Page 53 of The Leaving Road

I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory, even though Sloan was basically growling through his teeth at the mention of it.

I was standing in the bleachers, waiting for the gym teacher to signal the start of the cheerleaders before they introduced the football team. Even though it was the start of the season, it was colder than I was expecting, and while I had worn jeans and a sweater, I didn’t bring gloves. I was rubbing my hands together, waiting for this to be over with when…

“Hey, Magnolia, are you excited about this school year?”

A quick glance to my left showed me it was Robbie Falkens, the class clown, standing beside me, grinning.

I shot him an unamused look. “I’d be happier if they made these things optional instead of mandatory.”

That got a rather loud and unnecessary laugh out of Robbie, and I turned to face him and ask him what he wanted when, before I could protest or move, he crushed his lips to mine.

I was frozen, stunned, until a large body came between us, and I instantly felt it was Sloan,

“What the fuck, dude?” Sloan growled in Robbie’s face.

Robbie held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, she didn’t say no!”

But Sloan was having none of it. “I heard the whole conversation, and in no way did she invite you to kiss her.”

“Dude, you need to chill out…” Before the last word barely left his mouth, Sloan reared back his right hand and socked him right in the nose. The crunching sound was deafening, and then the shouting started, and everything after that was a bit of a blur. I was so worried that Sloan was going to be expelled.

“You never did tell me how youbarelygot in trouble for that.”

“That little prick… I informed the school that he kissed you without consent, and if I was getting expelled or in trouble, then so shouldhe.His parents panicked about it going on his permanent record and having to switch schools in such a small area, so they figured it best the subject was dropped.”

“I feel like we got off topic here.”I feel like we’re treading on dangerous territory.

“Right, sorry. Okay, so, boy meets girl, they become best friends. Boy starts realizing things he shouldn’t about hisbest friend,like the way her ass looks in the jeans she wore to a pep rally one day…”

He turned to raise his eyebrows at me, as if waiting for me to interject again. I couldn’t help but smile and stay silent, so he continued, “He realizes he has all these feelings for someone heshould notbe having feelings for. He gives in to the first girl who showed him attention, dated her because he was young and dumb,misplacinga lot of feelings. Best friend leaves, he sinks into a depression, stays with the wrong girl for thewrongreasons, grows up, wises up, realizes his mistakes and some hard truths he tried to bury. He does his best to move on…and now, here we are”

His eyes met mine again, and I sawshame,and a little shockingly, what looked like someself-hatred.

Keeping eye contact, I murmured, “Now I think I want to hear the long version.”

Chapter 34

Magnolia

“Can I go check on Peaches before we get into it? I’d rather not be interrupted, but I haven’t checked in on her in about an hour now…” His voice was hesitant, almost as if he was afraid this would offend me, but instead it did the exact opposite.Cueheart melt.

I couldn’t help the soft look I shot his way when I nodded, and I absolutely didn’t miss the fact that he picked off all hisgrosstoppings, leaving him with just a piece of cheese, bread, and sauce. I had a feeling he was about to sneak it to Peaches. I didn’t even have the heart to give him a warning glare. Doing his best to inconspicuously take it with him, he made his way over to where she was, and I watched him from afar, giving them time.

If I thought her tail wagged in happiness near me,I was wrong.I could hear the thumping and soft little whines she greeted him with while he cooed at her, ripping off pieces of the cheesy goodness and hand-feeding them to her.

After finishing his task of spoiling Peaches and checking on her and her babies, he made his way back to me. I found myself wishing we could skip the deep talk for the night and just hang out like we used to do, but if I kept putting off the conversation, then that’d just kept us both in limbo. And I’d spent enough of my life there.

“What does the long version entail?” I found myself asking. I hated to admit that his short version made sense to me.

I was unsure if I’d forgotten or just chose to block it out, but I remember beingwildlyconfused about my feelings for Sloan when they first started happening. That was until my mom sat me down and gave me the birds and the bees talk. She had also explained thatno,I wouldn’t be attracted to every guy Imet.But she also cautioned me by trying to explain love vs. lust, and thatconfusedfifteen-year-old me. I found myself wondering what I felt for Sloan.

Once I finally figured it all out, I was a seventeen-year-old mess who was losing her mom, and by the time I had picked up the courage to tell him, I was an eighteen-year-old girl who was drowning in her grief. It wasn’t thefactthat he was dating someone, it wasn’t even the fact that it washer—which, of course, sucked on its own. It was the fact that he hid it from me; the fact that he let her spew all thoseterriblethings about me and never once tried to stop her or stick up for me. That was what had hurt me the most.

“Magnolia, you with me?” Sloan whispered. He must have been able to tell that I was lost to my own thinking.

“Sorry, yeah. Were you saying something?”

“Not really… I was just asking where you would like me to start?”

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