Page 35 of Reckless Roses
“Oh.” My eyes meet August’s, and Zach squeezes my thigh again. “Well, Rose is my middle name, so that made sense. I almost used my real first name, but I decided to go with Violet instead. I thought two flowers as a name flowed well together.”
Violet was actually August’s idea. He came up with it when he was tattooing the flowers along my forearm last year. I’d finally convinced him when I graduated high school to get a matching tattoo with me. It started with constellations. Mine is behind my ear: Libra, his sun sign. He has a Leo constellation on his wrist for me.
It wasn’t until last year that I convinced him to do something more detailed, and that’s how I ended up with wild violets dotted between my wrist and my elbow, along with matching vines and leaves. The same flowers he used to draw on my skin with pen, that he picked for my birthday every year. Those flowers belong to us. It’s another secret of ours, so choosing that name was my way of thanking him for all his support.
“I love the sentiment behind it.” Sadie smiles, but like her oldest son’s, it's unconvincing. She has never liked me. She thought I was a bad influence on August when we were younger, and she convinced herself I corrupted Zach’s purity by taking his virginity. That thought always makes me laugh, as if he wasn’t a seventeen-year-old boy with raging fucking hormones.
I know she especially doesn’t like the content of the literature I write, but I couldn’t care less about her opinion, honestly. She’s a washed-up soap actress everyone forgot about twenty years ago.
“Thank you,” I say, forcing kindness into my voice.
Zach leans into me. “You’re coming home with me tonight, right?”
He doesn’t sound seductive and smooth like he normally does when he’s propositioning me like this. No, his voice sounds tight and distant, like he’s not fully invested. Still, I nod all the same, because I seem to be physically incapable of turning him down.
Zach lightly kisses me behind the ear, right over the tattoo his brother put there. As his lips touch my skin, I lift my eyes, gaze clashing with August’s. He watches the gesture, and an unmistakably painful expression washes over his features before he turns his head and looks away.
Suddenly, my appetite is gone.
“Did you enjoy dinner?”Zach asks as he shuts the door to his small studio apartment and we both kick off our shoes.
“Yeah.” Tension hangs thick in the room, and every part of me feels on edge. “Did you?” I ask, turning to face him as I awkwardly sit on the edge of his bed.
He shrugs. “Wasn’t my party.”
I tilt my head, attempting to read his face—and failing, just as I always have. Deciding to go ahead and address whatever weirdness is floating between us, I say, “You don’t seem happy for me.”
He slowly closes his eyes, as if preparing himself for what’s about to come. “That’s not it, Elena.”
“Want to tell me whatitis, then?”
He lets out a long sigh, leaning back against the kitchen counter, like he’s trying to keep as much space between us as possible. “I want kids.”
What the fuck.“Umm...”
He shakes his head, dragging a hand down his face. “I don’t mean right now. I mean in general.”
“With me?” The question comes out apprehensively.
I definitely don’t want kids. Not right now, and probably not ever.
“I don’t know.” He pushes off the counter and takes a step forward. “And isn’t that a problem? I mean, it’s been a decade of this back and forth. I should know by now, shouldn’t I?”
All my internal organs feel like they’re about to fall out of my ass. “We’re still young,” I murmur.
“Yeah, but I want to settle down soon. I want to get married. I want to have kids and own a home. I want to make a life, andyou’re just starting your career. You have so much ahead of you.” He closes the distance between us, taking my face between his hands. “I’m so excited for you. For that. But I… I don’t think it’s something I signed up for, Elena. I don’t think we make sense anymore.”
“We’ve never made sense, Zach.” My chest feels hollow, but my throat feels stuffed. My nose stings as it attempts to hold the pain behind my eyes. “That hasn’t stopped us before.”
“We were kids.”
My jaw strains, lips trembling as I fight to halt my tears. I close my eyes—fighting a war to maintain my composure. Zach has broken up with me a million times, but this is the realest it has ever been. Because he’s right. We’ve reached the point in our lives where our decisions have harsher consequences. Time starts to move faster, and infatuation isn’t enough anymore.
“I wish you would’ve figured this out before you made me fall in love with you,” I whisper.
“I didn’t make you do anything, Elena. I didn’t ask you to fall in love with me, and you didn’t ask me if I wanted to run alongside you when you decided to chase your dreams.” His touch is soft where his words are sharp, as if he’s shoving a blade through the center of my chest and then asking me why I’m bleeding all over his clothes. “I think maybe we should just end?—”
“No.” My brain didn’t give my mouth permission to say the word, but somehow, it floats in the air between us anyway. I grip Zach’s forearms, pushing him back. He lets me flip us so he’s sitting on the bed, and I’m crawling atop him. “Please don’t say that. Don’t do this,” I beg, moving his arms to my waist and dragging my hands up his chest, burrowing my face in his neck.
