Page 34 of Unspoken Words
“Sorry,” I whispered, giggling as I quickly wiped my mouth. “I panicked.”
He smiled back at me, his lips glistening from our kiss. It made me blush.
“It’s okay. I’d rather you beat me up than Chris.”
Quickly standing, I brushed my skirt down and made sure I looked decent. The last thing I wanted to do was walk into a room where our families were and have my outfit all twisted and rumpled, because that was definitely evidence of kissing … or worse.
“You should know my brother hits like a toddler, so you should be scared of me, not him.”
Connor stood up beside me and gently laced his fingers with mine. “Don’t you worry, Eloise Mitchell,” he said with a wink. “Iamscared of you.”
Smiling, I went to pry my hands free so we could leave the room.
“Wait!” he said, picking up the necklace from my bed. He removed it from the box and stood behind me. “Lift your hair.”
I did as I was told while he fastened it around my neck, placed his hands on my shoulders, and gently turned me to face him. “There. Perfect.”
I reached up and clasped the book charm in my hand. “It is. I love it.”
Connor took my other hand in his then traced a heart with the tip of his finger on my wrist. Once, twice, three times. My skin tickled, and I stared at the invisible symbol he’d drawn, the mark as prominent to my eyes as if it were a real, inked tattoo.
It was so sweet.
Hewas so sweet.
Connor didn’t say a word; he didn’t need to. He just lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss on my knuckles before he opened my bedroom door like a gentleman and gestured I walk through.
In that moment, I realised I loved his unspoken words more than ever.
And in that moment, Connor Bourke once again stole my air.
Chapter Ten
Ellie
For the next four years,Connor and I were inseparable. If he jumped, I jumped. If I fell, he fell with me. We were two young peas in a pod of adolescent love, except it wasn’t always smooth sailing when our pod failed to float. It often sunk and was a struggle to resurface—nine times out of ten because of his damn unspoken words … or his jealousy.
Roughly a year after we’d been dating, I’d found out just how jealous Connor could be when a new family moved next door; a single mum with twins our age: a girl named Lilah, and a boy named Tristan. Funnily enough, the twins didn’t attend the same school. Tristan started at Eastside with me, and Lilah went to Greenhills with Connor. At first, I thought it was a little weird that they attended different schools, like maybe they didn’t get along—at all—but I soon found out they were just two different people living in bodies that were almost the same.
Lilah and Tristan were tall, dark, and beautiful with skin like milk and hair like molasses, almost vampire-ish. On the day they moved in, I’d sat unnoticed behind my bedroom window, watching them cart boxes from their car while admiring Lilah’s unique and mysterious style, accentuated by a pair of black, ten-eyed Doc Martens boots, inky nail polish, and burgundy lipstick. She’d even worn a thick, black, lace, baroque patterned choker around her neck, which made her look like a walking piece of art. I still had the notes I’d written that day: intriguing, statuesque, enticing … scary. As it turned out, she wasn’t as scary as she looked, just rude and a little stuck up, which was made abundantly clear when I’d asked if she wanted to come over to watch a movie or listen to music and her response had been no. She hadn’t even offered a bogus excuse or been polite enough to explain her rejection.
I never asked her again.
Tristan, on the other hand, was the polar opposite of his sister; super friendly and talkative. And maybe that’s why Connor didn’t like him. Or maybe it was because his and Connor’s eyes were at the same level and Connor didn’t have to tilt his head to look down at Tristan like he did with nearly everyone else. Or maybe it was because Tristan was boisterous like my brother. Despite his rambunctious tendencies, though, he was still nice all the same, which is why when he’d sat down on the school bus in Connor’s seat one morning shortly after they’d moved into town, I didn’t have the heart to tell him to move. There were no seats left, and I honestly didn’t think Connor would mind—my boyfriend wasusuallykind, unfazed, and serene at the best of times.
Turned out Connor had minded. A lot. He’d also chosen not to sit next to me on the way home from school that day too. But it hadn’t deterred me from getting off the bus at his stop to ask him what was wrong, and what followed was our first real fight as boyfriend and girlfriend.
He’d yelled, I’d yelled back.
I’d cried; he’d hugged me.
I’d walked home feeling lost; he’d written me a note the following day.
Because that’s what Connor did—he wrote notes when words were too hard to say. His apologies. His feelings. His love. And I would forgive him because I loved him back. Always.
Since that first fight, there’d been many more. Big ones, small ones, and stupid ones like what movie we’d watch on a Friday night. It was one of our favourite things to do together, and most of the time I’d win possession of the borrowing card for our local video store—my victory usually involving persuasion of the kissing and hand-up-the-shirt kind.
It was now the summer of ‘93, and I was scanning the video store shelves for a movie to watch.
