Kaidan thanked him and walked back to the car, opening my door. I took my time stepping out. I thought about making a scene, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He showed me a small wad of money and then pushed it into my pocket.
“You gave all yours away,” he explained, then turned before I could argue and went to the check-in desk again.
In a foggy dream I was presenting my ID and receiving a boarding pass. We walked back to the car, out of the way of other passengers who were showing up. We stood facing each other. Did it have to be like this? I took a chance and leaned my forehead against his chest, expecting him to push me away, but he didn’t. He let me lean against him, but he kept his own hands at his sides.
“It’s time for you to go,” he said.
“Wait.” I looked up at him. “There’s something I need to know.” I was scrambling for time, and there’d been something nagging at me this whole trip, especially after last night. “Remember at the beginning of the trip, when you said you always know right away what you’d have to do to get a girl into bed... even me?”
He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and I saw his forearms flex. His eyes went smoky blue in that dangerous way of his, and he gave a single nod.
“What would you have to do?” I asked. “For me?”
“Let’s not go there,” he said in a low voice.
“Tell me. Please.”
He stared at my face, paying special attention to my freckle. He wet his lips and clenched his jaw.
“Fine,” he finally said. “I’d have to make you believe I loved you.”
I closed my eyes. That one hurt. Mostly because I realized deep down, I had thought he loved me. I had a very bad case of good-girl syndrome.
Had this whole trip been a game for him, then? Was I nothing more than another silly girl who’d been foolish enough to fall for him? I shook my head. I couldn’t believe that. He stared down, daring me to ask more.
“I wish, just once, that I could see your colors,” I whispered.
“Well, I’m glad you can’t. And I wish I’d never seen yours.”
He’d been right when he said the truth could hurt far worse than any lie.
With a deep breath I turned from him, picked up my bag, and walked into the airport, not looking back.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
—John Milton, Paradise Lost
CHAPTER TWENTY
ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
If I didn’t know any better, I would swear Patti could see colors and read minds. Maybe it went along with the territory of motherhood. When she picked me up from the airport, she stated halfway home, “You’re in love with him.”
All I could do was nod.
“You’re hurting. I shouldn’t have let you go,” she said.
“No, I’m glad I went. I had to do it. I wouldn’t take it back. Besides, unrequited love is one of those things that all teen-agers have to go through, right?” I tried to smile.
“Unrequited?” She raised her eyebrows in dispute. “I’d say that boy has feelings for you, too. You’re probably not the only one hurting right now.”
We didn’t talk anymore on the way home, but I mulled over what she’d said.
I mapped our trip backward in my mind to imagine where Kaidan might be at any given moment. I could think of nothing else. Jay didn’t know I’d come home early, and I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.
My hopes rose every time the phone rang, but it was never him. I concocted stories in my mind of every possible scenario where he would come for me or call me and declare his feelings. We would run far away together, where his father could never find us.
In other words, I was delusional.
So this was what girls did after being ditched by Kaidan Rowe? Now I understood all of the messages he’d received. I wondered whether each one of them had felt as special as I had under his touch. I wondered whether it was supposed to hurt less, since he dumped me for our own good. Because it didn’t.
The day I returned, I went back to work, requesting as many hours as possible.
Patti gave me a lot of space on my first day home.
The second day she tried to cheer me.
“Wanna hit up some yard sales with me?”
I shook my head.
“How about a day at the lake?”
I shook my head harder. No way.
“Okay, then. I know it’s not officially a special occasion, but what do you say to Mexican food?” Her eyes sparkled as she waggled her eyebrows.
I burst into tears.
On the third day I was determined to get myself out of this unhealthy funk, for Patti’s sake if nothing else. Self-pity was like wearing a wool jacket in the sweltering heat, and I wanted it gone. So I went for a short run first thing in the morning. It helped a little.