Page 160 of Crazy for this Girl

I reach over to grab her hand this time, lacing my fingers with hers. “Not unless you wanna talk right now.”

“Still think you can run faster?” She doesn’t look my way, still staring horrified at the dessert her mom made.

“I know I can run faster.”

“Uh, Mom, what is this?” Jonah bears the bravery to ask that question as we all wait for her to reveal what the hell this gunky ass green shit is on our dessert plates.

“It’s grandma’s lime green jello salad,” she replies, scooping out more to put on poor Ellie’s plate.

“What’s in it?”

“Jello, pineapple, evaporated milk, walnuts, cottage cheese, and mayo.” Metal forks fall loudly with a clank against glass plates, hinting without a doubt that no one at this table is going to be eating that.

“Ready to go now?” I press, aware that it’s either me or her mom’s awful dessert choice right now.

“Yep.”

Cal and I mindlessly walked to the wooden dock that still held Dad’s fishing boat; the place we always seemed to go to just hang out.

While the surroundings are comfortable, an older Cal isn’t. His alluring disposition, the way he clapped back at Mom when she got out of line at lunch earlier this week. Teenage Cal wasn’t as openly mouthy about things since she had the power to keep us apart, but adult Cal Harper doesn’t give two shits.

He swooped in and became my defender, deflecting anything negative coming my way like I needed the help.

I don’t, but having it is nice. I’ve been dealing with my mother since he left me by myself, and nothing could change the outcome of how flagrantly disappointed and hopeless she feels toward me.

After time, I thought I’d be able to muscle her words off myself, but nothing has changed or flicked inside my brain to shove her off.

That’s why I don’t talk to her.

However, it’s not my mother or the nasty atrocity of a dessert she made but everything that Cal said. I have so many questions, so much zipping through my head, and the feelings I’ve felt now seem to be invalid but valid at the same time.

“What I said in there was true,” he mutters softly at my side as we glaze over the lake’s surface. “All of it.”

“I believe you.”

And I do.

Everything he’s been through, a whole company thrown at his feet to learn and manage, I couldn’t imagine doing that straight out of high school.

Except, I don’t think it happened exactly that way. There are so many gray areas that I’m scared of how I’m going to react, but most importantly that it’s going to hurt because I never ever want to see or hear that Cal has gone through the worst possible scenarios.

“Cal…those weeks that I didn’t hear from you. The trip to come see me…” I crane my head to look up at him. “Where were you?”

I see his jaw tick, confirming my answer. Cal never mentioned the military—ever. So, I’m still stumped.

“I was in San Diego,” he finally says. “At boot camp. I had my shit packed for North Carolina; it was all in the car, ready to go to the airport. My dad stopped me, saying I wasn’t going anywhere. He had just gotten back from a business trip and if I would’ve left fifteen minutes before then, he wouldn’t have caught me.” He glances over at me, green eyes consumed with rage and sadness. “I never told him.”

“That you were leaving them behind for me?”

“I would’ve done anything for you, Laynee. I would’ve moved to Switzerland if you wanted to.”

“But…”

“He signed me up…” His next exhale is staggered as if I punched him in the gut. His brows clinched together as if he has to force the next words free from his throat. “For the Marines. It was too late to pull by then. He knew some fucked up recruiter. My mother ratted me out to him. That all I did was talk about you. In itself, that was dangerous. I’m the only child of the big and bad Mr. Julius Harper. My future was always supposed to be Grand Regent...except I didn’t want it. Then he threatened you—”

“Me?” My whole body does this weird thing of tensing and defending thing. I want to safeguard him from things that have already happened, which is stupid, I can’t. However, it doesn’t stop me from wishing to suck things out of him that have already transpired and affected him. “How?”

Cal shakes his head. “I wasn’t about to find out. My father had power, he got me into the fucking Marines without my consent. He shipped me off and kept me far, far away from the girl I wanted more than life. I was crazy for you, Laynee. You were all I wanted to speak about.”

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