Page 213 of The Compass Series

HAILEE

“ I f I knew my trauma would’ve gotten me into your apartment, I would’ve unloaded it earlier on,” Aiden joked as we walked into my place. He looked around, slid his hands into his pockets, and whistled. “Whew. This place screams Hailee.”

I looked around at my organized to the T apartment.

Everything had a label. Nothing was out of place, and it was as clean as ever.

The four walls in my living room were covered in bookshelves, and in the middle two of the shelves was a television that was hardly ever on. If anything, it was a decorative piece.

I had plants throughout the space that Mama brought me because she said, “Every home needs a plant because it adds life to a space.” And something about helping the oxygen. Sadly, she had more of a green thumb than I did.

My kitchen island had a cake dish sitting there, and on it sat one of Mama’s lemon pound cakes.

Each week, she’d made me a small cake for me to nibble at throughout the week.

It explained clearly why my workouts didn’t do much.

I lived a balanced life of sweets and squats.

Honestly, it was the best of both worlds.

“Your plants are dying,” Aiden said as he took off his shoes and made himself comfortable. He walked over to my kitchen, filled up a pitcher, and took on the task of watering said plants. “When was the last time you fertilized?”

I arched an eyebrow. “Since when are you a plant guy?”

“I played a character who was addicted to plants once. These poor things need some tender love and care.” He stuck his finger into the soil and frowned. “When was the last time you watered these?”

“Uh, maybe two months ago?”

“Hailee!”

“What? In my defense, I didn’t want plants.”

“You’re killing me, Hails. You’re killing me.” For the next ten minutes, Aiden went around talking to my plants, singing them lullabies, and telling them they were loved as he watered them. “I’m sorry your mother mistreats you,” he told them.

Honestly, I wasn’t certain if it was a turn-on or a turnoff.

Then I looked at his biceps as he watered them, and well, yeah. It was a turn-on.

When he finished dusting the plants’ leaves, he washed his hands with pride in his eyes. “You are lucky that plants are forgiving. Watch how happy they will look in a few days.”

As he walked by my desk, he paused. He tilted his head in amazement as he noticed the items on my push-pin board. Movie tickets to all his films. He looked over at me. “You’ve seen them all?”

“I saw each one on opening night and own them on DVD. Not to be dramatic, but there’s a good chance I’m your biggest fan.”

“Hmph. Didn’t expect to feel that feeling.”

“What feeling?”

“Love.”

I smiled. “It kind of sneaks up on you.”

“Yeah, something like that.” He reached forward and grabbed the necklace that was hanging there. The Jerry necklace he tore off years prior. “Can I?”

I nodded. “Please.”

He put it around his neck, and I swore a part of my heart instantly healed.

I curled up on my couch and smiled his way. “Now that you’re done distracting yourself, do you want to talk about what happened with Jake and your dad?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you brought me up here to do the sex?”

I laughed. “I never said I was going to do the sex with you.”

“Oh. Well. Um, it was nice seeing your place. I better get going?—”

I threw a pillow at him. “Shut up and come sit down.”

He chuckled and did as I said. As he sat across from me, he sighed.

“I know I should talk to him. I’m just not ready.

And I know I shouldn’t have called him Samuel.

That was a dick move. Sometimes I’m a dick.

Then I’ll replay the dick moment in my head repeatedly and feel bad for my dad even though he did a shit thing. ”

“People are messed up. We make mistakes.”

“I don’t think I can handle you siding with my father tonight, Hailee.”

I reached across to him and took his hands into mine.

“I’m not siding with him, I swear. I’m on your side, through and through.

All I’m saying is that I like to believe people make the best choices they know how to make in the moments they are happening.

What your father asked me to do back then was wrong—but maybe he knows better now.

I’m sure he’s sorry. We can’t learn from our mistakes if we are never given the grace to show our growth and apologize.

I don’t want you to carry the regret of never holding that conversation with your father.

I don’t want that to eat at you for the rest of your life. ”

His brows lowered. “What if his apology isn’t good enough for me to forgive him?”

