Page 111 of This I Know
The short walk takes a lot out of me, and by the time we reach it I’m favoring my bad leg. It’s been acting up over the last few hours, thanks to that little tussle Cole and I had on the floor.
Ethan opens the passenger’s side door and helps me in, taking care that I don’t slip on the way up. Everything is already wet, and it would be all too easy for me to slip. But even though I’ve never been in his truck, I know the right moves to make from my experience in Cole’s. I grab all the right handholds to lift myself up.
He watches me, impressed.
Once I’m seated, Ethan goes to close my door. I stop it with my hand.
He stops pushing, confused, as he should be. He has no idea what I’m about to do – what Ihaveto do, for both our sakes, because I know what will inevitably happen.
Ethan
The door could have hit her.
But before I can react, she sticks her head out of the open door and into the rain where I’m standing. She crawls both her hands behind my neck and buries them in my hair; then she draws me into her space, and she kisses me.
She’s kissing me without hesitation, or pain, or regret. She’s kissing me like she knows what she’s doing and she knows what she wants.
And I’m kissing her back. Because I know what I want, too.
I want her.
I want her worse than I’ve ever wanted anything. I don’t just want her body, though; I want her soul. And my eyes sting at the knowledge that I can’t have her.
I touch her cheek. Her lips are softer than I could have imagined, and they collide with mine in the most perfect way. I cherish this moment, realizing all at once just how long I’ve been waiting for it.
She pulls back. “Come inside.”
I carefully close her door and run to the other side, where I get in and slam my door shut. I don’t care that we’re probably ruining my seats with our wet bodies; there’s nothing I can do about that now. I fish in my pocket for my keys and pull them out to start the truck and get some heat going.
I rub my hands together over the vents as the warm air slowly starts pouring out. She sits there, having stuffed her hands between her legs. Her hair hangs in soaked strings down her neck.
“I’m glad I could help you in some ways, Avery. I’m glad I didn’t have to see you too hurt again. But I can’t be with you anymore.”
I can see her throat tighten at the words. “What do you mean?”
I swallow and lift my chin. This is hard. I can almost hear Avery’s voice saying,So stop it, Ethan. Don’t do this.
I finally speak through the tense muscles of my jaw, the quivering of my emotions. “I’m not good for you. I should never have done what I did. It was wrong.”
“I don’t understand. What was wrong?”
“All of it. I should have stayed away from you from the beginning.” My fingers ball into a fist in my pocket. “I’m hurting you. The people in my life are hurting you, and it wouldn’t be that way if I wasn’t in your life at all.”
Again, that voice of hers plays in my mind:How could it have been wrong when you’re healing me?But she doesn’t say those words, or any like them. She only watches me.
“You know it’s true, don’t you?” I go on. “I can see it in your face.”
A tear falls down her cheek. “Yes. Yes, it’s true.”
“Well, there you go. It’s true. And I think…” Should I say this?“I think that as much as I love you, and no matter what I do, you won’t ever be able to put what happened behind you.”
She starts to cry.
“Hey.” I push a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s not your fault, Avery. I’d go to the ends of the earth for you, do you know that? I’d stay and help you get over this, if you thought you could take it.”
She takes a deep breath and fans at her face. She places her hand on the doorknob. “You’re right.” She exits, stopping at the doorway. Goodbye, Ethan.”
A piece of me dies inside.
