Patch Up (28 page)

“Only you could put it like that. Sometimes it’s like you’re talking about a piece of meat. You’re worse than guys.”

She waves me off and rolls her eyes. “It’s not like I’d do anything with him.”

“But with Derek ...” I trail off, glad to have something to talk about to ease my mind.

“He’s different. Do you realize we still haven’t kissed? I mean, we hang out every day, we text, we went out the other night and it was quite hot, but he didn’t kiss me.”

We open the door of our dorm building and take the stairs. “He’s not your usual dumbass, that’s for sure. The guy wants a real relationship with you and I bet he feels that you’re only looking for sex.”

Kate fishes her key from an outside pocket of her huge bag and opens the door. She’s frowning and serious all of a sudden. I shrug off my jacket, put it on my bed and sit, waiting for her to do the same. We’re going from light girl talk to important stuff.

“And what if—maybe—I’m feeling something more?” She grabs a handful of M&Ms waiting for her on her bedside table and begins to chew.

“Then I think you couldn’t find a better guy.”

She shakes her head, her eyes mesmerized by the colorful sweets in her left hand. “I’m not made for relationships.”

I roll my eyes and snatch my pillow to put it on my knees. “You think you’re not, but it’s because you’re afraid. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about,” I say a little bitterly. “Derek wants something more with you, it’s obvious, and he is a serious guy. He won’t lead you on for nothing and will always respect you.”

Munching on her M&Ms, she stands up to turn on the radio. She sways her hips for a couple of seconds and goes back to her bed, facing me with a small smile on her face. “And if he breaks my heart?”

“Then I’ll knee him in his precious package and I’ll give you a shoulder to cry on,” I reply without missing a beat. I’m serious, too. She was there for me when I needed her and I owe her. Also, she’s more than just a friend or a roommate. She’s my best friend and I intend not to lose her.

She laughs and nods at me before fishing her cell from her bag. I know she’s going to text Derek to flirt a little more. I hope she’ll let him into her heart. They both deserve it. My phone rings in my jeans pocket. Grabbing it, I see it’s my mother.

“Hey Mom,” I say without enthusiasm because I know exactly what her next two questions are.

“Hi, honey. How are you today?” she asks me, a smile in her voice despite the tenseness I know is there.

“I’m fine.”

“And Duke?”

I punch my pillow and Kate gives me a funny look. “He’s probably fine, Mom.”

Kate goes back to her phone when it beeps signaling a text. She brings a hand to her mouth, smiling. My mother makes a tsk sound in the phone and I scrunch up my nose.

“You two fought again?”

I stand up and lean against the window, looking outside where the sun is bright but not very hot yet. “Not exactly but he’s ... avoiding me,” I answer, too conscious of Kate’s presence in the room to feel free to talk about Duke. Also, I’m not sure I’ll ever feel at ease talking about Duke and me, whatever it is.

“Honey, you can’t let this guy slip away from you.”

“Uh?” I’m not very talkative all of a sudden, but I’m a little baffled by what my mother is saying. I hear a door closing on her side. Apparently she’s with my father, but she shuts him out. God, if she’s going to give me a boy talk I’m going to have nightmares.

“He is very easy on the eyes,” she says and giggles like a school girl.

I take the phone away from my ear, look at it like it’s going to bite me, and bring it back to my ear. “Mom!” I shake my head. This is too weird.

“Oh, I can make an objective observation, honey,” she says more seriously. I can hear the fridge door open and close. “I know you don’t want to talk about what’s happening between you and this young man, but you shouldn’t let him put this distance between you. Reach out to him.”

Reach out to him? It’s easy to say when you don’t know where he is, but I know where he is and it scares me. It hurts too. “Maybe he doesn’t want me to,” I reply, not caring to acknowledge that there is, indeed, something going on between Duke and me.

My mother sighs a little. She sounds almost happy to know there is something between him and me. She probably thinks that I’m recovering better than she thought if I’m able to have a relationship with a guy, but that’s the thing. I’m not having one even if ... Nothing. Even if nothing at all.

