A Little Too Far (15 page)

Chapter Fifteen

S
AM PULLS
UP
to the curb in her mother’s green Volvo a little after 3:00
A.M
. I know this because I’m wide-awake, sitting on the edge of my bed with my arms crossed on the windowsill and my chin propped on my forearms. I was hoping they’d be back early, like by midnight. But, three? Three is a full hour after the bars close. They had to fill that hour doing something. My insides twist at the picture that forms in my mind—Trent, naked; Sam naked. I squeeze my eyes shut and force the image out of my head.

I told myself at eleven that if Trent wasn’t home by midnight, I’d go to bed and forget about the whole plan. Then I told myself at midnight that I’d give him another hour. My stomach started to knot around one fifteen, and it’s been getting progressively worse to the point where I’m fairly certain anything left in it after the dinner I picked through will projectile onto the glass in front of me if I try to move. So I don’t.

I wipe the cloud of breathy fog off the window with the side of my hand as Trent swings the car door open. In the yellow glow of the dome light, I see Sam lean toward him expectantly. She looks a little rumpled, and, at the realization, my stomach lurches again. I swallow back the acid rising in my throat and look away as Trent leans in to kiss her. When I chance a glance back outside a second later, he’s already halfway up the walk.

I stand and turn when I hear him shuffle through the front door. Sam pulls away as Trent climbs the stairs. A moment later, I’m standing with my palm pressed against my door without knowing how I got here as Trent moves past it. I reach for the door handle—and freeze.

What am I going to say?
Hey Trent, how was your date? Yeah, my neck’s a little stiff because I’m been sitting at my window watching the street all night waiting for you to come home because, guess what? I love you. Yep, you heard me right. I. Love. You. So, what do you have to say to that?

I lower my hand and back toward my bed, sitting hard when the edge takes my knees out from under me. I sit and listen to Trent brush his teeth and move up the hall to his room. I listen as he strips off his clothes and climbs into bed. I listen as everything goes silent except for my ragged breathing and pounding heart.

This is so not how things were supposed to go.

Between still adjusting to the nine-hour time change and my up-all-night stalkery, it’s noon before my eyes finally open. I rub them hard and sit on the edge of the bed, hanging my head under the weight of a new day. I’m wearing Trent’s T-shirt . . . but not the gray Loyola Wrestling one I took to Rome. I threw that in his dirty clothes last night while he was gone and grabbed the one he was wearing before he showered—the Army green one. I lift it to my face, breathing in his spicy scent, and feel my insides liquefy at the memory of my face buried in his neck, breathing in that same scent as he loved me. Every muscle in my belly contracts hard as I relive the sensation of him on top of me, inside me, and my heart implodes.

I flop back onto the bed with an elbow over my eyes and groan. I remember watching an old movie that went something like this. I think it was called
Fatal Attraction.

I hear Trent in his room, knocking around near his closet on the other side of my wall, and the knot in my stomach is instantly back . . . if it ever actually went away. He’s only here for four days, I remind myself. He has the Midlands Championship next weekend, and the team is flying out the day after Christmas to prepare. So I only have to make it four days without letting on that I pretty much want to die.

I pull off his shirt and grab my bathrobe, clicking my door open and peeking out before taking the plunge into the hall. The hall is empty, but as I tiptoe quickly past Trent’s room toward the bathroom, I hear his voice drift through his door.

“. . . just painfully awkward, you know?”

My feet stall on the carpet, and I nearly fall on my face.

“No,” Trent says after a short pause. “We had the conversation back in August, and she knows this isn’t going anywhere, but it’s obvious even though she hasn’t come out and said it that she’s looking for more than I can give her.”

Another pause.

“She knows I’m into someone else, I don’t return her texts, I’m not even that nice to her . . . I just don’t know how much more obvious I can be.”

I start up the hall again, my stomach in my throat, and escape into the bathroom, but not before I hear Trent say, “I just thank God I’m only home for a few days. Everything about being here totally blows.”

