is a pain in the ass.”
“Really,” I sigh, glancing up at him. “I thought you liked her.”
“I don’t. I mean, at first, I thought she was okay but after a while, she just started getting on my nerves. And then I just realized that she wasn’t ever an okay person, she’s just really manipulative and you were right all along.”
I snort and turn to look out the window. “Obviously.”
“Well, you know how I am. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt,” He explains. “And it just took me a bit too long to realize how awful she is and I’m sorry.”
I don’t respond to him at first, I just process his words. Let them sink in. I think for a while and Andrew doesn’t interrupt me from my thoughts while we both silently watch the plane start to back away from the building and then start to move towards the runway for takeoff.
I watch like an eager child as the plane’s wings start to flap and then the plane begins to shoot down the runway like a mean bullet until we’re tilting into the air, letting go of the road beneath us to soar into the air for another place to land. Once we’re steady in the air and the show is over, I lean back in my chair and glance over at Andrew.
“Thanks for giving me the window,” I say in a small voice.
“You’re welcome,” He says back, his voice almost as small as mine, as if we’re both afraid to speak right now- to say the wrong thing.
“I want to know if you cheated on me,” I blurt, deciding that it’s ridiculous to be afraid of that. How are we going to figure anything out if we’re just tiptoeing around each other’s feelings like little baby birds afraid of being squashed? Nothing is going to be easier if we avoid the hard topics, it’ll just lead to more awkwardness.
“Cheated on you?” Andrew wonders incredulously, as if I just asked him if he has three arms or something. “Stella, are you serious?”
“Why are you so surprised?” I ask him in return. “You took a liking to Charlotte, you felt really guilty about when you hung out with her and then you lied about it. Why is that such a surprising thing for me to ask? Because you were boyfriend of the year or something?”
“Okay, fine,” He concedes. “I guess I can understand where you’re coming from but no, I never cheated on you. I never wanted to either. I was just trying to be nice to her.”
“Did you guys hook up after we broke up then?” I ask, turning to look out the window again as we fly through the clouds and then over them.
“No,” He tells me. “The closest I ever got to Charlotte was holding her hand that one day just to make you mad. That’s really all and it obviously wasn’t even real. Stella, I swear.”
“That was so mean,” I nearly whisper as I remember that day and that gut wrenching glare aimed right at me as he latched onto her hand. I remember how empty I felt too.
“I know,” He mutters.
“It really killed me,” I say. “I mean, after everything that’d happened, I didn’t think it was possible to feel even worse but seeing you like that… it was the worst out of everything.”
“And I’m so sorry about it,” He insists. “I completely overreacted about seeing you with Drew and I’m so sorry that I’m a complete idiot. I really am.”
“I know you are,” I tell him. “I mean, I know that you’re sorry, not that you’re an idiot. Even though come to think of it, you are pretty idiotic as well.”
“Funny,” He jokes sarcastically. “Seriously though, I really want to make things right between us.”
I close my eyes. “How?”
“I have no idea, but I’ll figure something out.”
“Why did I have to break up with you before you realized that you still cared about me?” I ask him softly, looking out the window now instead of looking up at Andrew.
“I’ve always cared, Stella,” He assures me.
“Well, you didn’t act like it at all. I tried so hard to be the best I could be for you- I was always there, trying to spend time with you but trying not to be smothering. I always invited you everywhere and I tried… I just tried so hard but you just stopped trying. Everything that you did, it was either ignoring me or doing something to deliberately hurt me. That’s all you ever did. It made me feel like shit all of the time.”
“I didn’t mean to be like that, I was just so caught up in everything that I didn’t realize that I was hurting you like that,” He explains apologetically. “But when you broke up with me, it was like a wakeup call for me but every time that I tried to make things better, everything just got worse.”
I wipe a tear off of my cheek even though I’m not even sure why I’m crying. I should be happy about being here with Andrew, trying to fix everything between us, and I am happy. I’m also really overwhelmed and that results in tears. Ugly, nonstop tears.
“Stell, I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry,” He says quietly, placing a hand on my shoulder as if he wants to comfort me but he doesn’t know how without crossing a line.
“No, it’s fine,” I assure him with a small sniffle. “It’s just that… I actually don’t know why I’m crying.”
He doesn’t say anything after that, he just reaches behind me, wrapping his arm behind my back and pulling me into his side while simultaneously lifting up the armrest so that there’s nothing between us. We just sit there like that for the rest of the plane ride. Even after my uncalled for tears, I just lay into his side, take in his familiar smell, and enjoy the moment because I’m sure that it’s fleeting. After we land in New Mexico, I have no idea what’s going to happen so I need to hold on to this moment for as long as I can until it’s gone.
When the plane ends, we walk quietly to the baggage claim and then towards the passenger pickup zone where Lucas is going to pick us up since both of Andrew’s parents are still at work but this is their last day of work until Christmas is over.
“Does Lucas know anything about us?” I ask Andrew as we’re walking with our luggage towards the rows of cars that are picking people up from the airport. There’s a couple reuniting just a few cars in front of us, hugging and crying and kissing. To my left, there’s a family that’s greeting back an older woman who might be their mother from what looks like a business trip.
“Yeah, he knows,” He assures me. “When I went home for Thanksgiving, I just told my parents that we were fighting but I didn’t actually tell them that we were broken up. Lucas could tell though.”
“He’ll probably hate me then,” I mumble, feeling (once again) that coming along on this trip was such a terrible idea. We need time to talk and think things over instead of just going face first into a two week long vacation together with his family. Including Lucas, who is very protective of his little brother when he needs to be.
“He doesn’t hate you, Stell,” Andrew assures me.
“Andrew, I-“
“It’ll be fine,” He interrupts me. “I promise, just relax. Everything will work out.”
“I’m trying to relax but this was just such a bad idea,” I mumble.
“Maybe but you’re already here so you might as well just be optimistic about it, okay? It could really work out.”
“I know,” I sigh, seeing a red car pull up and Lucas pop his head out the window with a wide grin, probably excited to see his brother again. I think the last time they saw each other was Thanksgiving which was about a month ago and that’s really saying something since these two are really close.
As Lucas got out of the car to help us with our bags, I take a deep breath. Here we go. Here goes nothing.
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If you haven't read it yet, the teaser for Cry Until You Bleed is posted!
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