But I Love Him Read online

Am I supposed to agree, or tell him not to worry about it? And if I do agree, like I want to, if I tell him to just get over it and move on, is that judgmental? Will I sound too much like my mom?

  The seat creaks a little as he turns to look at me, finally just look at me. His blue eyes are filled with such sad dejection mingled with a tiny piece of hope that it breaks my heart. “I just want … I want us to be … to just be. I don’t want him to affect everything. I don’t want to screw this up. You’re the first good thing that’s ever happened to me, and I don’t know what to do with it.” He’s having a hard time talking, like the words are too heavy or too hard to get his lips around.

  I stare straight into his eyes, and neither of us says a word for at least a full minute. These are the moments I fall deeper in love with him. When neither of us says anything, and we just … stare. There’s an understanding there that goes much deeper than words ever could. A connection so real I can’t speak, because words could never say the things I feel.

  “I just want you to know … I want you to know that despite everything … despite anything I might do or say, anything I’ve done before or might do in the future, I love you. More than life itself. And if some day something should happen and we’re not together anymore, I’ll still love you and I’ll still think of you.”

  “Nothing like that will happen,” I say. “I promise you, if you love me like I love you, nothing like that will happen.”

  “I know. We’ll be together forever,” he says. “I worship you. I love you. You’re everything.”

  “I love you too,” I say.

  “Promise?”

  I nod my head, slowly, solemnly. “Yes, I promise.”

  He kisses me, and I close my eyes and concentrate on the feeling of his lips, soft, against mine. It makes me dizzy, and I have to open my eyes.

  He squeezes my hand. I don’t move, just let the car idle where we sit, somewhere halfway to nowhere but not nearly far enough away from everything.

  “Sometimes I think I spent forever waiting for you,” he says. “My whole life, I’ve never had someone like you. Someone who doesn’t have to be there, but is anyway. Someone who wants to just … be with me because they want me. For me. Not because I’m your brother or your kid or anything, but because you choose me.”

  I grip his hand tighter. “I know. My mom … sometimes I think if she could undo me, she would. If I could just somehow disappear, you know? I think I remind her of my dad, and she hates me for it.”

  The seat creaks again as he leans over and kisses me on the cheek. “I wish I could make all these times slow-motion, and then whenever you leave for school or work, I could fast-forward until you’re back again.”

  And sometimes I wish that too. I wish I could control it all and fast-forward through the scary stuff.

  I just wish Connor was never a part of the scary stuff.

  February 13

  Five months, Fourteen days

  Today is the anniversary of my dad’s death.

  For the last eight years, I have baked a cake. I’m sure to someone on the outside, it seems stupid. Like I’m baking a cake to celebrate it or something. But it’s not like that.

  When I was little, my dad loved cakes. Absolutely loved them. He would eat one for dinner every night if my mom let him.

  I was nine the day he died. It had been coming for so long. It was like watching a freight train barrel down at you, getting closer with every second, totally unstoppable. And while my mom broke down that day and sobbed, I went a little numb. I was in denial. And so in my nine-year-old brain, I came up with the idea to just make him a cake. It made no sense then and it still doesn’t now, but I like the idea of making a cake anyway.

  So now it’s a tradition. Each year it’s gotten a little better, starting with the crappy concave disaster when I was nine to the multi-layered German chocolate I’m assembling now. I know if my dad were here, he’d cut out the biggest piece imaginable and sit down with a glass of milk and devour the whole thing.

  Somehow, for this one moment, it’s like he’s here, and the cake is just waiting for him to walk down the stairs.

  I’m not sure if I should be doing this. My mom and I don’t really get along anymore, and she used to eat it with me. We never said much while we ate, but somehow there was a moment when we were both thinking about him, and it was almost as good as talking about him.

  But today, it feels … like a cop-out, doing this. Like I’m going to hand her this cake and she’s going to smile and we’re going to have some Leave It to Beaver moment, and I can pretend when I leave for Connor’s house that everything is perfect.

