Life Interrupted (14 page)

As was her goal, Flynn’s words stay with me all day.  I go through the rest of my classes in a fog because as much as I
want to skip, I need normalcy, however annoying it is.  And if I skip, I’m going to go and see Gracie and I’m not ready to see her until the fears from this morning are washed away.  It doesn’t feel right to go and play with her after I admitted what I did to Flynn, that I don’t know if I would have sex and have Gracie if I was allowed to go back.  However normal it might be, however acceptable, I won’t have her feeling any of it. 

When the final bell rings, I walk to my car to grab my practice gear even though every part of me wants to call coach and bag out.  I’m tired, and as much as I hate to admit it, I’m a little emotional and I know if coach so much as yells at me I’ll embarrass us both by bursting into tears.  I’d rather be staked to an anthill than be a girl who cries at practice.

I’m pulling out my cell phone to text him and Katie when I hear my name.  I know who it is before I look up and see Tripp sitting on the hood of my car, his feet propped on the bumper, his elbows resting on his knees.  He’s only wearing a hoodie against the freezing wind that’s already starting to spit rain, but in the muted overcast light I can see his eyes through those beautiful lashes, and they’re piercing as they look at me. 

The girly part of me wants to keep walking until I’m in front of him, to put my arms around him and rest my head on his shoulder, to ask him to take care of me, to help me, to let me lean.  She might also want to crawl into his lap and make out with him.  But the other part of me, the stronger part (who still wants to make out with him)
, knows that I need to stand here on my own, that giving in to my desire will be bad for both of us.

So I shove the girly part face first in the mud and tell her to eff off before I stop a good foot in front of him and shove my hands in
to the pockets of my North Face after brushing at the tendrils of hair the wind has whipping around my face.  “Waiting for me twice in one day, whatever will people think?”

He doesn’t smile,
just sits there staring at me, his eyes never leaving mine as he pushes off of the hood and closes the distance between us.  The war inside of me begins again, the twin urges of desire and rejection battling.  I stand still, resisting both, staring at him as he stares at me. 

“We need to talk,” he says and reaches for my hand.  Before I can react, he has my keys and is walking around to the driver’s side door.  Without another word, he gets in and starts the engine, sitting there, staring at me through the windshield as the rain starts to come down.  I want to tell him no, to grab my gear and stalk away to the practice I didn’t want to be at two minutes
ago just to show him I can, but as if he knew it wouldn’t be, my anger just isn’t there.  Instead, I walk to the passenger side and throw my bag in the backseat before settling down in the front.  Neither of us says anything as he drives out of the parking lot.

             
I stay silent when he parks on the curb outside of his house.  The rain is falling harder now, a steady drum on the roof that cocoons us as we sit there, both staring straight ahead.  The windows start to fog and still we sit, listening to the rain and wondering where to begin.

             
As is par these days, Tripp breaks the silence first.  “I need to say some things to you, things you didn’t let me say this morning.  I brought you here because nobody’s home and I don’t want to do this with an audience.”  He turns to me and my breath catches at the sight of those eyes, so strong, so deep as they look at me and I can see everything he’s feeling in them.  “I need you to listen to me, Rachel, and if when I’m done you need time, you can have it and we can go back to being friends and just
be
for a while, but I need you to listen first.  Can you do that?”

             
For a minute I just watch him, noting his eyes never leave mine.  I think of what I feel, if I have anything left for another freaking conversation.  I’ve talked more about my feelings in the past two days than I have in my entire life.  I’m fucking tired, I’m wrung out, I’m in no mood to rehash something that I know I don’t really understand.  And still I nod, knowing that for Tripp I’ll always find more.  It pisses me off to realize that, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

So to show him I mean it, I take the first step and open my car door, stepping out into the rain and jogging up to the porch where he’s suddenly beside me, opening the door and pushing me through before he closes it.  Brushing a hand over his head, he scatters raindrops and I can’t help but watch him, as mesmerized by this serious and gentle side of Tripp as I am by all others.  This should scare me considering I wanted to get over him, but right now I can’t think about that.  Instead, I think about how beautiful he is, everywhere, inside, outside.  Tripp, my Tripp, who takes my hand to lead me down the hallway and into his bedroom, closing the door behind me.  I stand in the center, thinking back to the last time I was in here.  Maybe our freshman year before school started?  After Lovely Lauren it just didn’t feel right to be in here, not even to hang out. 

