Page 78 of Fireworks

Rolling her eyes, she scoffed at my reasoning. I still continued.

“And I knew I didn’t want to be that far from my family. I saw what it did to my mom when he would get deployed or have to go do training or whatever. I couldn’t do that to you.”

“What do you mean to me?”

Fuck. It slipped out before I could stop myself. Ever since she had her accident when we were kids, there was something that changed inside of me. I could never figure out what it was or why, but I was always so worried about her. Guilt would always follow it. I was being so overprotective of her or caring about her so damn much when she was my best friend's little sister.

Trying to keep those thoughts to myself all these years was a big part of why I gave her so much shit, to cover up my own feelings. When she walked into Asher’s room on her birthday, asking me to kiss her, I thought it was a sign. As stupid as it made me feel, I was eighteen and she was fourteen. It would never work even if we weren’t like family, but when my lips touched hers, the surge I felt rush through my body was unreal. Throughout college, I tried to find that again with someone else, but it just never happened.

Slowly turning her head to face me, I could see her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. My head fell back onto my headrest as I stared up wishing I didn’t need to say more.

“When I lost my dad, I watched my mom fall apart. She never recovered from it. Even now, I catch her from time to time looking at a photo and I can just tell she lost it all that day. Someone will knock on the door, and she jumps like it’s going to be them all over again, telling us his plane went down. The thought that I could have that happen, I could be the one they were delivering bad news about. I couldn't do that.

I know that feeling of complete dread when your stomach plummets down into itself and you feel like your head is spinning and your heart is going to burst through your chest all at the same time. You lose your breath and feel like your lungs can’t possibly fill with anything other than the cement of knowledge being poured into you weighing you down. I knew that’s what you might feel, and I couldn’t bear to put you through that.”

Her eyes strayed.

“Is that what it felt like when you found out about your dad? You never talk about it.”

She was cautious with her words, knowing my dad was an off-limits topic. The truth was if she wanted to talk about him, I felt like I could. I knew she would understand me the same way Asher had.

“No, not when I found out about him.”

I bit my lip, a chill surging through me, this being the first time I would ever admit this out loud to anyone.

“When you had your accident, my mom didn’t want to tell me what had happened. I begged her and I can still remember that feeling. I didn’t know what the feeling was until I saw my mom going through it for my dad. That she had just lost the most important person in her life.”

Her tongue slid against the seam of her lips, her chest rose and fell slowly, the tears unable to be kept at bay any longer.

“You were only, what, twelve when that happened?”

“I know and I feel like a complete bitch that at twelve years old, I felt like that for a girl. When you walked into Asher’s room and I kissed you, you acted like I was being asked to move a mountain. Then you ignored me for four years and it killed me. I thought I could use the distance to find someone else. That it was all in my head and I needed to stop thinking of you the way I was. When I saw Collin hanging at you at the pool, I’ll admit it. I was jealous. I’ve tried to love someone else, Katie. No matter what I did, it’s never you.”

Placing her hands over mine, she muttered.

“Then why do you keep trying to fight it? You make it seem like you have to give me full attention all the time, like I don’t have school and my own life too. Why can’t we just see where things go? See if this works. If it’s not working, we can be friends. Or go back to ignoring each other and being nasty to each other. No one would ever know the difference. We don’t need to have all the answers right now. You’re fighting so hard against this entire thing for no reason?”

I sat in silence, not answering her but knowing the exact reason. There was no going back. If this didn’t work out, if I hurt her, or if Asher found out that we had been sneaking around, I would need to disappear. I wouldn’t be able to stay.