Page 10 of I Would Stay Forever (Parkhurst Prep #2)

eight

When Dean finally let go of me, I didn’t scream—but I did whirl around and smack him as hard as I could in the chest. Not that it did much good, since there wasn’t even a flash of pain or annoyance on his face. Far from it, actually. Instead, he grinned at me.

My mouth went a little dry as I took in his appearance.

Like this morning, I was hit by how good he looked in his school uniform.

How had I never noticed that before? Because Sebastian and I were born in the same year—him in January and me in December—I was in the same grade as him and Dean, but I rarely had classes with either of them, but even when I did, I couldn’t remember ever noticing Dean so much.

This was all Zoey’s fault for becoming obsessed with football players at the end of last year.

She’d gotten it into my head that they were all to die for, and now I was putting that on Dean.

I knew I should look away before he made a comment about me gawking at him, but I found it remarkably hard to do, especially when he was staring right back at me.

I was sure he wasn’t checking me out because there was no chance in hell that he would be interested in his best friend’s sister.

But the staring made me think he was waiting for me to make the first move, even though he was the one who pulled me under the bleachers.

For a lack of anything better to greet him with, I just said, “I thought the note was for somebody else.”

He frowned, and for a moment I wondered if I was somehow mistaken and the note wasn’t from him. Like for some reason, he’d noticed me dawdling by the bleachers and decided to pull me in for fun. But then he asked, “Who else would it be for?”

Strangely, the confirmation that the note had been for me didn’t make me feel any better about coming here.

Now, I was wondering why I’d thought this was a good idea.

Anyone who had to resort to leaving a note in my locker to get me to meet with them obviously wasn’t someone I really wanted to see, because if they were actually my friend, they would just text me instead.

I sighed and pushed my sunglasses on top of my head. “I thought the note was for the person who had the locker before me.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And yet you showed up.”

I huffed, mainly because he wasn’t wrong and it annoyed me. “I’m just saying, you could have been a little more specific. Maybe added a Dear Lavender or signed your name.”

“If I signed it, would you have come?”

The question was so blunt that I blinked in surprise, no retort ready as I realized that I wasn’t sure.

Even though we’d never really been friends, Dean and I had never gone five weeks without seeing each other at all.

He came over all the time, passed by me on the street, went to all the same hangout spots as me.

I’d had to go out of my way not to see him during August, and I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that he noticed.

“Of course I would,” I mumbled, but it was hard for me to put any conviction in my words since I was lying through my teeth.

I’d been avoiding him since the end of July, and if he had signed the note, I wouldn’t be here today.

I didn’t want to have to face him after what had happened.

Even though I knew that Dean was a good guy and he was a wonderful friend to Sebastian, I couldn’t help being embarrassed that he was the one who found out about Dad.

That he was the one who had to see me break down.

“I didn’t think so,” Dean said.

“Well, what do you want?” I asked, my voice more hostile than I intended. I didn’t apologize, though, because he’d brought me here under false pretenses. Not only knowing that I wouldn’t have come if he’d signed his name, but also pulling me under when he saw me hesitating.

But more than that, I was angry because now, all I was thinking about was Dad and that night. The way that Dean had looked at me with such pity in his eyes. And then how he had sat with me that night when I couldn’t sleep. The memories that had been playing on a loop in my mind ever since.

“Well, I guess I…” Dean trailed off and cleared his throat. When he spoke again, he was mumbling. “I guess I just wanted to check on you.”

Even though that was the last thing I’d wanted a minute ago, my heart softened at the words. I hadn’t wanted to deal with him asking how I was or assuming he could even begin to understand how I felt, but how could I be angry with him for caring enough to ask? Especially when nobody else had.

“I’m sorry,” I said, because it was clear his hesitation in saying his reasoning was because I snapped at him.

“I’m not trying to be mean or anything, I just…

” I gestured at the air vaguely, as if that would explain everything.

He just looked at me with confusion in his eyes.

I sighed and dropped my hand. “I wasn’t expecting it to be you here. ”

“So who were you expecting?” he asked, a small smirk pulling at his face. “A boy who had a crush on you, coming to tell you how much he loved you?”

I smacked him again and this time he flinched back, although he was laughing still.

I thought about his question for a moment.

I’d mostly been expecting it to be empty under here, either because the note was old or it was some stupid prank that wasn’t funny.

But I guess there was a small part of me that wondered if there actually was a boy who wanted to meet me under the bleachers.

But as I considered who I might have wanted it to be, no name came to mind.

In the past, I’d always been crushing on someone, even if it was just stupid fantasies to pass the time in boring classes.

But as I thought about it now, I realized I hadn’t thought about boys at all in the last month.

I guess it was hard to imagine falling in love when you see just how much it can destroy you to be betrayed.

“Nobody,” I said. I lifted my chin in the air, trying to act like I didn’t care about any of this. “I thought that it would be empty under here and then I would go home, having done my due diligence in making sure that I hadn’t stood somebody up.”

Dean lifted his eyebrows. “Well, you’ve done your due diligence. You came. You’re here. So I guess you can leave now, guilt-free.”

I couldn’t tell whether he was trying to get me to leave or if he was just trying to prove a point that I wasn’t following. I glanced back at the opening that I’d been pulled in from, then at him again.