I look around and note that not much has changed.  His bed is still pushed against the corner wall next to the window and covered with a dark blue spread.  A corkboard with photos and ticket stubs from concerts or basketball games still hangs over it.  A bookcase sits on the wall perpendicular to his bed, filled with books of all kinds, from action to how-tos and car magazines.  Across from his bed is a desk, and on the left hand side is a picture of us from when we were in the fifth grade.  We’re filthy, our arms around each other, our smiles glowing through the mud on our faces.  Our first flag football championship game.  Tripp campaigned to get me on the team and we led them to victory.  The same photo sits on my dresser at home.

I turn in a circle, taking in the small details, some that are new since I was here last, some that are old.  A poster that runs the entire length of one wall with some sort of race car on it, a flat screen and game console in the middle of the bookshelf.  Tripp watches me and when I meet his eyes, I try a smile.

“I like your new poster.”

He smiles, but it’s a small one before he sits on the edge of the bed.  I take his desk chair and swivel it around to face him, tucking my hands under my legs.

“I’m sorry.”

We’ve
already covered this, but I still raise my brow at him.  “For what?”

“Take your pick?” He smiles again, a half smile, and then he leans forward.  “I’ve thought about what you said this morning, about how it looks to you, how you feel, and I can’t ever tell you enough how sorry I am.  Even if I didn’t feel the way I do about you, I would never want to hurt you like that.”  He looks at me and I can tell he means it, but I don’t say anything.  What’s there to say when it’s over and done with?

“I didn’t know how to be with you two years ago.  You’ve always been Rachel, and I’ve always thought of you as mine…just mine.  It’s not that I didn’t think about being with you, I just didn’t think I should. I mean, you’re my best friend, you know everything about me.  If we got together and I messed it up, who would I have?”

“So your solution was to hook up with me every few years and then act like it di
dn’t happen?” I ask, but there’s no sting in my words and a smile ghosts around his mouth again. 

“Brilliant, right?” His face sobers and he stares at his hands, as if working out what to say.

“That night of the party two years ago, I saw what it would be like if I had you, really had you.  It felt so right, but it was also so big.  I was both thrilled and terrified and then the next morning I woke up to a text from Lauren apologizing for our argument, telling me that she didn’t really want to take a break. She asked me to meet her and I used that as an excuse to leave, to escape without talking to you.”

“Why?” I ask
even though I’ve told myself over and over I don’t want to know.  “You keep saying you didn’t know how to be with me, and fine, I might think that’s bullshit but it’s yours.  But you couldn’t pick up the fucking phone and call me, text me, tell me that you weren’t ready, that you wanted Lauren?” I almost choke on her name.   

“You didn’t call me either,” he throws back and I glare.  He blows out a breath and scrubs his hands over his face before looking at me again.
  “You were everything I’d ever wanted and it scared me to realize that at sixteen, because I knew I wanted you but I didn’t know if you wanted me.  I thought I would go and talk to Lauren, wait and see if you called.  When I got there and I told her that I’d been with you she said it was okay, that she had made a mistake in trying to make me jealous, that we could work it out.  I wanted to call you, to ask what to do, but then I realized that you hadn’t called me and I wondered if you wanted to forget it.  When I walked in with her on Monday and you didn’t say anything, I figured I was right.”

You know the saying curiosity killed the cat?
What it omits is that curiosity killed him because the fucking cat never learned that the more you ask, the more you know and the more you can hurt.

“Let me get this straight: you left my bed to go and talk to your
ex-girlfriend
, then you got back together with her because
I
didn’t call
you
and you figured it was because
I
wasn’t interested?”  He eyes me and nods.  “You asswipe. 
You
left me,
you
texted some lame thing to
me
that morning, and then
you
walked in with Lauren and pretended it never happened the next day.  What was I supposed to do?”

“I said I was sorry.”

“That’s not enough,” I say and stand to leave.