“Then at least you held the conversation to come to that understanding. You don’t have to listen to me. You don’t have to talk with your father, but I know you, Aiden. I know this will eat at you forever.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is this my ego? Keeping me from talking to my dad?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Your decision not to talk to him might be the right one, but you’ll always question it if you don’t hold a conversation. Maybe it’s not your ego. Maybe it’s a boundary, but I think it’s worth figuring out which one it is.”

He scrunched up his nose and locked eyes with me. “How did you get so good at this stuff?”

“Um, a solid five years of therapy did the trick.”

“Do you still go to therapy?”

“I do. I wanted to give myself the best shot at being happy after everything that happened with the bullying. I’m still working on the happy thing. One day at a time.”

“What makes you happy, Hailee?”

I smiled and pulled my knees into my chest. “Little things or big things?”

“Both.”

“When people are walking their puppies, and the puppies have no control on the leash because they are just so excited about everything. Videos of soldiers being reunited with their family members. Hallmark movies. Fireplaces and cocoa in the winter, even though the only fireplace I have currently is the fake one on the television. Children laughing. The stillness of the dawn before the streets get too busy with the morning rush. Doctors who really give a damn about their patients. My mama. Gingerbread cookies. You.”

“Me?”

I nodded. “Somehow, you’re both a little thing and a big thing.” He smiled shyly, and I wanted to remember that smile for a long, long time. It was as if his inner child came out to play for a moment. “What about you? What makes you happy?”

“You.”

I smiled. “You can’t say me just because I said you.”

“I can say you.”

“What else makes you happy?”

“You,” he repeated.

“Me and me?”

Skip away with me, heartbeats.

He nodded. “You and you.”

While that was the sweetest thing, it gave me an idea. I stood from the couch and walked over to my desk, grabbing a notebook and pen. Then, I joined Aiden back on the couch.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m making us a new list.” I began scribbling in the notebook and then held it out to him. His lips turned up as he read the words.

Tom & Jerry’s Ultimate Happiness Bucket List

“While I am honored to be the first and second thing on your bucket list, we are going to make a list for more things to try out in order to get you more things on your list of joy.”

He chuckled. “You’re going to help me get happy?”

I nodded. “I’m going to help you get happy.”

“Jerry?”

“Yes, Tom?”

“I’m in love with you.”

“I’m in love with you, too.” That never stopped. That never went away.

We’d spent the next hour creating the list of things to try over the next few years to help Aiden and me unlock our ultimate level of joy.

·Go skydiving

·Have Aiden take a drawing class for fun

·Build a snow castle

·Travel to see the northern lights

·Take a cooking class

·Say no to more people

·Don’t feel bad about saying no

·Travel the world outside of work commitments

·Hailee gets into a master’s program

·Get married

·Start a family

As we made the list, we laughed with one another, and it felt as if we were seventeen, sitting between our homes, falling in love with one another all over again. Being loved by that boy felt right.

“I’m a little mad at you,” I confessed.

“And why’s that?”

“Because you’re even more handsome than I remember.”

He laughed. “You look better than when I left you, which says a lot because you always looked perfect.”

“Screw you.”

“Please do.”

My cheeks heated. “I’m serious, Aiden. I feel like when we hooked up on the staircase, it happened so fast that I didn’t get the chance to do my overthinking thing. Now, we can’t hook up again because my thoughts would be too loud. It’s not every day you hook up with Superman.”

“We can literally make it an everyday thing, Hailee. I promise you, that’s an option.”

I laughed. “We aren’t going to do that.”

He moved in closer to me. “You know the best way to get comfortable with someone in the bedroom?”

“What’s that?”

“Practice.”

I smiled. “Is that so?”

He grew closer, pulling me onto his lap.

His mouth grazed against my neck. “Yup. If at first you don’t succeed…

” He slid a hand between my legs and began rubbing my inner thigh.

“Try, try again. I can promise you that you won’t be overthinking anything once you let me inside you again and again and…

” His lips fell against my earlobe. “Again.”

“Well.” My heart was racing as my desires grew more and more. “When do we start?”

