Page 40 of On the Way to You

I didn’t know why heat crept its way up my neck, or why I had to fight back a smile at him asking me what kind of guy I preferred. It felt like he was asking me another question altogether, one he’d asked with his eyes, already.

“I don’t know. I want someone I can laugh with, and go on adventures with. Someone who will challenge me to be better but also support me when I’m weak. I want someone who shares their deepest fears with me, shows me their scars willingly — someone who trusts me to heal them, just as I trust them.” I bit my lip. “And I want to feel a rush every time our skin touches. I want to lose entire afternoons with them under the covers. I want someone who I can’t wait to share good news with, and someone who I know will hold me when the bad news comes.”

I knew I was rambling, but I couldn’t stop. The want for a love I’d never experienced consumed me. My eyes were still tracing the mountains as my voice lowered, my hands finding my hair, braiding it over my shoulder.

“I want that kind of love that leaves you breathless when it hits you, and makes you want to throw up at the thought of losing it. The kind that makes youso happythat it hurts at the same time, like it’s painful to think that out of all the people in the world, you somehow found the one meant for you.” I sighed, tossing my braid back behind me. “But really, I don’t know what I want. Not completely. I’ve never come face to face with it.” I shrugged, lost in my thoughts, in the unknown of it all. “I guess I’ll just know when I find it.”

Emery watched me for a long moment, so long our tires brushed the bumpy edges of the shoulder before he turned his attention back to the road. And then he was quiet.

“Go ahead,” I said, poking his arm. “Say what you want to say. Tell me I’m stupid and that fantasy doesn’t exist.”

He didn’t smile, didn’t spout off a cynical list of reasons why I was wrong. He just drove, one hand on the steering wheel, the other brushing over the soft bit of stubble that had grown on his chin overnight.

“You’re not stupid,” he finally said. “And I hope you find all of those things with someone, Cooper. I really do.”

I smiled. “I hope you do, too.”

Emery didn’t respond, pointing instead to a sign up ahead. “I need a restroom break. You hungry or anything?”

“I think I can wait until we get there.”

He nodded, pulling us off onto the exit. A few minutes later we were parked at a quiet old gas station, and he hopped out, taking Kalo’s leash. I couldn’t help but watch him as he walked with her, and once she was finished, she was back in the car and Emery was headed inside.

His journal was tucked in between the driver seat and the console, and my eyes flicked down to the leather before I tore them away again.

My right knee bounced.

I unbraided my hair.

I texted Lily.

And then I gave in and picked it up, anyway.

My stomach was in knots as I glanced up at the gas station, watching for him while my fingers flipped to the page from last night. It was bookmarked with a small, dark red ribbon, and my name jumped off the page as soon as I opened it.

I saw Cooper for the first time tonight.

We’ve only been together a few days, but still, I thought I had her figured out. I thought I had her nailed down as this stupid, naive little girl who had never been hurt before. But she has been hurt. She’s been through more than most people I know.

More than me.

I knew something was off with the way she walked, with some of the noises I heard her make, but it was still a shocking sight to see her standing in the frame of our hotel bathroom on one leg. Half of the other one is gone. She lost it in a car accident with her mom.

Her mom was drunk. Her mom didn’t lose a damn thing, but Cooper lost her leg.

Now I’m sitting here on the bed opposite her, and she’s asleep, tears still staining her cheeks because I asked her what happened. And she told me, she opened herself up to me even though I was a complete fucking asshole to her yesterday. And why, because I was having a “bad day” as Marni would say?

Stupid.

I don’t know what bad days are, not really. I don’t know what it’s like to wake up in a hospital without a leg, or to learn how to walk again, or to look at my drunk mom who doesn’t have a single scratch on her and know she’s responsible for my new life.

Grams would have liked Cooper.

I wish she could have met her.

Emery pushed through the gas station door, flicking his sunglasses back down over his eyes as I carefully slipped his journal back into place. When he dipped back down into the driver seat, I was smiling, and I just looked at him.

“What?” he asked, the corner of his mouth quirking up, too.