  But I know it’s never going to be that, because even if things go great with Connor and she miraculously starts accepting him, I remember the things she’s said. They’re like a wedge between us, and the words can’t be taken back.

  But I’m making this cake anyway, because if I don’t, it’s like ignoring my dad. It’s like pretending he never existed. And my mom does that enough for both of us.

  My mom gets home from work at six, and she walks past the kitchen and then does a double take when she sees me sitting on a stool, the cake towering in front of me.

  “Hi,” I say. “It’s German chocolate this year.”

  She just stares at it for a long, silent moment, and I’m not sure what she’s thinking, if she’s happy or touched or just angry that I would even try to do something like this after the fights we’ve been having.

  Sometimes I think I might just march right up to her and say I love you, right to her face, just to see if she says it back.

  A month ago, I stood in the hall outside her room. And I really wanted to do it. I really thought about it. But no matter how many times I reached out to her door, I couldn’t get my fingers to grip that brass doorknob. There were too many other arguments, too many hurtful words between us to say it now.

  And so that six-paneled slab stayed between us.

  “Thank you,” she says, her voice quiet. “That was very nice of you.”

  And then she shocks me, because she crosses the room and she hugs me, at this awkward angle because I’m sitting on a stool.

  But she doesn’t let me go, she just keeps hugging me. And so I stand and hug her back, and she just hugs tighter and tighter, and neither of us speak for such a long, silent moment it seems to stretch on forever.

  It’s too hard to break. The silence is too heavy, too firm, to break with those three words, even though now seems like the time to do it. The words are lodged in my mouth, though. They won’t come out.

  And then she sniffles and pulls away. “Can you put that in the fridge? I think I’ll take a hot bath.”

  Her voice comes out choked and gargled and I don’t have time to say anything before she’s walking up the steps.

  What just happened?

  February 7

  Five Months, eight days

  Connor got a new job. He’s gone today, and I am alone.

  After months of it being him and me all the time, I don’t know what to do with myself. I have time and quiet and silence.

  My mom had something to do in Seattle today, almost three hours away, so I’m in my room, lying on the plush carpet and staring at the glowing stars I put up years ago. It’s hard to know who I was then. When stickers and coloring books ruled the day.

  I like my room. It is my Eden. Even though the door is just some fake hollow-core one, it seems like a fortress in here and nothing can get in.

  When my phone rings, I almost don’t recognize it. Those big red lips make a funny shrill sound. I haven’t been home to hear this ring in a long time. I’m always slipping through that door past eleven o’clock, hoping today isn’t the day my mom cracks down on my curfew.

  I get up and grab it. It must be Connor. I wonder how his first day is going.

  But it is not.

  It’s Abby.

  “Ann?”

  I freeze. Her voice is so familiar and so … foreign at the same
time.

  “H-Hi,” I say.

  “I can’t believe you answered.”

  “Yeah. I’m home today.”

  “Do you want to do something?”

  Her question hangs in the air for a long time. All I can hear is the buzzing in the receiver. I think she might have hung up. “Yes,” I finally answer. And it is the truth.

  “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  And she hangs up before I can change my mind.

  Twenty minutes later, we’re racing down the back roads in her yellow Mustang. Abby and I used to be completely obsessed with Christina Aguilera, even though she’s kind of lame now and it’s totally embarrassing. But we like Classic Christina, like “Genie in a Bottle” classic. And we shout it at the top of our lungs as the wind whips through her car. Even though it’s a cold February day, we leave the windows down as the chill tangles our hair and makes our throats sore.

  Freedom. That is what I feel today. That is all I feel right now.

  Abby and I end up at Red Robin, where we order overpriced fruity drinks and bottomless baskets of fries.

  We will eat until we want to explode.

  “Did you hear that Jan Nichols is dating Mike Fenser?” Abby holds out the shaker of seasoning salt and I douse my French fries in it and pass it back.

