Page 34

TREY

We didn’t establish if she was coming back this week. As I walked her to her car last week, I thought about asking but was too afraid to. Now I’m sitting under our tree with an open book in my lap, and I haven’t read a single word.

It’s seven thirty-five. She’s probably not coming.

Seven forty-five. She’s not coming.

Seven fifty-five. She’s definitely not —A pair of footsteps thumps against the ground in the distance. Is it her?

A vision of perfection appears from the woods. She’s got a blanket draped over one arm and her purse in the other. All the blood rushes to my face as my lips effortlessly curve into a smile.

“Hey, you,” I say when she reaches me.

“Sorry, it took me a little longer to get here. I had to stop at the store for this.” She pulls out a little box from her purse. “It’s called the Little Box of Questions to Ask Your Friends.”

I read the colorful print on the box, and that’s exactly what it says. “You consider us friends?”

She shakes out her blanket and lays it over the grass. “What else would we be?”

Good point. I guess being her friend is better than being nothing at all. I’ll take it.

Once we’re sitting and facing each other on her blanket, she unwraps the box of question cards from the plastic.

The way the light from the setting sun hits her face makes her look like she’s a hallucination.

Sometimes, I’m still not sure if she’s real.

It’s only once she speaks that I’m positive I’m not hallucinating.

It’s just hard for me to believe that she’s actually here in front of me and that she has come four weeks in a row. What did I finally do right?

“Is this a game?” I ask.

“Yeah, but better, because it’s the type of game where we both win. All we do is take turns pulling a card from the box, then we both answer the question. Would you like to go first?”

“Sure.” I slip a card out from the middle of the box and read it. “What is one of your biggest regrets?” I think about my answer, then I playfully glare at her. “Is this another one of your sneaky ways to get me to open up?”

Her mouth spreads into a guilty grin. “You caught me.”

“Is that really why you bought this question-box thing?”

“Let’s just say that one deep thought a week is not enough for me. I want more, and I figured this was a subtle not-so-subtle way of asking for it without actually asking for it.”

If she wants more, I can give her more. Hell, I’ll give her all of me if that’s what she wants. I just expect the same back. “You answer this question first.”

“Okay. One of my biggest regrets is staying with my ex for as long as I did. I should have left as soon as I saw the red flags. Instead, I made excuses for him over and over, until I was trapped.”

I could have guessed she’d say that. We’ve had multiple conversations about Nathan before, and they all ended with the same conclusion: No matter what, she’s never going to stay in a relationship where she’s abused or feels unwanted ever again.

She vowed to herself that as soon as she saw the signs, she’d get out, even if it means starting over. I’m proud of her for that.

“Your turn,” she says, leaning in to me with an eager look.

“Okay. One of my biggest regrets is waiting too long to tell someone I love them.” I keep it vague on purpose and hope she won’t ask me to elaborate. If she does, I won’t. This is already too much opening up for me, and we’re only one question in.

She must read my mind, because her face tells me she wants to ask a follow-up question, but her hand pulls a card from the box instead. “What is the first thing you noticed about me? This time, you have to answer first.”

I make a stank face. “I dunno if I like this question. Your answer will have a completely different vibe from mine.”

“How so?”

“Because when you met me, I was a stranger at your door, saying things you thought were insane.”

“But that’s not the first thing I noticed about you.”

Suddenly, I’m a fan of this question. “Then what was?”

“Nuh-uh. You have to answer first.”

“All right, fine. The first thing I noticed about you was your captivating eyes. Sometimes they tell me things your mouth doesn’t.”

“Your eyes do the same.”

So I’ve been told.

Arella shyly tucks some hair behind her ear. “The first thing I noticed about you is how protectively you wrapped your arms around me. It felt desperate and possessive.”

Because it was. For as possessive as I am with her, I give myself an A-fucking-plus for staying away from her for as long as I have. This shit isn’t easy.

“Are you that way with Liz too?”

I waggle my head from side to side. “Protective? Yes. Possessive? No.” I pull another card from the box, ready to stop talking about the moment I heard her say “Who are you?” Those three words echo in my head constantly, eating me alive from the inside out.

I hold the card up and read it. “If you had the option to live forever, would you?”