I spend the rest of the day in bed, which I only get away with by telling Julie I threw up in the shower. It’s not a lie. She thinks I must have caught a flu bug on the plane from Rome, and I don’t dispute that. The flu ruse buys me a full day where I’m not allowed to have contact with anyone, especially Trent, who has a chance to win his weight class at the tournament in a few days. But by Christmas Eve, Julie starts threatening to take me to Urgent Care if I’m not better by that night. So, guess what? I get better!

I’m still weak, of course, so she doesn’t make me come down early on Christmas morning, but I am expected to make an appearance when Aunt Liz, Uncle Terry, and the triplets arrive at two, which I do. We take turns opening presents, showing off what we got, and thanking everyone, then we move to the table for Christmas dinner.

The triplets are Mike, Marcus, and Mindy, and they’re fertility babies. Aunt Liz is older than Julie, but it took years of trying à-la-natural and a few rounds of fertility treatments before she and Uncle Terry conceived, so the triplets are five years younger than me. Thankfully, Julie decides, 1) that the boys should sit together and puts Trent between Mike and Marcus, and 2) that I should be between her and Dad in case I’m still contagious, so I get out of having to socialize, or even look at Trent, who’s busy fielding questions about college and wrestling from the boys. After dinner, I help Julie and Aunt Liz with the dishes to avoid the living room, where Trent and the boys are watching football while Dad and Uncle Terry talk politics. When we’re done, I beg off pumpkin pie by telling Julie I’m wiped out. She gives me her blessing to go back to bed.

As I climb the stairs, I look over my shoulder in time to see Marcus launch himself at Trent. “Wrestle me!” he yells, and they both thud to the floor as Marcus knocks Trent off his chair. I watch for a minute as they roll around on the floor, laughing, and Trent lets Marcus get the upper hand. I can’t help smiling as I start toward my room again. I click my door closed and flop back onto my bed.

This is it, the last time I’ll see him for months. If there’s anything I need to say, I need to say it now. I lie here waging my internal war, rehashing all the reasons why Trent and I can never be together. It’s better if I just let him go, right?

Right?

Damn.

A light mist has started by eight, when Aunt Liz and the fam pull out of our driveway in their white Caravan. I wait to hear Trent on the stairs, determined that I’m not going to chicken out this time. I’m going to tell him. But the longer I wait, the more nervous I get.

Where the hell is he?

My question is answered when I hear his bike roar to life outside. I lurch for the window in time to see him rocket out of the driveway like he’s been shot out of a cannon. He fishtails a little on the wet pavement as he guns the engine and disappears from sight, still accelerating.

“Merry Christmas,” I whisper into the silence he leaves behind.

Around ten, when Julie knocks on my door to check on me and say they’re going to bed, I’m on Facebook. It’s rude not to respond to everyone’s Merry Christmas posts, is what I told myself when I logged on an hour ago, but what I’ve really been doing is stalking Sam’s and Trent’s feeds for details about their relationship. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.

Trent’s wall is mostly other people tagging him in photos from school or wrestling. He hasn’t added anything other than a comment on said pictures for months. But Sam’s is a different story.

She is “in a relationship with Trent Sorenson,” and according to her post from 3:30
A.M.
the night she and Trent were out, she
Just got back from an amazing date with the hottest man on the planet. I iz in luv!

There are a couple dozen comments on the post. Most of them are along the lines of,
ooh, la, la!
or,
Hope it ended with your panties in a bunch
, and they all make me want to throw up.

I scan for more and find love poems dedicated to “the hottest man on the planet” and YouTube links for love songs dedicated to “the hottest man on the planet” and when I scroll all the way back to Thanksgiving, I find a picture of them together on a love seat in a dark corner of Lightly Toasted. She’s giving him a tonsil exam with her tongue. The post that goes with the picture says . . . wait for it: “The hottest man on the planet!”

He’s with Sam. I have to accept that. He knows what we did is wrong, just like I do. If he knew I’m in love with him, how much worse would this be? How much more awkward? But still, I find myself opening my door and walking to his room. I move to the alcove near his closet and pick up his guitar, just to feel the weight of it and remember that, once upon a time, he loved me. Once upon a time, I was the most important person in his life, and he wrote me a song to prove it.

Even if we can’t get that back, it doesn’t change that it was real.

