Page 27 of If You Never Come Back
“I know it was kind of shocking what she did, but she meant well,” I finally say. “She was just excited about meeting you. Sometimes she gets carried away like that. But you handled it so well.”
When I step toward him, he holds a hand up. His frown turns lethal. I halt like I’ve been shoved away.
“Kind of shocking?” Wes’s tone amps up a notch. And it’s so hard, so brutal that my ears ring. “You think today was just ‘kind of shocking?’ That’s hilarious.”
He turns to the bed, kicking his backpack out from the corner. I follow him and rest my hand on his shoulder, but a half-second later he shrugs out of my touch.
“Don’t,” he barks.
I pull away like I’ve just singed my fingers on a hot stove. That’s the only move I can make at the moment. The rest of my body is frozen still at the anger in his voice, the way his body just rejected mine.
He spins around to face me. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be thrown into that kind of setting with no warning at all?”
I don’t answer because I don’t have the slightest clue what to say. Because he’s right. I don’t know the first thing about what life has been like for him.
“I didn’t grow up like you, Shay. I didn’t have a happy family or a happy home life like you. I was a kid whose own dad couldn’t take care of me.”
He speaks to the floor, not me. It’s a weird kind of detachment that makes my chest ache.
“And then I had your entire family bombard me with questions about when we’re getting married and having kids? Shit,wehaven’t even talked about that.”
I cringe thinking about how awful that must have felt for him to endure those questions without me there to buffer them.
He keeps a normal volume, but it’s the way the words jump from his tongue, harsh and unrelenting, as if they’re poison. And it’s all for me.
He crouches on the floor next to his backpack and unzips it. I walk over and crouch across from him.
“I’m sorry they did that, but it’s not like I put them up to it,” I say, my voice strained. “It’s just normal family stuff that happens when someone brings home their significant other. I get that you’re upset, but please don’t be angry with me about this.”
I pause, waiting for him to say something, anything. But he doesn’t. My skin pricks once more at how dismissive he’s being.
My head spins. “Wes, how was I supposed to anticipate all this when you never told me that this sort of thing would upset you? I had to find out what happened to you from Colin,” I blurt.
Wes’s frown turns to pure shock. He stands to his feet slowly. I follow.
“You found out what from Colin?”
The new softness in his tone doesn’t erase any of the anger. It actually cuts deeper. I’ve only ever heard that low, soft growl when he’s hugged me from behind and whispered all the naughty things he plans to do to me. That soft tone used to make me melt. Now it makes my skin crawl. What an absolute mindfuck.
I swallow, matching my volume with his. “How after your dad went to jail, you went into foster care. How you eventually moved in with Colin’s family.” My throat squeezes.
One look from Wes and all my anger morphs to pain. I can tell by the flush on his cheeks, how he refuses to meet my eyes, he hates that I know all this about him. And that’s what hurts the most. I’m the one person in the world he should feel comfortable telling anything to, and yet he still wants to hide.
“You knew? This whole time?”
“I found out on your birthday. Colin was drunk and told me. I’m so sorry.” Again I reach for him, but he pulls away.
He turns his back to me once more. “I’m not a charity case, Shay.”
“No, that’s not what I…that’s not why…”
My words fall off a cliff as soon as I see him open up the two drawers of my dresser that I set aside for him. He shoves handfuls of his clothes into his duffle bag on the floor. Then he darts around me to the tiny wall closet. The sound of metal hangers clanking against wood fills our stilted silence. I watch as he emerges with his suitcase and tosses the rest of his clothes and shoes inside.
“Wes, what are you doing?”
It’s a pointless question because I already know the answer. I watch in a daze, as if my body is trapped in a time warp with everything around me happening in real-time. All I can do is stand off to the side like a statue and stare.
It’s not until he zips up his bags and turns to face me that I snap back to life.