“
Jesus Christ, I was a kid, Rachel, a scared kid because somehow what I wanted and what I had weren’t lining up and I didn’t know how to make them.” He blows out a breath and I hear the frustration in it.  “I’ve loved you my entire life, Rachel.  I fucked up and thought it was best to just take the punishment, and then when you got pregnant I thought all you needed was a friend, someone to be there and take care of you.  To make sure no one ever hurt you again, especially me.”

“Well, you failed at that, and I can take care of myself.”

He nods and stands so we’re face-to-face, but he doesn’t close the gap between us.  “Doesn’t change that I want to take care of you, and when I saw you with Dean I realized that I don’t care if it’s selfish, if it’s unfair, if it’s asking too much because I want to be with you, more than I want anything else in this world, I want to be with you.”  When he steps toward me this time, I take an instinctive step back, too many emotions swirling inside of me for it to be safe.  If he touches me, I’m going to hold onto him and I’m not ready for that.  He doesn’t stop though, not until my back is pressed up against the wall and he’s in front of me.

I shake my head.  “It’s not that simple anymore, Tripp.  You have Lauren, I have Gracie.  Things are complicated.”
  And you broke my heart.  Again.

“I told you, I broke up with Lauren.  I told her about you, you know,” he says and takes my hand in his.  “I told her that I just can’t get past the feelings I have for you, no matter how much I try to convince myself that she’s the better, safer choice.  I cared about Lauren, and I liked that when I was with her things were easy, and that even for just a minute I could convince myself it was right.  But I can’t do that anymore, Rachel.”  His voice is low and a shiver runs through me as he reaches his other hand up and brushes at the hair that has escaped my rubber band to float around my face.  His eyes never leave mine as he steps closer and presses his body to mine.

“Why not?” I ask, but I know, and it terrifies me as much as it thrills me.

“Because she’s not you.”  Leaning forward, his lips a whisper from mine, he waits patiently, not pushing me, but not letting me go, either.  “
I’m not a kid anymore and I know how to work for what I want.  You’re it for me, Rachel.  You always have been.”

When his lips brush mine, they’re so soft, so gentle that I can hardly speak
.  It’s not like the other times
is all I can think as his hands reach up to cup my face, his thumbs tracing the underside of my jaw.  Before, it was heat and pressure, a whirlwind of feeling as we raced to that final edge, but now it’s sweet, tender, as if he wants to remember every breath, every move. 

Pulling back, my eyes are wide as I stare at him, his steady as they stare right back.  I hate that I understand what he means, that I can’t grasp onto his relationship with Lovely Lauren and throw it in his face.  Isn’t that the reason I held onto Dean, a guy who made me happy and
didn’t make me hurt like my feelings for Tripp did? But it’s not just about those feelings, it’s about who we are right now.

“I believe you, Tripp,” I say and watch his face light up before his eyes go dark and heavy.  Before he can lean down to kiss me
, I press a hand to his chest.  “But I need time.  I believe that you didn’t mean to hurt me, that you were scared like I was, but you did hurt me when you didn’t talk to me, when you stayed with Lauren.  I wanted you every day,” I say and I swear he stops breathing.  “Even when I wanted to hate you, when I wanted nothing more than for you to hurt like I was hurting, to be over you and in love with someone else, I wanted you.  And still, you were with her, and it hurt.  I need time to deal with that.”

“I wish I could change that, change what I did,” he says. 

“Me, too.”

He closes his eyes and rests his forehead on mine. 
“I’m so sorry, Rachel.”

“Me, too,” I echo and realize how true it is.  I am sorry—sorry that I can’t just forget it and be with him, sorry that I didn’t call him and rage that morning two years ago when I walked out and found him gone, and again when he walked into school
with Lauren.  But just as he can’t change his choices, I can’t change mine, and I don’t know what that means for our future.  “I need to go and get Gracie,” I say. 

He nods.  “Will you call me at some point?”

I nod.  When he doesn’t step back, I look up at him.  “Tripp, let me go.”

He
stares at me a moment before he drops his hands, watching me as I step around him and toward the door.  This time, though, he says my name before I can walk out.

“Rachel.”  When I turn to look at him I know what he’s going to say before it leaves his lips, and still, it causes a shiver.  “I love you.  I just want you to know that.  Maybe if you do, you’ll realize I’m not going anywhere, not this time.”

“Tripp, it’s not that simple,” I say and he smiles.

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”