“I wouldn’t,” Arella says without putting any thought into it. “I’d hate to watch all the people I love die and to have to go on without them.”

“Yep, that would be hard.” It’s basically what I’ve been doing with her. She’s not exactly dead, but the part of her that remembers me is.

“What’s your answer?” she asks.

I let out a scoff as I fling the card next to the box. “My answer is fuck no. I hate my life. Why the hell would I choose to do this shit forever?”

“You hate your life?”

The fact that she’s surprised by that means she doesn’t know anything about my past. “I haven’t really been dealt a good hand of cards to play with in this game of survival.”

“But you seem to have enough money to buy or experience whatever you want.”

“Money isn’t worth anything when you’ve got no one to share it with.”

She creases her face together and slumps her shoulders. “Oh, Trey...”

“Please don’t look at me like that. I don’t want pity.” Nor do I deserve it. I pick up the little game box and scowl at it. “Are there any questions in this damn thing that will solicit a positive answer? I’m done with this depressing shit.”

“Let’s see if I can find one.” She pulls out a card and reads it to herself. Then she shoves it back in. “Nope.” She slides out another card. “Definitely not.” She pulls out a third card. “Um, maybe. Tell me if this is okay. The question is, Who has had the most positive influence on your life?”

“That’s easy. My answer is Liz.”

Arella adds the card to our pile of used ones. “Tell me more.”

“Liz taught me that when life gets shitty, you can still make something of it. When we first met, I was a drug addict. She helped me clean up. Then two years ago, when I fell back into drugs, she helped me get sober again.”

“You were an addict?” Arella says, her jaw dropped.

“Are you really that surprised?”

“Like, how bad?”

I don’t want to go into deep details about this with her, so I say, “Pretty bad.”

“Do you still struggle with it?”

“Sometimes.” All the time. It’s been easier to overcome my urges lately—for the last four weeks, to be exact. Whenever I feel the urge to silence my chaotic mind with a substance, I just imagine seeing her at this tree on Sunday evening, and the urge fades away.

“What did Liz do to help you sober up?”

“It’s not what she did . It’s what she said .”

“Which is?”

I eye her playfully. “That’s enough opening up for one night.”

“What? You’re gonna leave me hanging?”

“That question was supposed to elicit a positive answer. Talking about my past is not positive. Why don’t you tell me who’s had a good influence on your life? Maybe that’ll lift the mood.”

“Sure. Growing up, my answer would have been my grandparents. They love me more than I’ve ever seen two people love someone.

As an adult, my answer is Javina. She’s been there for me from the moment we met, and she’s part of the reason why I’m stronger now.

Plus, if it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have had that conversation on that bench.

Did you know Javina had extra fuses the whole time? ”

My face contorts. “What?”

“Yeah, she dumped out her box of fuses and pretended to need more because she wanted me to be able to talk to you without an audience.”

I swear, Javina is one of my favorite people in the world, and she doesn’t even know it. “Was her car even broken?”

“Yes. That, she didn’t fake.”

I let out a soft hmm . “Remind me to treat that woman to a spa day sometime.”

“She’d like that. Did you know whenever we talk about you, she always refers to you as pretty boy ?”

A wide smile spreads across my lips. “You guys talk about me?”

Arella glances away as her hair falls to cover her blushing cheeks. “Sometimes.”

“What do you guys say?”

She laughs and shakes her head. “I’m not telling.”

“What? I just confessed to you that I had a bad drug addiction. It’s only fair that you confess something too.”

“Okay, fine. Most of the time, we just talk about you coming from an alternate universe.”

“Does she know about this ?”

Arella doesn’t need me to specify what this is to know what I’m referring to. “I haven’t told her, and I don’t plan to.”

“Does your dude know?”

“No, and I think it’s funny that you call him my dude .”

Because it stings to have to call him her hus—Yeah, I can’t even do it in my head. “Liz doesn’t know about this, either.”

“Why haven’t you told her?”

Because I already know what Liz will say.

She’ll tell me this is a bad idea. She’ll tell me that when this ends, because it eventually will, I’ll be left with a larger gaping hole than before.

I already know that, yet here I am, plunging headfirst. Whatever the consequences are, I’ll deal with them later. Right now, I’m too happy to care.