Page 32 of Finding Her

poppy

The driving of the bus ride home was even worse than the bus ride to the camp, but I barely even noticed because I was glowing from having Bear by my side.

He kept his arm around me for the whole trip and let me use his shoulder as a pillow, even though the muscle mass on his body meant it was the hardest pillow in the world.

When we got to school, it was pouring buckets outside and I hung back under the overhang while Bear pushed his way through the crowd to get to our bags which were being stored under the bus.

I zipped up my sweater—actually, it was his, that he’d given me on the bus when he’d seen how I was shivering—and crossed my arms over my chest as the wind whipped by, dreaming of my warm bed in my dorm.

Maybe Bear and I could make some hot chocolate and curl up to watch a movie together.

“Poppy!” A sickly sweet voice called. I didn’t need to turn to know that it was Claire.

I tried to give her the benefit the doubt in thinking that she was here to see her sister, instead of coming after Bear, who had made it extremely clear to me that he wasn’t interested in her and she knew it, but I had a sinking feeling in my gut that she was here for him and she wouldn’t be letting him out of her clutches too soon.

She appeared before me a second later, Mia in tow right behind her. “How was the trip?”

“Fine,” I said flatly. After the conversation I’d had with Mia last night, I had no interest in being anywhere near either of the Thompson sisters.

“Where’s Levi?” Claire asked, looking around.

“Getting our bags.”

She looked me up and down and smiled. “Aw, that’s sweet that he didn’t want you to have to stand in the rain. Of course, if it was me , I would have insisted on standing with him but…” She shrugged. “I guess we all have different priorities.”

I mumbled out a good for you , not believing for a moment that she was telling the truth, and looked for Bear in the crowd of girls getting their bags.

Normally, he was easy to spot since he towered over them all, but he must have been hunched over to get the bags out of the bus, and with the rain as well, it was impossible to make him out.

“So, there was something I wanted to show you,” Claire said.

“Thanks but I’m not interested,” I said, still searching for Bear. He had to be inside the bus to be this hidden from view.

“Oh, I think you’ll want to see this,” she said. And then before I knew it, she was shoving her phone in my face. I was ready to push it away and remind her about a little thing we called personal space, until I saw exactly what was on the screen.

Me and Bear. Kissing.

Phones weren’t allowed on the camping trip, which meant somebody had risked having their phone confiscated just to be able to snap that photo. And just as I was wondering who on earth would do that, the answer became perfectly obvious: the smirking girl standing just behind Claire.

Before I could react—and honestly, I wasn’t sure how I would have reacted—Claire threw her arms around me as if we were the best of friends and said, “Congrats, you won the bet! You got him to fall for you!”

“What bet?” A deep voice asked behind me.

I pushed Claire off of him, feeling a warped sense of satisfaction when she stumbled back into Mia in surprise. Good. She deserved it.

I spun around to face Bear, who was standing right behind me with both of our duffel bags over his shoulders. And even though Claire had only said ten words, I knew it was enough to tell him everything he needed to know.

His gaze flicked over to Claire and then down to her hand, where the photo was still sitting. His face hardened even more, if that was even possible. In fact, he looked downright murderous. And then, without a word, he turned and stalked off.

“Bear!” I yelled. But he didn’t turn around. I turned back to Mia and Claire. “I hate you!”

My voice screeched, the anger and sadness I was feeling bleeding out into it. They both stared at me with wide eyes, looking horrified, ad I wondered how terrifying I must have looked for that to happen.

I left them in the dust as I ran after Bear.

The cold rain hit my face hard as I ran against the wind, trying to keep his retreating gaze in my line of vision.

I expected him to head for the dorms, but instead, he was headed for the lake, where I’d seen him on his run just last week. Already, it felt like a lifetime ago.

“Bear!” I called again breathlessly. He was slowing down now, as he turned onto the bridge that ran over the water. The lake had been flat every time I’d come out here, but now it was choppy from the storm. He was holding the railing, staring out at the water.

I skidded to a stop beside him, my converse slipping on wet wood.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said immediately. “I’m sorry about all of this, okay? I didn’t mean for?—”

“What was the bet?” he asked, his voice deadly.

I stared at him with wide eyes, breathing hard from the run. Even in those early days, when we had first met, and he had been the grumpiest person I had ever seen, he had never spoken to me like that. And I knew, right then, that I had really, really messed up.

“Claire,” I said. “At the beginning of the year, she overhead me and Lilah talking about you and how you let me call you Bear and…” I cut off my rambling and shook my head.

My wet hair hit my cheek. I was already soaked to the bone.

“Well, long story short, she wanted to start a bet. She wanted to see who would be the first one you asked out.”

He pressed his lips together. “So, all of this… was just to get me to ask you out? All this time we spent together? All the times you…” He cut off suddenly and turned away from me.