“He reached you when you didn’t want him to.”

And those are the words that make me grab my jacket and shrug it on. “Good-bye, Mom.” I hang up on the sound of her laughing. At least there’s someone who thinks my life is funny.

Kate’s eyebrows shoot up and she waves at me. “You’re going after the hot TA?”

I nod and walk out, determined to see him and talk with him. For once, we’re not on talking terms because I’m a chicken and he’s tormented, but not because we had a fight. That’s progress. Or so I prefer to see it that way.

*  *  *

He wasn’t in his room. I knew he wouldn’t be there, but I stopped by to make sure of it. And now I’m at the same spot that I was months ago, looking at Duke. He is sitting next to Juliet’s tombstone, his eyes alternating between the marble and the view over Lake Washington.

I’m glad to be able to understand him enough to know where he’s hiding, but it also crushes me to know he’s looking for some comfort here, in the cemetery. He is still running to Juliet, even when she’s not here anymore.

I brush away my wild hair and walk to him, avoiding a little girl jumping and running around while her mother is putting some white flowers on her parents’ grave. I give a tight smile to the little girl and resume my walking.

Duke looks up and frowns when he sees me, but he doesn’t seem annoyed or angry. I stop several feet from him, glance at the tombstone and look away quickly. It’s disturbing to know that someone he deeply loves is underground right here. My eyes focus on the Space Needle, not very big from up here.

“I knew you’d come to find me here at some point,” he says, breaking the silence. His voice does not disclose any of his feelings.

I look down at him and sit. I can’t talk to him in a standing position when he is on the ground. “Did you want me to find you here?”

He takes a deep breath and shrugs. He doesn’t tug at his hair, doesn’t run a hand in his goatee, or grab a cigarette. He’s just sitting there, his eyes now focused on the scripts on the stone.

It’s so hard to talk to him when it’s like there’s someone between us. Her presence is lingering between us, heavily. I clear my throat. “Duke, you shouldn’t avoid us all.”

He brings his eyes to me and I’m frozen by the intense look. He is not going to avoid a confrontation. Not at all what I expected on my way here in Kate’s car. “And you shouldn’t let Sean dictate what you want.”

My breath catches. “Okay, tell me what you want to tell me so much.  After all, it’s true, hiding here is the best way to have a talk,” I sneer, annoyed and hurt by his bluntness. Where is the guy that is so patient? Is it really because I refused to have sex the other night?

“You don’t face the depth of your urges when you’re with me,” he replies coldly, his eyes traveling from my trademark purple Converses to my wild hair.

“Like my current urge to knock you out cold?” I gape at my own words, bringing a hand to my mouth, which is still hanging open.

Duke arches an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on my verbal diarrhea. “You are afraid of your own desire and you can’t move on until you deal with this, but you prefer to hide behind your issues instead.”

I close my mouth loudly, my teeth clashing against each other. My hand falls back on my knee. “And you? You’re running here every time something’s difficult for you. You’ve got the date of her death tattooed over your heart, you still wear her necklace.” I sigh, my anger diminishing fast. “I can’t compete with your dead girlfriend.”

He looks back at the tomb, fingering the necklace shining in the sun. “What are telling me? You want to stop, run away again?”

“I’m not running away, Duke.”

His eyes flare and he kneels in front of me, his kneecaps almost touching my legs. “You’ve been running away from me since day one. Whenever it gets tough or you’re afraid, you run away. You won’t even give us a shot at being together.”

I shake my head and try to breathe evenly when the invasion of my personal space is both frightening and exhilarating. Like always when it’s Duke. “You can have sex with anybody.”

He laughs bitterly and gazes up at the light blue sky visible between the branches of the trees surrounding the cemetery. “You won’t even face the fact that there is something more.”

