Page 61 of Breakaway Hearts

“I don’t know,” I say instead of voicing my overthinking frenzy. “I never told Austin this stuff either, and I feel like it’s the kind of thing you tell your real boyfriend.”

“Please, for the love of god, don’t compare me to Austin.” Reese shakes his head, scowling. “Remember what we say. Austin is a—”

“Shithead.”

“I was going to say slimebag motherfucker, but shithead is also accurate.”

My laugh draws a chuckle out of Reese, and he has to grab my plate off my lap to stop it from toppling. He places both of our plates on the nightstand next to the bed with the rest of the food and then lies on his side. He rests his head in the palm of his hand, watching me, and my mouth dries up at the sight of him, tousled and comfortable, dressed only in a pair of athletic shorts.

“I think it’s your turn,” I manage to say. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

“Hmmm. Something Callie doesn’t know about me. This is harder than I thought.”

“Try your best,” I insist, eager to hear what he’ll say.

“Did you know I tried to Parent Trap my folks after their divorce?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”

“Yup.”

He draws the word out, and I wait for him to say more, but he just gazes back at me with an enigmatic look on his face.

“Oh my god, Reese, please, you can’t leave me hanging like this.”

“Okay, okay,” he says with a laugh. “Let me see, what are the ways I tried to get them back together? The most basic one was telling them that one or the other couldn’t pick me up from hockey practice, so they’d both show up. They stopped falling for that one pretty quickly, though. I was not the brightest kid,” he adds, making a face. “My best one, though, the one even Lindsay Lohan would be proud of? I roped in Violet for this one, my poor little sis. We both ran away, knowing that our parents would have to work together to find us.”

I gape at Reese. He leans over, grabs a Twizzler out of the bag, and takes a bite.

“Well?” I poke him. “What happened?”

“Hold your horses, I was getting there. Let’s see. There was this massive forest behind my dad’s house—or it seemed massive when I was a kid, anyway. It’s really quite small, only a few acres at most. Violet and I grabbed the camping gear from the garage and set out into the woods. We were young at the time, you know. I was maybe ten, and she was only seven, so all we grabbed for food were granola bars and a bag of goldfish. We left a note for our folks, saying that if they didn’t get back together, we’d never come back home.”

The image of Violet and Reese running off into the woods might be a comical one, but it also leaves my heart aching. Reese tries to laugh, but it’s half-hearted. I know that somewhere inside him, there’s still that little boy who had the rug pulled out from under him, who had to suffer between hopping households and countless fights.

“Anyway,” he continues, “my dad called my mom almost immediately, and the two were combing through the neighborhood for us, I guess. They called the police eventually when they didn’t find us at our usual spots—the playground on the corner, the ice rink, the pond near my mom’s place—and it caused this whole incident. Super embarrassing when the two of us trudged out of the woods on our own because it was dark, and we were scared and had gotten hungry. God, did our parents read us the riot act. But I also saw my dad hug my mom because she was crying. Complicated feelings, you know?”

“I’m sure.”

“I stopped trying to get them together after that. They said I was too old to pull tricks like that, and they were furious I dragged Violet into it too. Fair on their part. Now that I’m an adult, I can see why it was not a great thing to do.”

I grab Reese’s hand and squeeze tight. He stares down at our joined hands, seeming lost in the memory, and I want to pull him into a hug so badly.

“Sorry to ruin the mood,” he murmurs, grimacing.

“No, you haven’t ruined anything. But thank you for telling me. And I’m sorry you had to go through that. I see it in my students all the time. Divorce is so shitty, and it’s harder on the kids than a lot of parents may think.”

Reese shrugs and plays with my fingers. “It took me a long time to realize it was better for my parents to be apart. They were making each other miserable, and I think they were worried they were going to make Violet and me miserable in the process. The fact of the matter is, you can’t force love.”

I smile softly at his words because they’re truer than anything else.

“I think you’re right. But I also think that you have true love waiting for you. Everybody does. That’s what my parents taught me, and that’s what they showed me. My mom and dad were so in love that even though it’s been a decade since he passed, my mom still hasn’t moved on from my father. It’s sweet and romantic, but also a little scary, don’t you think? To love someone that much? But…” I bite my lip, my heart fluttering. “That’s really what I want, more than anything. I want that once-in-a-lifetime kind of love.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and I worry that I may have only rubbed salt in the wound by talking about my parents after what he just said about his. But I want him to know that it’s true. Someone is out there waiting for him. Sienna, maybe, even though part of me has a hard time imagining it—or doesn’t want to.

“You deserve that kind of love, Firefly,” he whispers finally. “More than anyone else, you deserve it.”

My heart clenches in my chest at the same time he gives my fingers one last squeeze before letting go. He tries to stifle a yawn but can’t quite hide it, and I peer around him at the clock.

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