“You want me to go?” I asked.

He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and shrugged. “If you want to.”

Now I was just confused. “Why’d you ask me here if you’re just going to get me to leave immediately.”

“I didn’t say I want you to leave.”

“Quit being so confusing.”

“But it’s so fun.”

I huffed. “Fine. Have it your way.”

I spun around to leave, but as I took a step away, his hand wrapped around my wrist. Tingles shot up my arm and I quickly yanked it out of his grip as I turned back to look at him.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he said.

“I’m fine,” I said automatically. It was the only answer that was right for me to give.

When Mom—whose marriage had crumpled, whose husband had betrayed her—asked, I said I was fine.

When Sebastian—who had stepped up into the role of being the man of the house and was acting as an extra parent for Ainsley and Imogen—asked, I said I was fine.

When my nosy neighbors looking for gossip asked, I said I was fine.

When Dean asked… Part of me wished the answer could be different.

Wished I could share all the broken pieces of my heart that I tucked away and pretended weren’t there.

Wished I could tell the boy who actually knew the full story how I was feeling.

But like all the others, Dean was hurting too—he had to live with the fact that he was the one to confront his best friend’s Dad about his affair.

I couldn’t unload on him, not when he was suffering like the rest of us.

Dean kicked the dirt underfoot with the toe of his shoe, keeping his eyes on it as he asked, “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me all month?”

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” I said, my voice as weak as when I said I would have come even if he signed the note. I needed to become a better liar if I was going to be convincing about this.

“Oh yeah?” he said. “Is that why you never came by again? Why you were mysteriously absent anytime I stayed over for dinner? Why you never answered my calls?”

“I was busy,” I mumbled. The excuse sounded weak, even to my own ears.

Somehow, I’d really convinced myself that he wouldn’t notice my absence.

Sure, I used to come over with Sebastian occasionally and had texted Dean on very few occasions—usually about questions for school or where Sebastian was when he wasn’t answering his own phone—but they were few and far enough in between that I thought he wouldn’t notice the lack of contact.

“Working at the coffee shop?” he asked. His tone was almost mocking and I might have appreciated how normal that felt if we were having any other conversations. “Because I went there too when I couldn’t track you down and you never came back.”

“Maybe you just went when I wasn’t working.”

“I went back four days in a row, and when you still never showed, I asked the manager. He said you quit weeks ago—must have been right after everything happened.”

I swallowed thickly as I stared at him. Never in a million years did I expect that Dean Graham would care enough to try to find me like that. To come over and call and go to my work, and now, finally, to leave an unsigned note in my locker, knowing I would be too curious not to come and meet him.

“I needed time,” I said softly, “to deal with it.”

It sounded weird to say the words aloud. They were such a small admission, yet it was more than I’d let anybody else see in me.

“I know you did,” Dean said softly. “That’s why I was wondering how you are.”

My heart clenched painfully and I tore my gaze away from him, feeling like it was suddenly hard to breathe.

I couldn’t tell him—not about the sleepless nights when I’d wondered where Dad had gone, not about how I felt like my siblings blamed me, and definitely not about how I sometimes blamed myself.

I couldn’t tell him that I’d spent the last few weeks preparing to leave North Glen and never come back.

I couldn’t tell him any of it, because he wasn’t my person to share that with.

So I said the words I’d been repeating for weeks: “I needed some time. I’ve had it. I’m over it.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. It was true that time was what I needed. I couldn’t say I’d completely moved on, but I did feel like I was getting used to our new normal. Dad being gone had turned into a fact of life for me now instead of a pain that ripped through me every moment of the day.

“You’re over it?” Dean repeated, his tone disbelieving. “You’re over your dad having an affair, you finding out about it, him leaving your mom? You don’t have a single feeling about that?”

My breaths were even more shallow now, the pain in my chest more pronounced.

Words bubbled up in my throat, desperate to come out.

I wanted to tell him that no, I wasn’t over it.

That I still sometimes cried myself to sleep at night, that I wondered so many times if something could have been different, that I felt like every corner of the town held memories of my happy family that I couldn’t stand to think about anymore.

But I’d spent a month keeping it to myself, and I wasn’t going to stop that now.

“Yes,” I said. I lifted my chin in the air, staring at him defiantly. “I’m completely fine and I’m over it.”

I couldn’t quite read Dean’s expression.

He looked almost sad, even though I wasn’t sure why he would be.

“Okay. Good. I’m glad.” We stared at each other for a beat longer before he said, “I guess I’ll just head home then.

Mind giving me a ride? You know, in the car you were driving the day that you found out about your dad’s affair? ”

The choking sound I made was inhuman and immediately Dean’s face fell. I saw the regret flash over him in an instant, but still, I wanted to slap him. I wanted to take the words out of his mouth and somehow turn back time so that I hadn’t come under the bleachers today.

I knew what he was trying to do. I knew that he was just trying to show me that I wasn’t over it—as if I didn’t know it myself. But he didn’t need to go that far.

Dean closed his eyes and let out a long and pained sigh. “Lavender, I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

I didn’t wait around to hear his apology. By the time he opened his eyes, I was already long gone.