Page 91 of Trip Me Up

“My family and I are different from yours. Well, your mom and your grandpa. We aren’t sharers.” We had been, once. When Dad was around. After that, I’d shared most of my life, my secrets, with Jackson. Until Stephen. They weaponized anything I’d told them after that. My brother only wanted to protect me, but sometimes a girl needed to make her own mistakes.

And I’d made a big one.

Niall rubbed a hand through his auburn hair, lit up in gold by the 40-watt bulb. “I’m sorry, Sam. I don’t want to get in your business, but don’t you think your writing is something you should have shared with them?”

“I have my reasons.” I squared my jaw and wished I were six inches taller so I didn’t have to crane my neck to look at him.

“What are you keeping from me, Sam?”

For a second, I weighed my options. Tell him, take the weight off my chest. He’d give me a look of disgusted betrayal and walk out. Heidi would come down on me like a hammer with her lawyers, and I’d kiss my Ph.D. good-bye. Or keep my mouth shut. Let him think I wasn’t a fraud for just a few more minutes until I could return to my lonely, Niall-free life with my future intact.

“Nothing I can tell you about.” I stared at his shirt button. I’d been the one to fasten it this morning after our shower. I’d liked the idea of his going out to our last tour event in clothes I’d put on him. Like a squire armoring her knight, protecting him against all ill-wishers. Including myself.

“Can’t you, Sam? We’ve shared so much.” He clasped my hand and flipped it over. Only splotches of my black nail polish remained, centered on each fingernail, chipped and ragged at the edges. He stroked my hand, pale with blue veins crisscrossing it.

“I can’t.”

“What about later? Have you thought about—”

“I can’t do that, either. It’s like I told you—”

“This—us—ends with the tour. You can’t want that, Sam. I know I don’t.”

Each word was a nail in my heart, piercing it. I could hardly breathe through the pain. “I’ve loved every minute. Well, except for the first few days. But this is the end.”

“So this is good-bye? Right here, in a supply closet?” He toed a can of furniture polish, and it fell over with a clank.

When I glanced up at last, Niall’s mouth pinched with pain. Probably the same pain as my own nail-studded heart. Tears prickled behind my eyes, but I sniffed them back. If I walked out of there with red eyes, Jackson would punch Niall.

His hands traced my arms up to my shoulders. He cradled my face, rubbing one callused thumb against my cheek. God, I’d miss those calluses.

“Good-bye.” It was all I could push past my closed-up throat.

“Sam.”

In that one, cracked-open word, I heard it. His heart was splintering, too. But it was nothing to the hurt he’d feel if I told him the truth. He didn’t want to know how I’d used technology to make a mockery of everything he treasured, everything he believed in.

Better to let him believe in the fairy tale a little longer until I could put some distance between us. Gabi would find him another B-list actress faster than I could sayrebound. He’d forget me soon enough.

“Sam, I—you don’t have to respond. I know it’s too soon, and you probably think I’m some lovesick Romeo. But I have to tell you how I feel.” He took a breath, sucking every molecule of oxygen out of the closet. “I love you.”

My nail-studded, bleeding heart jumped. “No, Niall, you—”

“Don’t tell me I don’t know my own feelings. I know it’s fast. But I can’t help the way I feel. I love you,” he repeated. Like if he said it often enough it’d be true.

I opened my mouth to argue, to tell him he was wrong. That my own heart was wrong, too.

Niall’s lips were on mine the next second, then one arm wrapped around me while his other hand cradled my face. I gripped the soft flannel of his shirt so hard a button pinged on the floor.

My pulse pounded in my ears. I stretched up on my toes to chase the kiss, the sensation of our lips and tongues sliding together, teeth clicking in our frenzy to come closer, to join as we had that afternoon in the hayloft and every night since, to be one. I could’ve lived forever in that moment, in the nubby texture of his shirt under my hands, in the warmth of his lips, in the strength of his arms around me. I never wanted to be released.

At last, the correct neuron fired, reminding me we couldn’t do this. We belonged in separate parts of the country. In separate worlds. I belonged in this city, where the lie had been born, and I’d accepted it. Where I had to keep lying for another few weeks until I could escape, Ph.D. scroll in hand. He belonged out in nature, forever true and pure and honest. I lowered to my heels, Niall bending over me, nipping at my bottom lip.

I tugged free but didn’t push him away. He kissed my jaw, my earlobe, the spot on my neck that made my knees liquefy.My traitorous hands gripped his shirt.

Into the shell of my ear, he whispered, “We’re connected, Sam. Don’t you feel it? We may come from different backgrounds, we might have different opinions about art, but our souls are alike. I feel them twisting together like two vines. We belong together. We need to give it—us—a chance to grow.”

My stomach muscles tensed, probably to keep my organs from leaping out of my body. I wanted so desperately to agree with him. I did feel it: the recognition of rewatching a favorite movie, the satisfaction of scanning through an elegant section of code, the pleasant purring of the server room.

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