In the morning, I woke up to a million missed calls and text messages from my parents and Kate. Aiden was still sleeping beside me as a few sunbeams peeked through the window. As I opened the first message, my heart leaped to my throat.

Mama: Don’t read the articles.

What?

What articles?

I opened the messages from Kate, and a wave of memories came rushing back to me.

Kate: These people are fucking assholes. Screw them. How did they even get those pictures of you and Aiden? That means there’s a rat in town.

Oh no.

I went to the internet search engine and typed in Aiden’s name. The first articles that popped up had my face plastered all over them. Just like five years ago. The most unflattering photographs I could’ve ever imagined with the headlines “From Hollywood Royalty dates Small-Town Nobody.”

There were photographs of Aiden walking with me. Aiden laughing with me. Pictures of me walking out of Aiden’s room at the inn covered in mustard. Even photographs from the night he and I got into a fight outside the Starlight Inn when Tommy was punched.

How did they get all that footage? Who in town had been following us around?

I felt nauseous as I began to read the comments posted about me. I should’ve closed the browser. I shouldn’t have been allowing those comments into my psyche. Yet I kept reading them. I kept taking in the words that the world had been defining me by.

Fat ass.

Disgusting.

Did you see the size of her thighs?

My tears flooded, but I didn’t cry as I kept reading the commentary. Aiden stirred in bed, and I shifted my back to him. He muttered a little before wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into him. I hid the phone beneath my pillow.

“Still sleep time, Hails,” he mumbled against my neck.

“Yeah, I have to get into work a bit early. Mr. Lee needs me.”

“Oh, okay. Let me get up to walk you.” He started to get up, but I stopped him.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” I said as I turned to face him.

I’m okay.

I’m okay.

I’m okay.

I kissed his lips gently. “I’ll see you after work. Okay? You sleep in a little. You had a wild night,” I joked, trying to hide my nerves.

He smirked and stretched his arms out. “Here’s to hoping for another wild night with you tonight. Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you?”

“It’s fine. Rest. I’ll see you after work. Just lock up once you leave.”

He muttered something I couldn’t understand, before hugging his pillow and falling back to sleep.

As he rested peacefully, I hurried into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

In that instance. I was transported back to that scared, hurt seventeen-year-old that the world bullied.

My chest ached as the emotions fell from me.

I choked on my sobs, trying to conceal them so Aiden wouldn’t hear.

My chest burned from heartbreak. They were still saying all the awful things they’d said all those years before.

They were still calling me all the cruel names.

The last thing I wanted was for Aiden to feel bad about what was being said. I knew how deeply it pained him the last time I was viciously attacked online. I didn’t want to put him in that headspace again.

I gave myself the space to cry, to feel.

If I’d learn anything from my school studies and my time in therapy, it was that all feelings were valid, and it was best to work your way through them instead of pretending as if they didn’t exist. I’d also learned that crying wasn’t a sign of weakness, but it was a sign of expression.

Then I took a deep breath, turned on the shower, and undressed.

I needed to shock my body and remind myself of my real reality.

That I, in my current state, was okay and safe.

At that moment, as the water ran over my body, I took deep breaths and I hugged myself.

I rubbed my arms up and down to comfort myself.

I soothed my mind, my soul, and my body.

“I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay…” The water ran over my body as I steadied my breathing. I kept repeating the words until my body began to believe them. I took in heavy inhalations and released them as I brought myself down from the panic taking over me. Then I got dressed and headed into work.

The moment I walked into the inn, Kate was standing at the front desk. She looked over at me with teary eyes.

I sighed and gave her a lopsided grin. “It’s okay. Don’t cry, Kate.”

“Okay,” she blubbered, tears already rolling down her cheeks.

That only made it worse for me, because when someone I loved cried, then I’d cry, too. I didn’t make the rules of emotions. I just followed them.

She rushed over to me and pulled me into a hug. Comfort was also another thing that made me cry easily. “I’m so sorry, Hailee. These people are assholes.”

“It’s okay. I’m okay.”

I kept repeating that silently, too.

I’m okay.

I’m okay.

I’m okay…