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I dropped my napkin onto the table next to my plate and stood from my chair, making my way outside. I’d get my backpack from Neil tomorrow.
But of course, as I walked through the living room, I could hear Neil and his mom bickering down the hall—if a one-sided argument was still considered bickering. Curiosity ran the show yet again, forcing me to stop my forward momentum.
I wasn’t going to rehash the dirty details, but I heard more than my fair share of what his mom had to say. All the ways I was wrong for him. All the ways he was too good for me.
It stung more than I thought it would, crept itself into the place Neil had burrowed his way into and squeezed at it painfully.
I didn’t care what people thought of me—usually. (No, they could take their opinions and shove them right up their judgmental asses.) But the thing was… the things his mom was saying to him, about how he deserved someone better…
I wasn’t so sure I disagreed.
I cleared my throat, resettling my thoughts.
Heading outside, I patted myself down for my keys and realized they were still inside—inside my backpack, of course. I sighed dramatically, rolling my eyes at myself, and sat down on Wednesday’s bumper.
It was only a few minutes later that Neil strode outside, my backpack in hand. I watched his feet step into my periphery.
“Hey,” he said, quiet, his hands curling around my elbows, pulling me up and into his space instead of just handing me my backpack.
I slid my index fingers into his belt loops, thudding my forehead against his chest. My next breath was constricted and hard to take. I ignored all the whys of it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but I shook my head, still looking down at the ground.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” I said. “If anything, I’m sorry if I made things worse,” I confessed.
“They’ll get over it.” He forced a laugh, and I took the out, tugging him closer. He hugged me against him, planting a kiss on my temple. “You’re not mad?” he asked.
“No.” I laughed through a breath at the irony. “Are you?”
“Nah.”
I smiled against him, fully against my will. He made me do things like that, lightened all my moods, and I had the startling thought that I wanted to keep him.
Keep him,keep him.
But I didn’t know what the hell I was doing or where I was going after high school, let alone anything beyond that. College, LA, an art school, a summer trip in Europe that I might not ever want to leave.
Where did Neil fit into all of that, really?
And where did I fit into his plans?
I didn’t even know why the hell I was asking myself those questions.
Chapter 19
Dumpster Fire
Full honesty, I was spooked. Feelings, relationships, dating—they weren’t supposed to go this smoothly, right? I mean, mild dinner disaster aside, things between Neil and I had been sailing along way too effortlessly. Slipping right past unfamiliar territory and straight into a place I didn’t recognize at all.
It wasn’t my perception of what relationships were supposed to be. Where was the crying, or the desperation, or the games I’d seen Linda play with men a thousand times? Where was the give and take away, the boredom, and the things that reared up and made me not like him anymore at?
Relationships were ugly, full of drama and heartache.Weren’t they?They consumed you and turned you into someone you didn’t recognize anymore.Didn’t they?
And “Love” was never the endgame.Right?
That was my assumption, based on the experiences of the people around me. Based on what I’d alwaysseen right in front of my face—Linda and her numerous escapades; the man who shared DNA with Jason and I and had broken Linda’s heart irreparably once upon a time, essentially making her the way she was; all the heartless things she’d told me that built the foundation of all these assumptions in the first place. Sydney—hell,even Jason. Relationships were pretty much a joke to him, too. He jumped from one girl to the next like his pants were on fire—Linda obviously screwing with his ability to commit, too.
So, Happily Ever Afters? They belonged on movie screens, not in real life. In real life, relationships were messy and ugly and not worth the time at all.