I claw at my thighs and say nothing. His eyes are a churning inferno of contradictory feelings. I see desire, regret, fear, anger, lust, attachment, and something that I’d say is fondness. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me it’s just about wanting just sex, Skye.” He tugs at his hair and groans. “Fuck! It’s way past that and I think it’s been way past that for quite some time. We’ve been deluding ourselves, but it’s time to face the music.”

I shake my head and clear my throat, unable to open the gates to this. I can’t. “Stop.”

“Oh no! You came here, telling me I’m hiding and avoiding you, but I will stop right now.” He grabs my hands in his, the heat in them quickly warming mine. “I can’t just let Juliet go, and it’s scaring me like you have no idea, to have all these feelings for you. I never felt the need to protect someone so much, to want someone so much. With Juliet everything was easy. Everything just went easily. When I’m with you, I have to fight against you, against myself, and against our past and the present. With you it’s like you make me feel again when I don’t want to, like you make my heart beat louder and faster just by being there. Nothing is easy and that’s why it feels so true, so real. It’s not a fairy tale; it’s not all hearts and flowers. It’s harsh, hard, strong, and passionate and I can’t wrap my head around it.”

I feel my eyes widen, my breathing increases. My lips tingle, my arms feel like they weigh a ton and my brain has gone blank. I think I’m blinking like an idiot.

“And you see, it’s tearing me up to feel all of this. I feel guiltier than ever,” he adds almost to himself.

I snap back to the present. “Why do you feel guilty?” I ask in a whisper, my eyes watery.

His hands squeeze mine. “Because I was in the car when Juliet had the accident.”

I claw at his hands, holding back my first instinct to hug him in a tight embrace. I never thought he was with her when it happened, never imagined such a thing. One tear falls for him, for her, for his pain that’s still there, and for his the beautiful words he uses to describe what he truly feels for me.

“Did you get hurt?”

He shakes his head, his eyes haunted. The fire in them has vanished. “Just a couple of ribs cracked because of the belt and some scratches and cuts. I was the one supposed to be driving that night but I was tired after my football game.” He sighs, his eyes now lost in the past, in this dreadful night. “I worked my ass off to win that game and secure my future for the recruiters there to see me. So Juliet told me she’d drive us back home. I didn’t object and then, a mile away from our high school, a drunk driver swerved over the line and hit her side of the car. She didn’t die right away.” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down fast. He’s on the brink of breaking down. “I had time to call an ambulance and to hold her in my arms before she died with a last look for me. She was so scared, Skye.” His eyes come back to the present with tears in them. He lets them fall. “She didn’t leave in peace, she didn’t say a word, but she was scared and I didn’t do anything. I did nothing.”

A sob shakes him. He releases my hands and I don’t waste a second to pull him into my embrace, kissing his temple but saying nothing. I’m shaking with him, unable to be the strong one he needs me to be. His arms come around me, tight.

Now I understand why he feels so guilty even if it’s irrational. It is the survivor syndrome in all its sordid glory. But putting a word to it doesn’t make it disappear. It’s here, in his heart, in his head bringing him back to this night always and always.

“I’m here for you if you need me,” I whisper, his ear close to my mouth.

He pulls his head away, facing me with his cheeks damp and bloodshot eyes. It’s heartbreaking to see a strong guy like Duke so lost, so in pain. “And what if I lose you, too?”

I gulp loudly. Drying his face with one hand, I smile softly, unsure of where we’re going but feeling warm knowing his feelings. “You won’t.”

“You can’t make that promise,” he replies stubbornly, the worry line visible between his eyebrows.

I run my thumb over it, my gaze following the movement before locking my eyes with his anguished ones. God, I never thought I would see him like this once he’d open up to me. He feels everything so strongly, is so desperate. He’s braver than I am but I’m not surprised by this.

“You’re right, but we’ve survived such awful things. We can defy the odds now.” I’ve never heard myself so calm, so sure of anything in the last three years.

He puts his forehead against mine and takes a deep breath. “Now, tell me you feel the same for me, Skye. Tell me how you feel.”