Never Let Me Go (37 page)

I was speechless as he described how badly I’d been hurting him. My intention was never to cause him any pain, whether physical or emotional. And I felt horrible that I’d caused either of those for him.

“I really thought that you were going to choose Brody,” Hayden whispered. “While you were gone, I
really
thought that I’d lost it all. I debated calling Lizzie or Summer to come get Sky so that I could be alone with my thoughts and fuck up the parts of the house that Skylar hadn’t gotten to yet. But I’d given up. I really had. When you showed up, drenched from the rain, I had just gotten out of the shower where I cried like a fucking baby, harder than I did when Sam left. And then, there you were. Standing in my doorway, pouring your heart out to me and telling me that you loved me because I was fearless. But the truth is, the entire time that I’ve spent loving you, I’ve spent living in fear.” He paused, turning to smile at me. “When you reappeared and you told me that you loved me…all of that fear disappeared in a fucking nanosecond.”

Tears were streaming down my face then, and guilt raced through me like a billion blades, slicing my insides open as I realized just how much damage I had caused.

“Hayden—I—I’m so,
so
sorry!” I spluttered, unable to form quite the right words. “I never meant—my indecision wasn’t
meant
to hurt you.”

He nodded, leaning forward and taking my face between his hands. “I know that. I know that. But I love you. When you love someone, you forgive them, no matter how badly they hurt you.”

I laughed, shaking my head at him. “As much as I love you, part of me wishes that you weren’t so forgiving.”

For instance, the part of me that still couldn’t fathom why he wanted me.

“It’s the capacity to forgive that shows how big a person’s heart is,” Hayden crooned. “For instance, yours has to be the biggest of them all.”

He was trying to cheer me up, and he was failing miserably. I pulled my feet off of his lap, sitting up and moving to the entire opposite edge of the couch.

There was no telling why I all of a sudden needed his affection for me to be validated, but I couldn’t help myself. After going so long without hearing the words—not from my father, my mother, my older sister who was just as much a mother to me as anyone else, or Brody—I needed to know exactly why Hayden was the first person to say them to me and actually mean them.

“Why do you want me?” I asked, turning to face him as I crossed my legs.

Hayden blinked, and then he burst out laughing.

Unsure of what exactly was funny, I folded my arms and pouted. I wasn’t sure he knew that I was being
serious
.

“Hayden!” I exclaimed, swatting at his arm. “This isn’t funny!”

He took a deep breath, and then another loud chuckle burst through his fit of laughter before he finally caught a glimpse of whatever look I had on my face. He chortled once more, then stared at me intently. “Okay, Mich. I know it’s not funny…I guess I don’t quite understand the question.”

I sighed. “Why do you want
me
? You could likely have any girl in the world. Summer’s likely the hottest girl I’ve ever seen, and don’t even get me started on Bailey. So, my question is, why not someone like them?
Why me?
”

Hayden’s jaw dropped; he looked completely appalled. “Summer is like my little sister, and Bailey’s my best friend’s wife!”

I groaned, and then Hayden reached for me, scooting over on the couch so that he was right beside me. He wrapped an arm idly around my shoulders, kissing the top of my head. “Michele.” When I didn’t meet his gaze or respond to his calling my name, he took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to look directly at him. “Michele, do you really not know? Do I have to completely spell it out for you?”

I shrugged.

“Well, yeah.”

He laughed, and I shot him a look, causing him to stop abruptly.

“Mich, I didn’t know it was that important to you.”

“When your dad abandons you at five years old and your mom almost completely checks out and your older sister resents you because she had to grow up too fast and the only boy you thought you’d ever love can’t say the words ‘I love you’ until it’s too late, knowing
exactly
why the man you love loves you back suddenly becomes the most important thing in the world.” I closed my eyes as his large hand grazed the side of my face. I leaned into his touch. “I know it sounds stupid, but it’s a
huge
deal for me.”

Hayden sighed.

“Michele, I want you because you’re not like Summer or Bailey, or Samantha. You march to the beat of your own drum. You blaze your own trail. You’re not afraid to say exactly what you’re thinking. You fight like Hell for the people you love, even if they don’t necessarily deserve it. You’re smart. You’re independent. You’re fiercely loyal. Don’t even get me started on how beautiful you are—inside and out. You’re hilarious, even when you’re not trying to be. You treat my daughter like she’s your daughter. You waltzed right into my life and fit in like you’ve been a part of this family since day one. Your hair reminds me of the sunshine. Your laugh has been the soundtrack to my summer. And I’ve never met anyone who completely
gets
me the way that you do, who sees in me all the things that you see, and who will jump through hoops and hurt themselves to avoid hurting me the way that you do.” He paused, leaning forward until his lips were dangerously close to mine. “You want to know why I chose you? Why I want you? Why I love you? Well, if you need to hear every single reason in the book, I can go on all night long.”

With those final words, Hayden leaned forward and kissed me, and I think I fell a little more in love with him that very moment. I rested my head against his, trying to keep all my emotions in check. However, I was beginning to learn that where Hayden was concerned, that was nearly impossible.

“So,” Hayden whispered, his breathing ragged, “how’d I do?”

I gave him a small smile, laying my head on his chest. His arms cradled me as I inhaled deeply. “You did pretty damn good.” I closed my eyes and let the sounds of our labored breathing fill the air as silence ensued. I placed my hands above Hayden’s, wanting every inch of my body to be entwined with every inch of his in that moment. “I don’t ever want to lose this.”

“Mmm?” Hayden replied.

