Page 32 of Hate To Love You

“Just thinking.” He has four huge welts on his forehead and one on his jawline that I can see.

“I think the mosquitoes are pretty thick.”

He pats the patch of weeds beside him. “Want to join me?”

What the hell? I guess I do. It doesn’t matter if we’re standing, sitting, or lying down. The bugs are just furious this time of night.

As soon as I lower myself down on the weeds and look up at the sky, which is changing from a deep blue to the haze of evening, I feel my body start to burn. It’s not from the low riding sun or the weeds at my back. I didn’t just sit on a patch of poison ivy, either. It’s that I’m nearly brushing Apollo’s arm with my own. My heart starts to skid and thunder dangerously.

“Bitty Kitty is in her bed. I checked on her before I left the house.”

“She’ll probably get up for her night-day soon,” Apollo says.

“Our dads are being too quiet.”

“Yeah.”

“I think it might be the quiet before another storm.”

If we can’t fix this, does it mean we’ve failed? Does it mean our dads will stay enemies forever? Does it mean we’ll have to stay fake-married forever? Apollo would never ask that of me. I know he’ll let me leave if I truly want to. He’ll undo the marriage anytime I ask. I know that. I just…there’s a part of me that doesn’t like admitting defeat. About our dads. This was basically a last-ditch effort, and if it doesn’t work, is this going to be their lives forever?

It makes me sad thinking about it. But it makes me even sadder to think about going back to Michigan and leaving this place that is so clearly un-magical.

God, I’m such a liar. I’m a total freaking liar pants.

This place is great.

We’re both silent, but for once, it’s not a silence we feel like we need to fill. I want to apologize. I just don’t know where to begin. There’s so much history, so much past, so many things we’ve shared, and so many things we didn’t.

We both study the sky. Around our heads, a black cloud of mosquitoes forms. They sometimes touch down on us, but we’ve been pretty successful at just brushing them away.

Suddenly, Apollo starts talking out of nowhere. “If I could go back in time, I’d call you. It would be the first thing I did. I’d call, and I’d tell you that it’s okay you’re mad, but it won’t last forever. Then, I’d do everything in my power to keep in touch. I’d make pen pals cool again. I’d make emails cool. I’d rock the shit out of a long-distance friendship. But you wouldn’t want it. You’d be mad, and you wouldn’t want to listen. You’d feel betrayed. I did the worst thing I could have done. I did what I promised I’d never do. I left you all alone. I’d make you see you weren’t alone, though. I’d make you see that we still had each other, and we could be friends, even if we weren’t there in person.”

My heart hurts. All of me hurts. “It’s…okay.” That’s not what I want to say. It’s so lame and inadequate. I can’t put into words all the things the deepest parts of me want to say. “You didn’t come back home after, though.” It was three years between the time Apollo finished college and now.

“No. I made my choices. They did pay off, but at what cost? I want to take it back, but there isn’t any going back.” He shifts, pushing up on one arm. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe because my chest hurts so badly, but also because he’s so freaking close now. He’s so warm; no wonder those mosquitoes are attracted to him. His eyes are so soft and brown, so intense. He’s always been the sun. Freaking always. “We’re not ancient. Our lives aren’t over. Will you give me another chance?”

“I…” This isn’t about chances. He doesn’t have to earn his way to forgiveness. That’s not right.

“I thought about you every day. And I asked my dad about you every time we talked. But I didn’t keep tabs on your social media, as that would have been like constantly plunging a knife into a wound and expecting it to try and heal. I wanted to be back here, but I knew I couldn’t be, and that meant hardening myself. I knew if I followed your social media closely and looked at your photos and life, I would have been back here in an instant. There was nothing that could have made me stay in London. God, that came out wrong. I don’t want to be weird and creepy. I just mean that I missed home so much, and it never went away. It was a constant ache.”

“And yet, you moved here. To this lovely mushroom house hours and hours away.”

“Only ever a short plane ride away.”

“Why now? Did you think you could only ever come back if you made something of yourself? That you had to be this loaded-up rich guy to have value?”

“I…I wanted to succeed. I wanted to make something of myself. Even if it was just doing well in swimming, getting a scholarship, and graduating, I wanted to do it. I wanted to get it right.”

I know that pressure. I know the feeling of wanting to do it right, and I also know the feeling of wanting to get away, but for Apollo, his was the opposite. I never left Dedind, whereas he felt like he couldn’t come back.

“I didn’t get it right. I stayed, and yes, you sacrifice some of your dreams, but you gain others. I could have gone. I could have left my dad. I could have taken something online too. I just didn’t have time or money. One class at a time just felt so silly. Like I’d be throwing money away because I’d never do anything with it. When would I ever use something like that? But that’s my problem.” It feels shortsighted now. Like I didn’t even try. “You worked so hard, and you’ve accomplished so much. We started in the same place, and look at us now. You have a mushroom house, probably a freaking nine-figure bank account, shares in corporations, investments, and god knows what else. You’re educated, you’ve probably traveled, and you’re this force to be reckoned with. You’re a great catch. Anyone would be lucky to have you, and yet you fake married me.” I’ve gone too far. I know it.

“All I could do was come back and make good on my promise. I didn’t want to fake-marry you. I wanted it to be possible to really marry you, but not like this. I should never have done this. But this is why I brought you out here. I wanted to show you this and tell you that it’s all yours. Zero strings attached. Zero obligations. If you want it.”

I jerk upright, leaving a patch of squished weeds that slowly spring back to life. They’re so much more resilient than I am. I must have heard him wrong. “What…what do you mean?”

Gold. His eyes are like shining gold. So much kindness and far too much glitter. He meant what he just said. “I built the house for you. It was literally your dream house. I did steal your ideas, but only because I wanted to give it to you, and I wanted it to be perfect. If you don’t want it, it’s fine. You could always sell it. I tried to choose a place that felt a little bit like paradise. Somewhere like what you described—in the middle of the woods, by the mountains, somewhere with wildly colorful skies. The only thing I couldn’t make happen was the unicorn, but I guess it’s true that money can’t buy everything. I know I lived in it first. I just wanted to make sure it was absolutely right. I was also trying to figure out how to convince you to come and see it. I knew you wouldn’t want to. I knew if I just showed up and gave you the deed, you’d probably tear it up and tell me to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, and I really don’t want papers shoved so far up any place that they’d require surgery to remove.”

---