Page 13 of I Would Stay Forever
“You want me to go?” I asked.
He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and shrugged. “If you want to.”
Now I was just confused. “Why’d you ask me here if you’re just going to get me to leave immediately.”
“I didn’t say I want you to leave.”
“Quit being so confusing.”
“But it’s so fun.”
I huffed. “Fine. Have it your way.”
I spun around to leave, but as I took a step away, his hand wrapped around my wrist. Tingles shot up my arm and I quickly yanked it out of his grip as I turned back to look at him.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said automatically. It was the only answer that was right for me to give. When Mom—whose marriage had crumpled, whose husband had betrayed her—asked, I said I was fine. When Sebastian—who had stepped up into the role of being the man of the house and was acting as an extra parent for Ainsley and Imogen—asked, I said I was fine. When my nosy neighbors looking for gossip asked, I said I was fine.
When Dean asked… Part of me wished the answer could be different. Wished I could share all the broken pieces of my heart that I tucked away and pretended weren’t there. Wished I could tell the boy who actually knew the full story how I was feeling. But like all the others, Dean was hurting too—he had to live with the fact that he was the one to confront his best friend’s Dad about his affair. I couldn’t unload on him, not when he was suffering like the rest of us.
Dean kicked the dirt underfoot with the toe of his shoe, keeping his eyes on it as he asked, “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me all month?”
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” I said, my voice as weak as when I said I would have come even if he signed the note. I needed to become a better liar if I was going to be convincing about this.
“Oh yeah?” he said. “Is that why you never came by again? Why you were mysteriously absent anytime I stayed over for dinner? Why you never answered my calls?”
“I was busy,” I mumbled. The excuse sounded weak, even to my own ears. Somehow, I’d really convinced myself that he wouldn’t notice my absence. Sure, I used to come over with Sebastian occasionally and had texted Dean on very few occasions—usually about questions for school or where Sebastian was when he wasn’t answering his own phone—but they were few and far enough in between that I thought he wouldn’t notice the lack of contact.
“Working at the coffee shop?” he asked. His tone was almost mocking and I might have appreciated how normal that felt if we were having any other conversations. “Because I went there too when I couldn’t track you down and you never came back.”
“Maybe you just went when I wasn’t working.”
“I went back four days in a row, and when you still never showed, I asked the manager. He said you quit weeks ago—must have been right after everything happened.”
I swallowed thickly as I stared at him. Never in a million years did I expect that Dean Graham would care enough to try to find me like that. To come over and call and go to my work, and now, finally, to leave an unsigned note in my locker, knowing I would be too curious not to come and meet him.
“I needed time,” I said softly, “to deal with it.”
It sounded weird to say the words aloud. They were such a small admission, yet it was more than I’d let anybody else see in me.
“I know you did,” Dean said softly. “That’s why I was wondering how you are.”
My heart clenched painfully and I tore my gaze away from him, feeling like it was suddenly hard to breathe. I couldn’t tell him—not about the sleepless nights when I’d wondered where Dad had gone, not about how I felt like my siblings blamed me, and definitely not about how I sometimes blamed myself. I couldn’t tell him that I’d spent the last few weeks preparing toleave North Glen and never come back. I couldn’t tell him any of it, because he wasn’t my person to share that with.
So I said the words I’d been repeating for weeks: “I needed some time. I’ve had it. I’m over it.”
It wasn’t a complete lie. It was true that time was what I needed. I couldn’t say I’d completely moved on, but I did feel like I was getting used to our new normal. Dad being gone had turned into a fact of life for me now instead of a pain that ripped through me every moment of the day.
“You’re over it?” Dean repeated, his tone disbelieving. “You’re over your dad having an affair, you finding out about it, him leaving your mom? You don’t have a single feeling about that?”
My breaths were even more shallow now, the pain in my chest more pronounced. Words bubbled up in my throat, desperate to come out. I wanted to tell him that no, I wasn’t over it. That I still sometimes cried myself to sleep at night, that I wondered so many times if something could have been different, that I felt like every corner of the town held memories of my happy family that I couldn’t stand to think about anymore.
But I’d spent a month keeping it to myself, and I wasn’t going to stop that now.
“Yes,” I said. I lifted my chin in the air, staring at him defiantly. “I’m completely fine and I’m over it.”
I couldn’t quite read Dean’s expression. He looked almost sad, even though I wasn’t sure why he would be. “Okay. Good. I’m glad.” We stared at each other for a beat longer before he said, “I guess I’ll just head home then. Mind giving me a ride? You know, in the car you were driving the day that you found out about your dad’s affair?”
