Page 77 of The Fate Of Us

It’s then I hear a door creak open, and I spin on my heels to find Nate, watching me,his mouth gaped.

I stare back for a second, before my eyes fall to my books, then lift them to meet his.

All he does is shrug, and whisper in his low morning voice, “I told you that you were myfavourite writer.”

Chapter twenty-three

Nate

Ishouldbescared,seeing Addy with her books. All eight of them.

The eight I knew she considered her favourites, her best work.

I wait for the moment my heart gets the green light to speed off into the distance, thevibrations shaking every part of my body. I wait for the shivers, the numbness, and anticipate the breathlessness that’ll make me all the more grateful for the big, airy windows to my right, as I watch the girl who rewinds all those feelings, cleaning the slate in my mind.

Breath

Hold

The girl I never stopped loving.

Out.

But admiring her for the few seconds I did before she spotted me, the prettiest smile I’dever seen glowing on her face; it was like I’d never known that routine, never needed it. Something about the way her delicate stare is holding mine, the way it used to, melts away everything I’m so used to feeling.

Like the day I met her—the first time in my life I was talking to a stranger who didn’tmake me want to run and hide away.My accidental cure.

It’s like we’ve paused time. Static silence solidifies in the distance between our bodies,preventing us from closing it. Her eyes are rolling up and down my body, decked out in the grey sweatpants and white t-shirt that I’d worn to bed after leaving her last night. I do the same with her.

I knew she wouldn’t have worn the t-shirt I’d left her, she was always craving cosiness,so I knew she’d find a sweatshirt somewhere in the depths of the closet. It doesn’t help that she picked my old college sweatshirt. Her eyes catch that mine are fading across the faded letters, her head dipping, before she bonds our stare again.

“It was cold.” she barely whispered, books still in hand, her auburn waves just as curly asthey were last night, although less glitter crowded those eyes that matched.

“It’s okay,” I shuffled where I stood, my feet catching the sun in the odd shapes it castover the floor. “Did you… sleep okay?”

Her eyes didn’t move an inch from mine. “Yeah… I guess.”

Two moments of quiet grace us before she asks, “What happened last night?” At the sametime, I rush out, “You called me from a bar at three in the morning.”

Her brows pull in. “What?”

“You called me, I eventually got the street name out of you, and I got there as quick as Icould. I found you sat on the sidewalk, slightly hammered, and I brought you back here.” My head fell forward. “At first I thought Asher had left you, but you told me he left a few hours before that, and you told him you were leaving too, but…”

Embarrassment paints her face, “Jesus, Nate, I’m so—”

“Please don’t apologise. I’m… happy that you called. God knows what would’vehappened—”

“Thank you, for saving me.” Her curls framed her face as she shook her head. “Youdidn’t have to.”

I shrug, too casually. “It was nothing.”I watch the way her colour fades from her face as my words reach her, clearly goingdeeper than they were meant to. “I didn’t mean that, I just meant that—”

“No, I get it. You would’ve done the same for Florence had she called you, or Jacob,or—”

“I meant that I’d never not answer the phone when you called, Addy. It’s not somethingI’d ever think twice about.” I take a step towards her, the space between us pressurising, pushing against my chest. “Call me at three in the morning, any time you want, I don’t care—”

“And why would I want to do that?” She shuffles, the movement not subtle enoughthat the books don’t wobble as she does, making her remember that they’re even in her hands. That they exist.

She doesn’t have to say anything to me to get across what she wants to ask; her eyes dothat just fine. The way they widen as she shakes her head as if to say ‘well…‘.

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