Page 27 of Part of Forever
“I think I like you, too,” I say honestly and he laughs a little. My heart is breaking into a million tiny pieces.
“You think? I feel like this is a flashback to the first time I told you I liked you, all those years ago.” He’s smiling, though, as we both remember the moment.
I nod. “Well, okay, maybe more than think. I know. I like you, too.”
He grins and gives me a hug, even though I’m already in his arms.
“So why were you crying?” he asks, and I’m not brave. I can’t say the words. Because saying them out loud makes it too real, and I’m not ready for that yet. I was able to say the words to Lucy, but she was a stranger. This is Tucker.
“Um, right,” I say, my mind is whirling, trying to come up with a good enough excuse. “I’m just sad that here we are talking about how we feel and I’ll be going to Paris in the fall. But, I mean, that’s silly to even assume we’d be together that long…”
He shifts, moving me closer to him and cutting me off. His eyes drop down to my lips, which I lick nervously. His eyes go dark.
I have cancer.
I have cancer.
I have cancer! It’s back and I have to have surgery soon.That’s what I want to scream and shout and tell him, but instead, I lean forward so he can kiss me.
It will be the first time that I’m actually ready for it. And boy, am I ready for it.
The door bangs open and I fly back. “There you two are, ready for another movie?” Grace asks and she’s got a grin on her face.
“We’ll be down in a second.” He sighs, never takinghis eyes off me.
“Now, please? You can make out later,” she says. I know my cheeks are red as I stand. Tucker gets up, too, and holds my hand.
“Later?” he asks.
“Later,” I promise, praying harder than I ever have to a God I’m not sure I believe in that we get a lot more laters and trying to ingrain every moment of tonight in my mind so I can write about it in my journal later.
I started writing in my journal actively the first time I had cancer. Doctor Barker said it would help me feel a bit better if I could get some of my thoughts out on paper, but even when the cancer was gone, I didn’t stop writing. It’s messy and imperfect, but I guess in a way it helps me make sense of everything. Even if it’s the only place I’ve really been truthful about my feelings for the past several years.
journal entries from junior year
August4
Dear Journal,
It’s been over a year since I wrote in this journal. I’m about to start my junior year. This year is big in my dance career, in that I’ll spend the next 16 months training hard for my audition to the Paris Academy. Next summer, I’ll get to go to their 6-week intensive summer program that’s exclusively for students who will be seniors when school starts.
That’s only 11 months away, and I can’t wait.
So. What’s happened since I last wrote?
Grace and Leo broke up (again), and she thought it was the end of her fairy tale romance, that she’d never get a chance at love again. I binge-watched every Pixar movie with her three times. There were lots of tears (those movies are sad) and lots of ice cream. Then, one day Grace shows up at my door with the news that Leo asked her to prom AND to be his girlfriend again. So they're together again, and stronger than ever? She keeps asking me if she seems happier than when she was with him before, and I guess she seems happier. She just seems a little obsessed withlove, if you ask me.
Then there’s Tucker, who seems to be just as obsessed with love and romance as Grace is.
Just. Not with me.
Idk why that hurts so much to write. We both decided that we’re really good as friends, that we shouldn’t date. (Plus, there’s the fact that my mom would probably kill both of us…) but. It still really hurt when he told us he was going out with Amber Monroe, Missy Esplin’s best friend (aka the girl who’s been mean to me forever—Missy, not Amber). They make a pretty cute couple, but it still sucks every time I see them together, even though I pretend it doesn’t.
Cause I’m not supposed to like him, remember? I even got to the point where I told him I don’t. And I guess I don’t, but kind of do? I’m not really sure what my feelings are at this point. He’s my very best friend and I’d die without him in my life. He’s been gone most of the summer, performing at state fairs and carnivals and things, but every time he’s in town he hangs out with Amber (which is fair, she’s his girlfriend) and she’s always posting photos of them together.
He hasn’t ever posted one of them though, so it probably makes me a bad person, but that kind of makes me secretly a little happy, since the last picture he posted on Instagram was of me (well, and Grace and Nathan) but still not of him and his girlfriend.
Grace told me that he told her that Amber said I love you to him a few weeks ago, but that he didn’t say it back.
