Page 79 of What He Doesn't Know

I needed to get out of the house.

That thought had been on repeat ever since I’d walked in the door after school.

Through every cigarette, every beer, and every timeless minute that ticked by, I had that thought in the back of my mind.

But I still had her in the front.

Between the snow days and my slow burn of longing for Charlie, the last thing I needed to be doing was sitting by myself, alone with my thoughts, a twelve-pack, and two packs of cigarettes. I’d been destroying my body for almost two weeks now, ever since she walked out my front door. Blake was the only one who’d thought to check on me, and I’d ignored the call, opting for misery, instead.

I played cold around Charlie.

It was the only way I knew how to guard what was left of my heart. I’d always worn that fucker like a peeling patch on my sleeve, had always been more in touch with my feelings than any other man I’d ever known or called a friend. I wished, in a way, that I had the gene that made me shut down and close off.

But I didn’t.

I could fake it around her, could pretend like I didn’t die a little every time I saw her, every time she looked at me and asked me to be herfriend, but it was all a lie.

The truth was that she went home to Cameron every night, and that would never change.

I needed to get out of the house.

Snuffing the end of my cigarette in the ashtray on the box by my feet, I finally stood sometime around eight o’clock. I sucked down the rest of my beer, and though I probably shouldn’t have even considered driving, I swiped my keys off the kitchen counter, anyway. I didn’t know where to go to get my mind off her, offhim, but I knew I had to get out of the place that I’d last touched her in.

My eyes caught on the fort still set up in my living room as I shrugged on my coat. I’d fixed the edges of it torn down in her haste to leave that night, and when Ireallywanted to torture myself, I’d lay in there with a beer and look up at the same sloping sheets we’d watched together.

I’d close my eyes and remember the feel of her under my hands, the softness of her lips against mine, the sweetness of her voice as she whispered my name.

Fucking masochist. That’s what I was.

I ran a hand over my face, shaking off the memory as I opened my front door. But as soon as I did, I was face to face with the ghost that had haunted me for weeks.

And for the first full minute, I thought she wasn’t real.

It had to be the beer. It had to be my imagination playing tricks on me, casting Charlie in a soft glow there on my front porch. She was wrapped in a light pink pea coat and a white scarf, her hair in a messy bun, her eyes wide like she was just as shocked as I was that she was on my porch.

I pushed through the screen door still between us, my fingers numb on the cold metal, and when we were standing toe to toe, when the steam from her breath touched my neck — that’s when I knew she was real.

She stood there with her eyes on mine, gaze as steady and sure as a river, though she looked like she might float away in the current of it. In those eyes, I saw the girl who used to read late at night in my kitchen, the girl who used to cry when fictional characters broke each others’ hearts. I saw the woman she’d become in my absence, the woman who wore her scars like a dainty necklace beneath her blouse, the woman who cared for every child as if they were her own.

On that porch, in that moment, I saw all of her.

Every aching piece.

I took one, small step toward her, opening my mouth to ask her why she was there, but Charlie flew into my arms in the next second.

And then, she kissed me, and every other thought was carried away on the next breeze.

Charlie wrapped her arms around my neck, hands tugging at my hair as I backed us into my house and blindly shut the doors behind us. My hands were back on her in an instant, pulling her into me, a sweet euphoria bleeding from her lips into mine with every kiss.

It wasn’t like the night we shared before. There was no hesitation, no trembling, no second guessing — no, there was only her, and me, and what we had always been destined to be.

Charlie started to cry, shaking her head as she kissed me harder, as if she needed to bruise my lips in order to truly taste them. I framed her cheeks in my hands, wiping the tears away just as quickly as they fell, returning the pressure of her kisses with all the fervor she gave me.

“I drove around for hours,” she croaked out, breaking our kiss long enough to get the words out before her lips were on mine again. “I tried not to come. I tried to stay away. But you’re right, I do love you. I love you, Reese.” She choked on a sob, squeezing her eyes shut as she fisted her hands in my coat. “I always have.”

My fingers were already unfastening her coat and sliding it off her shoulders as I kissed down her neck. I let her coat fall in a puddle on the floor, tugging the hair tie from her soft curls next, and then I ran my hands through the silky strands and pulled her mouth to mine.

“I would have waited forever,” I said on a breath. “But my God, I’m so glad you came tonight.”