Broken Little Melodies(20)

I bit my lip, patiently waiting for him to cool off. He had stuttered once the summer before, on my birthday when we laid together in the grass, but neither of us mentioned it again. I figured he was just nervous about admitting he had written me a song.

“I have to go,” he grumbled, reaching for the door handle.

“Wait!” I grabbed him by the wrist. “What were you going to ask me?”

“Forget it,” he snapped, pulling away from me.

“Roman, please don’t go!”

He left anyway.



I didn’t see Roman for the rest of that day. He wasn’t even at sound off. When I asked one of his roommates, he said Roman was sick.

I felt sick myself. Had he changed his mind about me? Is that why he had stormed off after our first kiss? Knowing he was avoiding me coated my insides with the ickiest feeling I had ever had in my life. If becoming boyfriend and girlfriend meant things like this were bound to happen, I’d rather we stayed friends. I didn’t want anything ruining what we had.

The next morning I waited outside of his cabin while everyone else was heading to the dining hall for breakfast. All the other guys had left, and there was still no sign of Roman, so I knocked on the door before stepping inside. I found him lying on a bottom bunk with his back to me.

“Roman? Can we talk?”

He spun around, his eyes narrowed. “What do you want?” His voice was so deep and threatening that I almost walked away.

Twisting my arms together in front of me, I looked down. I was still considerably shy that summer and didn’t have the first clue how to properly express my feelings. “I can’t do this with you.”

“Do what?”

“Fight…or whatever’s going on between us.” I braved a glance his way and bit my lip when tears thickened in my throat. “I just want us to be friends.”

He swung his legs off the bed and stood. There was a storm brewing behind his eyes when he snarled, “So you lied.”

My face burned hot. “What? No! I’ve never lied to you!”

“You said it was okay when I kissed you.”

“It was!” I insisted, taking a few steps until he was close enough to touch. “I mean, I liked it!”

His scowl only relaxed slightly. “But you just said you want to be friends.”

Saying “I don’t want to lose you” felt too heavy on my tongue and a part of me worried I’d be jinxing our relationship if I said them out loud. Another part of me knew it was too deep to say to a boy who lived thousands of miles away. And I couldn’t say “I love you” even though I felt it in my heart and knew without a doubt it was true. There was no way I was messing with our future by uttering those fateful words.

Instead I reached out to wrap myself around his strong body, hugging him tight. The smell of his deodorant was strong, but the scent of the camp’s tart laundry detergent on his soft t-shirt was overpowering when I inhaled. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened between us, and I didn’t have your phone calls to look forward to anymore.”

His chest heaved beneath me with a great sigh before his arms wrapped around my body. “Me either.” For a moment he pressed his face against the top of my head as we held onto each other, like we thought it would keep us from growing apart. “I used to…stutter when I was little.”

The admission sounded heavily calculated, like he had been waiting forever to tell me and was glad to get it off his chest. I didn’t really get why it was a big deal, but I held my breath anyway, waiting for him to continue.

“My parents were embarrassed. They yanked me out of school and took care of the problem at home. In private.” He stopped, taking another deep breath. “I always worry…I think people would judge me if they knew. I’m scared as shit that I’ll slip up one of these times and everyone will realize I’m not as cool as they think.”

“People don’t think you’re cool just because you can out-sing everyone here.” I drew away to look him in the eye. “And I could never be embarrassed by you. I don’t care if you stutter or grow a third eye. You’re still my Roman.”

A slow, beautiful smile spread across his thick lips as his eyes glistened. It was the first time I knew he loved me. I was sure he was going to kiss me again until we heard a gasp behind us.

“Roman!” a deep voice roared.

I spun around in Roman’s arms to face Jackson and an older man with gray at his temples standing in the doorway. It was glaringly obvious the man was Roman’s dad. They shared the same facial bone structure, sandy colored hair, and could have even been the same height. Their eyes were the same sea green, only his dad’s were missing the starry effect. Instead they were overflowing with cold hatred.