Page 72 of What He Doesn't Know

“Why?”

He hated me, and I couldn’t blame him.

“Because I miss you… I miss my friend.”

Reese stuck his tongue to the inside of his cheek, shaking his head like I’d just said the most offensive word in the English language. “Wow. No.”

“No?”

“No. You don’t get to say that to me. You don’t get to tell me that you miss me, and youdefinitelydo not get to say that it’s ourfriendshipthat you miss.”

“But it is,” I tried to argue, but he cut me short.

“You want to talk, Charlie? Fine. Let’s talk.” He stepped into me, lowering his voice so that only I could hear him. Not that it mattered — everyone else was still arguing about the snow day, anyway. “Why don’t you look me in the eyes, right now, right here, and tell me that you feel nothing for me. That’s what you wanted to talk about last time we had a conversation, right? So, here. Hammer it home.”

He took another step, his chest brushing mine, his eyes hard where they watched me over the bridge of his nose.

“Tell me that kiss only made you feel guilty. Tell me it only made you realize you’re completely happy in your marriage and Cameron is who you want and I mean nothing to you. Tell me that night was a mistake. That’s your favorite word for it, right? So, go ahead. Tell me.”

I couldn’t speak.

His eyes flicked between mine, his jaw set, brows furrowed in a deep resolve.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said after a moment, taking only a small step back. “You can’t.”

“I love him, Reese,” I whispered, the words cutting me like a dull razor blade as they left my lips. I knew they penetrated him just the same.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you love me, too.”

A loud roar of laughter broke out around us, and Reese held my eyes with his own for a long moment before he turned and rejoined Jennifer at their table. He smiled brightly at her once he’d sat back down, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t nailed me to the spot with the truth of his words.

He glanced at me briefly when I didn’t move, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat once before he tore his eyes away and focused on Jennifer again. She reached forward to cover his hand with hers, laughing at something he’d said, and it was that laugh that snapped me back to reality.

I blinked, hastily pouring the fresh coffee into my Thermos before I turned and left the room.

That night, it snowed nine inches, and Mr. Henderson called the first snow day of the year.

Charlie

Something strange happens when you spend too much time alone.

The relaxation you feel from those first few hours of solitary morphs somewhere along the way, transforming into awareness of your subconscious, awareness of the thoughts you didn’t even know you were hiding from. Time blurs, stretching and sprinting all at once, exposing the loneliness in your soul along the way.

Though Mr. Henderson had called a snow day for Westchester not only on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, too — Cameron still had to go to work. They’d let him work from home for the first couple of hours Tuesday morning, but then he had to go in. And on Wednesday, they didn’t even let him start the morning at home.

The roads were bad enough that I didn’t want to chance driving on them, not even to go to Mom’s, so I just stayed at home with Jane. Alone.

There was a brief moment on Tuesday morning when I was grateful I got to stay under the warm, cozy sheets of our bed when Cameron left for work. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in that late, and when Cameron was out the door, I sighed contently and burrowed under the covers more.

I only slept for another thirty minutes, and that half hour was spent dreaming of Reese.

We were back at his house on that last night before he moved to New York, only this time, he kissed me. The dream felt so real, like he was in that room with me still when I woke. When I came all the way to, I realized my hand was under my boy shorts, my fingers wet.

I got out of bed then, and so began my two days of being completely alone with my thoughts.

When I was younger, I used to sit in my dad’s office and watch one of the little trinkets on his desk while he worked. It was a row of silver balls hanging from a bar, and Dad would pull the end one back, letting it smack the side of the ball next to it. This would set up a chain reaction in which the ball on the opposite end would swing out and back again, and so it would go, on and on and on all afternoon.

Dad said it was “Newton’s Cradle,” a sort of moving art that was meant to bring comfort and serenity. He loved that it was reliable, that it was always there, always moving, always making the same sounds.