Page 20 of Reckless Roses
Until some asshole tried groping her and Leo took her home.
I don’t know what will become of them, what plans they’re making, but I hope it works out. I think he’s falling for her fast and hard, and I think she is too.
First love is so idyllic to me. It’s rare and fleeting and almost miraculous. We’re programmed to believe it’s not possible, and yet we’re surrounded by stories that romanticize it. We’re all desperate to have a story like that of our own. The idea of finding someone young and growing with them, holding onto them as the world whips around us, running from our youth hand in hand—that’s epic to me.
Maybe I romanticize it because I’m a victim of it myself; who knows?
But I see that kind of love in Darby and my brother, even after only a few weeks.
I hope that’s exactly what it is for them, but with that hope lies certainty that if that girl ever hurts him, I’ll never fucking forgive her.
“I need to talk to her. Now.”
“She’s asleep, asshole.”
Voices break me from my thoughts, and I realize only now that my eyes are closed. I must’ve been teetering on the verge of unconsciousness. I slowly open them, lifting my head from Everett’s shoulder and blinking as my hazy vision clears. The glow of the fire is blocked by Zach’s silhouette, who’s bent down in front of me, caution in his brown eyes.
He looks like he’s wrapped in a halo of sunset colors—or rising out of the depths of hell to wreak havoc on my life. Could go either way, really.
“Hey, Rosebud.” He smiles at me mischievously. “Care to take a walk?”
“You don’t have to, Lele,” my brother mutters from beside me.
Zach glares at him, and I roll my eyes at them both.
“I guess.” I yawn, sitting up and stretching as I toss the blanket from my shoulders onto Everett. Zach grabs my hand and helps me off the couch, taking me to the far end of the sprawling back lawn and away from the rest of the partygoers.
There’s a bench sitting within a thicket of rose bushes, lit only by the moonlight this far from the house. Zach doesn’t let go of my hand as he sits down, tugging me with him. His breathing is unsteady, and he refuses to make eye contact with me.
If this were the first time we’d had a conversation like this, I might be unable to read the signs, but unfortunately, I know exactly what he’s about to say.
He reaches an arm across my lap, grabbing my outer knee and turning it so I’m facing him, my legs between his. His hand slowly drags up my arm, leaving embers in its wake, the way only his touch can. He cups my cheek, brushing a thumb across it as a soft smile accents his beautiful face.
“You know how much I care about you, right?”
My heart sinks like a discarded corpse, drifting toward the ocean floor. I’m the victim, and Zach Hayes is the primary suspect in the murder of my fucking soul. My throat swells, and tears already sting my eyes.
“Just say it, Zach. Get it all out there.” I wave my hands, readying myself for the word vomit he’s about to spew across my hollow chest. He’s ridding himself of the guilt, coating me in my own heartbreak.
“I kissed someone tonight. I’m so fucking sorry, Elena.”
Tears slip down my cheeks, but I don’t remember giving them permission to fall. They’re not representative of how I truly feel, because all I am is fucking angry. I’m angry, tired, and drained.
I wish this were the first time I was having this conversation with him, or better yet, I wish the first time I had this conversation with him, I had walked away. Back then, I forgave him, and that only served as my approval to let it happen again.
I know I deserve better than this—mind games and unbroken wheels of heartache.
But Zach Hayes looks into my eyes, and all I see is the depths of his own. I see his hurt and his remorse, and I remember he doesn’t look at those other girls the way he’s looking at me right now. Whoever he kissed tonight, he has already forgotten. He can’t forget me.
I don’t know why we can’t be uncomplicated, but if we were, we wouldn’t be us. A fire blazes under my skin when he looks at me like this. When we fight, when we kiss. It’s a fire I didn’t feel when I kissed that other boy a few months ago, and I’m so afraid if I lose Zach, I’ll go my whole life searching for that fire in someone else, only to never find it.
I want first love. I want idyllic and rare and miraculous, and most of the time, Zach only leaves me with the feeling that this is fleeting. Still, I can’t stop myself from desperately holding out for the possibility that we could be all those other things, too.
I didn’t choose to fall in love with him, and the revolving door of chaos that we tend to be stuck inside may not be what I envisioned love feeling like, but I have to believe that it all means something more. I fell into him without warning and without choice, but he eclipsed my life, and now I revolve around him like the sun.
The sun may be more powerful than the Earth, but the Earth can’t exist without it, so what choice does it have? What choice doIhave?
“Elena, can you say something to me?” he asks, holding my face—my heart and my pain—in the palms of his hands.
