Page 82 of When The Rain Falls

I bring my phone up to my ear and I wait.

“Aimee?” His voice breaks the silence. And I realize how pathetically lost I am for him. Because the way he says my name makes my thighs instantly quiver.

“What?” I answer. My voice is surprisingly calm, with a hint of edge. There’s a moment of hesitation. A pause. A drag of breath. And then he continues.

“The 2:00 a.m. friend thing,” he says. “Does it go both ways?”

I bite my bottom lip. I want to smile at that. At the memory of the night we stayed up late eating greasy food in his van. The way we sat together and shared little pieces of ourselves. But the memory just tugs my heart farther into darkness.

“I don’t know,” I reply, a little salt in my voice. “It’s barely ten. Maybe you should call back at two and find out.” Through the window, I watch Finn run a hand through his hair.

“Aimee…” He drags out my name and then goes silent. His voice sounds as raw as my heart feels.

“At least you call me the correct name.” God. I hate how whiny I sound.

“Fuck,” he mutters quietly. “Aimee, what I did was unacceptable. It was fucking shit. I know that.” He pauses again and I can tell he’s struggling with words. It doesn’t matter, though. I can’t imagine anything he can say that will repair the way my heart feels caved in. “I struggle…with things.” His voice sounds shaky. He pauses again and it almost feels like he’s trying to say something, but his thoughts refuse to form into words. “A lot of things. It’s no excuse. I’m not making excuses. It’s like I said. I get stuck sometimes.”

I sigh into the phone and rub the bridge of my nose. He said I made him feel unstuck. And I realize that must have been a lie, too. I was just a body for him to hold. Someone stupid enough to get too close.

“I just needed to tell you I was sorry. And if it makes you feel better, you can hang up on me.” I blink and try to think of a witty response. But my mind is blank from emotional exhaustion.

“I’ll call multiple times. Back to back. So you can hang up multiple times,” he offers hopefully. “If it will help.”

“Can you walk in front of traffic?” I say dryly. I pick a piece of cat hair off my sweatshirt. “Maybe get hit by a bus? Because that might help.”

Finn lets out an awkward, but amused breath.

“I’d let myself get hit by a bus. If I knew I could call you to tell you about it.”

“Why?” I wield my words like swords, and stab them in his direction. “Why would you want to do that?”

His response is a soft, “I miss you.”

My forehead wrinkles as I try to unpack that statement. I place a hand over my chest, where my heart feels tender and bruised. It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. Not if he was thinking of Laurel the whole time we were together.

Why does he miss me?

“Right. You missme,” I bite back at him. Does he think I’m stupid?

“Yes, Aimee,” he says calmly, with a bit of forced patience. “You.” There’s more silence. And I think the emotional exhaustion is making my head feel fuzzy and hot. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m still desperately wanting him when I shouldn’t. “I’m not going to ask for forgiveness. I don’t want you to give it to me. I don’t deserve it. And even if you hate me for the rest of my life, I think I could live with that. But not talking to you? Fuck. That would be the real torture.”

“Why?” My voice comes out accusatory and harsh.

“I don’t really know how to explain it.” His deep voice is so warm and comforting that I almost forget he’s the cause of my shattered soul. “I like talking to you.” I hear him shrug. “More than I’ve liked anything in a long time. And you make me laugh.”

“I have yet to see you laugh,” I protest.

“I laugh on the inside,” he says quietly. “When I’m with you, I’m laughing all the fucking time.”

“Yeah, well, too bad none of that was real. When we were together, nothing was real.”

“Some things were real, Aimee.” I hate the way his voice dips low and husky. And I hate how sexy my name sounds passing through his lips.

There’s silence again. I nervously chew my thumbnail as I try to sort through his words and find their meaning.

My body is betraying me. When someone rips out your heart and then stomps all over it, you probably shouldn’t still want them to fuck you stupid. But all I want right now is for the man across the street to fuck me stupid.

“You want to keep talking to me?” I demand pointedly. “Fine. You can keep talking to me. I’ll see you at your doorstep at 6:00am tomorrow.”

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