  “Eww!”

  “I know.” She grins, her eyes sparkling. Abby has always loved gossip, and it’s been so long since we’ve had time to talk like this. “He’s, like, totally gross and sweaty.” She sticks out her tongue, as if the idea of making out with Mike Fenser is the most disgusting thing she’s ever heard.

  “And huge,” I say. I puff up my chest and scrunch my shoulders up. “He doesn’t even have a neck. His chin just blends right into his pecs.”

  Abby’s eyes flare and she laughs, this amazing, loud, totally Abby way to laugh. “And she’s, like, tiny. Can you imagine them …” Abby says as she mimes a hip thrust.

  “Eww!” I say again, faking a dry heave.

  Abby takes a bite of her burger, but it all falls apart in her basket. She doesn’t seem to mind, and she picks up the pieces with her fingers and pops them in her mouth. “I guess they hooked up at Winter Formal or something.”

  Winter Formal. I try not to let those two words hit me like they do, but I can’t keep that twinge of bitterness away as I think of the emerald dress hanging in the closet where no one has ever seen it. I set my burger back down in the basket because it’s suddenly very hard to swallow.

  I take a long, slow drink of my strawberry lemonade, but it doesn’t taste as good as it did three minutes ago.

  Abby seems to know she shouldn’t have said those two words because she changes the subject. Too quickly. “Do you want to go see that new Jennifer Garner movie? It’s supposed to be really funny.”

  I glance at my watch. Connor will be off in two hours, which isn’t enough time to see the movie and get home. He said he would call me on his way there, and I know he will.

  But even with the awkward Winter Formal moment, I’m having too much fun to stop now. Connor won’t mind about a movie. He knows I never see Abby.

  “Yes. Absolutely. Let’s do it.”

  Abby grins excitedly. Twenty minutes later we leave Red Robin and walk across the mall parking lot to the theater, where she buys us two tickets and a tub of popcorn big enough to feed six people.

  For two hours I lose myself in a romantic comedy that makes me think of Connor at all the right moments and makes me forget life at the same time. By the time we leave, I feel lighter than air. I think I float to the car.

  Today was exactly what I needed. Why have I been avoiding Abby so much? Why don’t I just balance my life instead of giving it all to Connor? He loves me, and I love him, but we should do other things with other people sometimes too. We don’t have to be so wrapped up in our relationship.

  I’m excited to see Connor, so I have Abby take me directly there. I’ll have him drop me off at my house later. I want to see how his day went.

  When we pull up and I see Connor sitting on the porch, my heart jams into my throat. Why is he sitting out here in the dead of winter? It’s cold enough to see your breath.

  He stands up and walks toward us, and I can tell just by the way he’s walking that he’s angry. His feet fall in a heavy rhythm, his strides so long his legs are stretching to eat up the ground.

  My heart sinks. I shouldn’t have turned off my phone in the theater. I shouldn’t have watched the movie at all. Not when I promised him I’d be waiting for him when he got home. I’m over an hour late. He might have had things he wanted to tell me about his first day.

  Or he might just have been worried about me—

  “Where have you been?”

  He’s at the door as I get out of the car. “Abby and I saw a movie—”

  “You said you’d be here when I got home. My whole day was crazy, and then I get here—”

  I don’t even realize that Abby has gotten out of the car until she is next to me. “God, relax. We went and saw a movie. I think you can survive without her for one damn afternoon.”

  I open my mouth to tell Abby to let me handle it, but I can’t get a word out before he does.

  “Stay out of it,” he says, turning his attention to Abby. I grab his arm. I don’t need this confrontation.

  Abby stands directly in front of him. “She’s my best friend. I don’t need to stay out of it. In fact, maybe I’ve stayed out of it too long. Maybe I should have told her what I really thought the day I met you, huh?”