“That’s what it started out as,” I admitted, my voice soft. “But I swear—it’s not like that now.”

“How can it be anything else?”

It broke my heart to hear his voice then, so beaten down.

If Mia was to be believed about what it was like between him and Claire, then he’d spent his whole life being told who he was supposed to love and what his life was going to look like.

I had to wonder how he’d felt when he met me.

What it was like these past few days for him, as he opened up to me—the first girl he ever let himself fall for.

And I ruined it all.

“Because you’re different than I expected.

Because you’re better than I expected. And honestly, Bear, I didn’t think I would ever win the stupid bet.

I just couldn’t say no when Claire suggested it because…

” I threw my hands up and said honestly, “Because I didn’t want to let a mean girl walk all over me or all over Lilah, okay?

I didn’t want that to be who I was here. ”

Bear finally turned around and though he still looked upset, he didn’t look nearly as murderous as he had when he’d walked off. Maybe he was understanding.

“Why are you here, Poppy?” He asked. “Why did you follow me?”

For a second, I didn’t understand what he meant by the question.

Why had I followed him? Because he was upset and I wanted to make sure he was okay.

But as I stared at him, trying to formulate some answer that wasn’t idiotic, I realized that no, it ran deeper than that.

If all of this was just about the bet, I would have followed him to make sure I could count this as a real win.

Just because Claire had said it like that didn’t make it true.

Bear and I had kissed, but he hadn’t actually asked me out.

And with the clear terms of the bet, I knew Claire would turn that into something else.

But I didn’t care about the bet. I didn’t care about the technicalities or winning that stupid hundred dollars or the bragging rights I was sure were meant to be included in all of this. What I cared was him. What I wanted, more than anything, was to make sure that this wasn’t how I would lose him.

“Because…” I said. I wiped some rain out of my eyes as I thought of the best way to say it. “Because I used to think everything in life was temporary.”

His face cleared, ever so slightly, and I wondered if he knew what I was saying.

What a privilege it would be to have someone in my life who could understand me so well.

Until now, whenever I moved away, I’d let go of the hope that I could stay in touch.

Like I told him, it was the only way not to live in a perpetual state of disappointment.

And after a couple moves, it stopped bothering me at all.

I was used to letting go. I was used to losing people.

I figured that as long as I still had my family, it was something that I could manage.

But now that the potential of this loss was staring me in the face, I knew that I couldn’t survive it this time. If he left me right now, I would break.

“I used to think,” I continued, “that I should never expect anything to last forever.”

Bear took a step toward me. “But now?”

“But now…” I stepped forward as well, resisting the urge to brush my hand across his cheek. I knew he would flinch away and I knew that would break my heart. That it already was. “Now, I know that there is one thing that lasts forever.”

It was Bear who broke eye contact first, looking away.

“You won’t want me anymore,” he said. “Once you get me. Once I graduate. You’re gonna forget about me. Why bother prolonging the inevitable?”

“No, I won’t,” I whispered, my voice even and sure. It wasn’t a guess. It wasn’t me making an empty promise like I had to all those friends who I’d sworn I’d stay in touch with. This was real and raw and true. “I wish I could forget you. I wish that it was that easy.”

Bear’s breathing quickened and I felt like he was moving toward me. Or was I moving closer to him? The whole world was spinning around me and I had no sense of what was happening anymore—only that Bear was in front of me and I desperately needed him to know how I felt.

“I wish I could tell myself that after you graduate, I’ll forget about you,” I said, my voice cracking on the words.

“I wish I could Bear, because that would be easier. But…” My heart was pounding in my chest and suddenly he was right in front of me and my hands were on him again, just desperate to feel him there.

Desperate to know that he was still in front of me, that I hadn’t lost him yet.

“I’ve had to say goodbye to hundreds of friends in my life and not one of them has ever held a place in my mind like you.

If we say goodbye… I won’t just be losing you, I’ll be losing half my heart too. ”

It was like I could see his walls crumbling before my eyes, see the way his stony facade was slipping off leading to something softer, more beautiful underneath. But I couldn’t stop talking. Not until I knew that he understood.

“I love you Bear,” I whispered. Our faces were inches apart.

His breath tickled my cheek. All I would have to do was move a millimetre to the left and our mouths would touch.

Did he want me to? Would he ever kiss me again?

“And I understand if you can’t get past this but I had to say it.

Because if I didn’t I’d spend the rest of my life wondering what could have happened if I had just followed you out tonight. ”

“If nobody else knew about us…” He murmured. “If we never told anyone and you didn’t win this bet…”

“I don’t care. I would hide it forever if you wanted. All I ever wanted was you.”

In the blink of an eye, I went from imagining his touch to having his lips on mine and his hands tangling in my hair. We stumbled backwards, until my back was pressed into the railing over the bridge, the half-rotted wood the only thing keeping us from falling straight into the lake.

But I barely even noticed—because all I could see was him.