He’s leaving in the morning, and I won’t see him again until at least May. Maybe August, if I score the internship. Do I just leave it like this?

I think I have to.

I lie on my side in his bed, my arms hugging his guitar to my chest, and remember. I remember all our talks, and our wrestling matches. I remember our Warcraft marathons. I remember curling into Trent’s arms when I was sad and how he took it all away. How he made everything better. I close my eyes and turn my face into the pillow when the tears start.

I open my eyes, and it’s dark, so I close them again. But then I realize my arm is asleep. I move it, and it thumps against something hard.

Something with strings.

My eyes fly wide and I look around. I’m still in Trent’s room, hugging his guitar. And there’s a warm body spooned behind me and a heavy arm draped around my waist.

I unwrap my arms from the guitar, shifting it off the bed and leaning it gingerly against the nightstand, then lift the arm off my waist very slowly. Once I’m extricated, I sit up carefully, trying not to jiggle the bed or make any noise.

I have no clue what time it is or how long I’ve been in here, but when I turn and look behind me, I see Trent, curled around the spot where I just was.

I get up as slowly as I can, considering both my heart and mind are racing, and lay the guitar back in the stand, then tiptoe past his bed to the door. Just as I’m passing, he groans and rolls on his back. I freeze until he goes still again. But I don’t start moving when he settles. I just stand here, staring at him.

God, he’s beautiful.

Before I can stop myself, I’m moving back toward the bed. I bend slowly and brush my lips over his rough cheek. He stirs and moans a little, but doesn’t wake.

What did he think when he found me here? He didn’t wake me. He just curled up next to me, like he would have before everything went sideways. Could we still get what we had back?

I want that so desperately.

I tiptoe to the door and slip through, and before I’m even in my own bed, I know what has to happen.

The sound of Trent in the shower wakes me. I wait for the water to turn off and listen for the sounds of his returning to his room, then slip out of bed and pull on a pair of jeans under his T-shirt. At my door, I breathe deep, then pull it open. I breathe deep again as I lift my hand to knock on his door.

“Just a sec!” he calls, and, a few seconds later, his door swings open. He’s standing in front of me in a pair of well-worn jeans that sit low on his hips and nothing else. And,
damn
. “Hey,” he says when he sees it’s me.

Despite my visceral reaction to the sight of his cut body, it’s his eyes that draw me in. They’re warm and soft, and I know I’ve made the right decision. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah, sure.” He steps aside to let me pass.

I move past him into his room and close the door. “I bet your wondering what I was doing in your bed last night”—I pluck at his shirt—“wearing your T-shirt.”

His eyebrows go up, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I really miss us, Trent.” I swallow. “I miss how I could tell you everything and how I knew you’d never judge me. I miss how safe I used to feel when you held me. I miss that you knew me better than I knew myself. I miss my best friend
so
much,” I add, as a tear rolls over my lashes. “What we did stole him from me. I want him back.”

He bites his lips between his teeth for a second. “I miss you too,” he finally says, pulling me into his arms.

We stand here forever, my face buried in his chest, and as much as I want to kiss him and feel his touch on my body again, I squelch all those feelings and just live in this, the comfort of my best friend.

Finally, I pull away. “So, it’s done? We’re good?”

He smiles that lazy smile and gives the ends of my hair a tug. “We’re good.”

I walk over and lift his guitar out of the stand. “Will you sing it to me?”

He takes the guitar and sits on the edge of the bed. “I’m a little rusty.” He gives the strings a strum, then tunes it by ear.

“Why didn’t you take your guitar to school? You always have before.”

He sighs and looks at me, his eyes sad. “You are my inspiration, Lexie. You always have been.”

I scrunch my face at him. “But . . . what does that have to do with leaving your guitar home?”

“You of all people should know art is inspiration. I was angry and confused. I didn’t know what was going to happen with us. Anything I wrote would have been shit.”

He was feeling it too. I should have known, but I was so wrapped up in how I was feeling that I didn’t think about it. “I’m sorry,” I say, sitting next to him and hugging him. He stops picking at the strings and hugs me back. “I never want to lose you, Trent.”