Overlooked(1)(42)

Isn’t any of this important to him?

“I really like you,” Zane says. “I think… I think what happened with us pretty much would have happened at some point one way or another.”

“You do?” I stare at him in confusion.

“Well, yeah. You’re hot, we know each other really well… I mean, I can’t be the only one who thought the sex the other day was just…” He grins.

“But the sex the other day being great doesn’t mean it was destined to happen. It doesn’t mean that anything is supposed to come out of this. Do you want something to come out of this, or do we just say it was a fling? Like, I don’t know, some weird grown-up version of playing doctor or something?”

My heart is pounding even faster in my chest and I don’t even know what answer I want him to give me.

“I don’t know,” Zane admits.

“Great, that’s great,” I say, shaking my head.

“I don’t know because… look, my dad gave me some advice yesterday, and then again today.” He pauses and grimaces. “He knows about us, by the way — your mom told him.”

“Of course she did,” I say with a sigh.

“But, here’s the thing, do you even know what you want? I mean, you’re on me to tell you what I want, but where’s your head at?”

I press my lips together. I don’t want to admit that I don’t really have an answer for that question. “What do you mean what do I want?”

Zane half-smiles, one eyebrow raised. “Do you want to let this drop, and just make a clean break, or do you think there’s something here?”

I lean against the trunk of the tree and think about it. I swallow.

“I think there’s something here,” I say quietly.

“I do too. Or at least, I think there could be,” Zane says.

“So we both think there could be something to it.” It feels good to say that, but then it raises more questions.

“Do we want to do something about that, though?”

I look at Zane when he asks that question. “What choices do we have? I mean, if there’s something there, then we should do something about it, even if my mom and your dad are weird about it, right? I mean, how are we going to get through the next… I don’t even know how many years it’ll be, running into each other, knowing we could have had something, but never even tried it?”

“But how are we going to try it? I’m still in the army, and you’re in New York. Even if we want to try it, we’re like a thousand miles or more away from each other.”

It feels like my stomach is sinking. I have to admit he’s right.

“You have a choice to leave the army, if you want to,” I say.

“But I don’t know if I want to. I don’t even know what I’d do outside of the army, Harper. Would you leave your job to come and be with me?”

“Leave my job?” I stare at Zane in shock that he’d even suggest it.

“See? You can’t imagine leaving your job, but you just suggested I could… leave the army, and not reenlist, just so that we can try this,” Zane says.

“I just said it because I know you’re thinking about it already!” I shake my head. “I’m not expecting you specifically to give it up for me.”

“But if I’m in the army, and you’re in New York City, how are we ever even going to give this a shot? What point would there be in it, if we can’t ever see each other? We went five years never seeing each other, Harper, just because our vacations and whatever else never came up at the same time.”

“So you’re saying you definitely don’t want to try this, Zane? Why didn’t you say that from the beginning?” I feel my eyes stinging, I feel hot tears beginning to gather in the corners. I take a deep breath to try to stifle the reaction.

“I don’t know what I’m saying,” Zane says.

“I… I know it’s probably stupid, since we’ve only had sex once, but it…” I close my eyes and almost can’t continue.

“Say it,” Zane says.

“If you tell me that you didn’t feel anything… that you don’t feel anything… or at least anything more for me than other people you’ve been with, then I guess I’ll just have to accept that I’m an idiot for feeling the way I do,” I say. I open my eyes and look at Zane, and I can’t make out his expression. I can’t figure out what it is behind his eyes.

“It’s different. I just don’t know if there’s anything we can do about it,” Zane says finally.

“So what are we going to do?” That’s the question we keep circling around, and it’s suddenly obvious to me that neither of us has an answer.