  Connor’s eyes narrow and he pulls his arm away from me. “Maybe I should have told her what I thought of you.”

  “Oh, please. I’d love to hear it. What’s your beef with me? Am I too nice? Because you’re a pretty big ass. Or maybe I’m too smart? Because you’re pretty stupid.”

  I cringe. Of all the words, why did she choose stupid ? He hates that word.

  He steps toward her, closing the gap in less than a second. But she doesn’t move. She’s taller than me. Tall enough that she can almost look him in the eye.

  “I’m not afraid of you. You think you’re tough but you’re not.” She stares at him, a gleam of confidence and arrogance in her eyes. She’s enjoying the confrontation, as much as she can, anyway. She’s been waiting for this moment. Now I realize it. She’s been biting her tongue all this time, waiting for her chance to tell him what she thinks.

  She turns away from him and puts her hand over mine, where it rests on the car door. “Don’t stay here, Ann. Come with me. You don’t deserve this.”

  All I can do is stare at her hand on mine. I’m frozen.

  “I can’t. You know I can’t,” I say in a whisper, as if I hope Connor won’t hear.

  “No. You can.” She whispers too, but even as she says it, her hand slides off of mine. “But you won’t.”

  I look up at her and she stares at me, straight in the eyes, and no words pass between us. But she understands it. She’s not mad. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s not mad at me. She just nods and gives me a fast hug, flips Connor off, and returns to the driver’s seat.

  Connor tries to pull me away but I just stand at the curb and watch her yellow Mustang disappear around the corner.

  Some part of me feels like this might be the last time I ever see her.

  February 5

  Five months, six days

  It was a half day at school today, but I forgot until second period. Connor wasn’t home when I went by his house, so I ended up back at home again.

  Which is weird. More and more, I just sleep in my bed and that’s it. I don’t have dinner here, I don’t watch TV, I just come home and fall into bed.

  But today I’m sitting on the couch, catching a Gossip Girl rerun and painting my toenails even though it’s winter and no one will see them. I’ve eaten half a bag of Doritos. It’s an oddly comforting afternoon.

  But then I hear the garage door hum open. I know my mom has arrived, and all that tranquil
ity floods out faster than it arrived.

  I haven’t seen her in about two weeks. I know she’s going to ask where I’ve been every day, what I’m up to. How my grades are. She may not be loving, but she’s predictable.

  I cap the nail polish and use a piece of newspaper to fan my nails. I hear her heels click across the Travertine-tiled kitchen and I know she hears the movie on.

  “Oh, Ann! What are you doing home?” I look up to see her generic three-piece suit in forest green, and her hair pulled up in its usual no-nonsense French twist.

  I shrug. “Teacher in-service or something.”

  She nods. “How is school going?”

  “Good. I think I got a 3.7 this semester.”

  She nods. “That’s great. Are you having trouble in any of your courses? Your teachers being fair?”

  I shrug. “Everything’s fine.”

  “And your boyfriend? How is he?”

  “Good.”

  She moves and is sitting next to me on the couch before I can blink.

  “Are you sure he’s not …” her voice trails off.

  “Not what?”

  “I just think … I think there are other fish in the sea,” she says, all in one breath, like a big woosh of words. I wonder how long she’s been saving that, looking for the right moment.

  I shrug. “I’m sure there are. But I want to be with him.”

  “Why, though? It’s not like—”

  This time she stops abruptly.

  “It’s not like what?” I ask.

  “He’s not really …” her voice trails off yet again.

  “Just tell me what you’re trying to say.” My voice comes out a little rougher than I’d meant it to because I just want her to spit it out already, and it’s obvious it’s not going to be good. Why beat around the bush?

  “He’s not good enough,” she says. “For you. You’re better than him.”

  And there it is. Her opinion, right out in the open. I knew she didn’t like him. Even when she was smiling at him that day she met him, I could see something behind it. She was trying too hard to be nice and cheerful. It wasn’t real.