I leaned my head back, meeting his stunning amber gaze. “This. I don’t ever want to lose the feeling I’ve got with you right now. I’m afraid that when I go home, things aren’t going to be the same with us.”

I’d never been in a long-distance relationship. I’d never felt the pain of having someone that I loved more than anything else in the world being too far away. I’d never felt completely empty. The only thing that I knew about long-distance relationships was that they made everything crazy. All I knew about long-distance relationships, I’d learned from Cory and Topanga in
Boy Meets World
, Lucas and Peyton in
One Tree Hill,
Summer and Seth in
The O.C.,
and even Piper and Leo in
Charmed
.

I never had to experience a pain so brutal, a longing so intense that it ultimately ruined the people who felt it and the relationship that they were in.

“Michele, nothing’s going to change unless we let it,” Hayden assured me. “I know you’re only eighteen, and this instant family thing must scare the absolute shit out of you. I don’t expect you to be okay with this. I don’t expect you to put your life on hold for me. As much as I love you, I didn’t think too far past this summer.”

“I did. I promised Skylar I would come back after graduation.” If we were putting all the cards on the table, I might as well tell him.

“You did?” He only sounded shocked. He didn’t sound mad or anything, which was an absolute relief to me. “What does that mean?”

I turned around, my legs on either side of him, but not quite wrapped around him. “It means I’m all in. It means that I want to come back here after graduation. It means that I want you, and I want Skylar. I want the instant family.”

He sighed, raking his fingers through his hair.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Michele, you’re eighteen for crying out loud! You can’t make a decision like that without thinking it through!”

I glared at him. “And what makes you think I haven’t thought it through? I’ve spent the entire summer with you, and I’ve fallen for Skylar just as hard as I’ve fallen for you. All I ever wanted was commitment, family, and a happy home. With you, I’ve found all of that. With you, I want that.” I paused, gauging his reaction from his facial expression. “Do
you
not want that?”

He took my hands, pulling them into his lap. He idly ran his thumbs over the top of my hands, looking down at his lap for a long time before looking back up at me. “Michele, I want that. More than anything else, I want that. I just don’t want this to be too good to be true. I don’t want you to promise me something and then have you wake up one day and decide that you’re too young to accept the instant family at eighteen. Fuck, Michele. I don’t want you to promise me the happily ever after and then wake up one day and have you change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

“You won’t. How exactly do you know that?”

“Marry me.”

“What the fuck?”

I giggled, a bit stunned by his response. I grinned, leaning forward and kissing his lips. “Marry me, goofball.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one, I think you’re batshit crazy right about now,” he said. He paused, likely seeing something in my expression that I didn’t know I was expressing. “Okay, I didn’t mean that. But really, Mich, what are you thinking? You can’t just ask me to
marry
you.”

“I’m thinking that I need a way to prove to you that I
want
this. I’m thinking that I’m eighteen years old and I can marry whoever the Hell I please. I’m thinking that I want to show you that I won’t change my mind.”

Hayden sighed, pulling my hands up to his mouth, kissing the both of them with eyes closed. “Okay. Point taken. But I’m not marrying you.”

I raised an eyebrow, not sure whether he was joking or not. “Gee, thanks.”

He shrugged. “
One
of us has to be mature and reasonable.” Leaning forward and kissing me on the lips, he placed his hands on either side of my face. “What I mean is I’m not marrying you
yet
. My last marriage was…terrible at best. You may be ready for something like that, but I’m not. Just because I fell in love with you—and proved to myself that I
can
in fact love someone other than Skylar—doesn’t mean I’m ready for marriage again.”

I nodded. That much I could understand. I couldn’t say for sure whether I was serious or not when I said the words, “marry me”. I couldn’t say for sure if I was ready for that like I’d insisted I was. The only thing that was certain was that I loved Hayden, and I loved his daughter, and I wanted to create a life with the both of them.

“Okay,” I said. “But believe me when I say this: I
do
want to come back Hayden. I don’t want this to be a summer romance. I want this to be the real thing. I want us to create a life together.”

He bit on his lower lip, staring at me impassively. His eyebrows raised of their own accord, and he exhaled. “There’s a spare room next to Skylar’s with better closet space than my room. When you come back, we’ll move everything into that room.” I smiled. “And I’ll redo the kitchen, since apparently you like to cook—and thank God for that, because I think Skylar’s getting a bit tired of Van Leer’s and Buck and Doe’s. And you can have free reign over the living room and the backyard, but you can’t touch the bedroom or the bathroom.”

Excited by the prospect of turning Hayden’s house into
our home
, I sat forward, bouncing up and down a little in my seat.

“Can we get a pool? It doesn’t have to be in-ground. Just a pool at all will be perfect. Ooh, and can we get a puppy? I think Sky would really like a puppy! Ooh, and what about turning the back patio into a sun nook for Sunday breakfasts, and we can invite your sisters over!”

Hayden chuckled, kissing me on the nose. “Whatever you want, love.” He held me close. “I was thinking about getting a puppy before you leave, actually. I think it’d keep me and Sky company while you’re gone.”

Oh, goodness. I
loved
dogs, but because my mom could barely take care of me and my sisters growing up, a dog was simply out of the question.

“Ooh, baby, could we get a German shepherd puppy? They’re the prettiest, most loyal dogs in the world!”

I watched as Hayden adjusted uncomfortably in his seat. He turned around, grimacing a bit, like he was hiding something from me. I didn’t know what it was, but I needed to find out as soon as possible.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Hayden groaned, tossing his head back.

“Wanted
what
to be a surprise?”