I Want It That Way - Aguirre Ann - Страница 22

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“In case you need help with Sam?”

“Yeah. I try not to make them feel like they’re obligated, but—”

“They’re your parents, and they love you. They love Sam, too. It’s their choice, Ty. You have to learn how to accept help. Saying, hey, I need a hand here doesn’t mean you’re failing, only that you’re human.”

He scowled at me. “Have you been talking to my mom?”

“Yeah, we get together to gossip about you over coffee.”

With a mock-shiver, he rubbed his arms. “That wouldn’t surprise me. Mom is crafty.”

By this time, the servers were giving us the stink eye, making me think this was a place where they encouraged you to eat and get out. Not surprising, considering the dining room size. Ty paid the bill over my protests and then we walked back to the car. When he took my hand, I didn’t say anything, though I was steady on my feet.

I love you, I thought.

It wasn’t rockets or fireworks or any of the Hollywood effects I’d been led to expect. Instead, it was crisp air lightly touched by the scent of burning wood, spiced with insatiable longing. A bonfire was burning nearby, and love was Ty’s hand around mine, warm and fast, binding us together. Other people walked down the sidewalk, but they weren’t part of us. They had their own lives, heading to clubs whose music pounded out of open doorways. This was a perfect moment, one I’d remember forever. Because I’ve never been in love before. It didn’t matter that he didn’t feel the same way, or that he wouldn’t let himself.

Not all love stories end happily. Sometimes they just end.

And I could see the blind curve looming in the distance while I raced with him down this slope. At this point, the crash seemed inevitable, but I couldn’t make myself leap out of the car. So I walked with him, noticing everything, like the way he matched his strides to mine without realizing, the way he turned to look at me when we passed beneath a lamppost, as if he didn’t want to miss a single glimpse. His thumb slid back and forth over the heel of my hand, and he played with my fingers, shaping them, until longing spiraled inside me like a typhoon. My chest wasn’t big enough to hold this feeling, for the sweet intensity of it.

For me, sex had always been about interlocking parts. Sometimes it felt really good, but I’d never fucked anyone and then had the urge to whisper, You complete me. I never cried afterward or felt much of anything, other than physical satisfaction. With Ty, I suspected it would be completely different. Not that I’d ever know.

It’ll be fine. You’re tough.

“You’re quiet,” he said as we reached the car.

“Just thinking.”

“About...how I’m an ass and you can’t wait to get away?”

“Not even close.”

“Hmm, challenge accepted. Let me see if I can figure this out.” As he helped me into the car, he seemed determined to make a game of guessing what was on my mind.

First he started the engine and drove us out of town, heading back toward Mount Albion. “You looked really serious. Is it about school?”

“Cold.”

“Some guy you like?” Was he seriously asking that? But maybe he didn’t realize how much of my mental attention he occupied.

“Warmer.”

His half smile faded, as if I’d slapped him. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Not at the moment.” There was no way I’d ever admit that I was pondering how awesome sex between us would be.

“Okay, I give. I don’t want to talk about some guy you like.” He shrugged. “Sorry, but I’m not there mentally. Give me a few months, maybe I can give advice then.”

I rallied, teasing him. “Please, you don’t even date, so what help would you be?”

“You have a point. And even when I did, it wasn’t great.”

He’s talking about Sam’s mom.

“Do you want to tell me?”

“No. Maybe.” He gripped the wheel tightly, knuckles whitening. “It might change how you see me. I don’t know if—”

“I’m willing to listen if you’d like to talk. We have an hour.”

He exhaled in a slow rush, as if bracing to lift a heavy weight. In a way, maybe he was, but I hoped in sharing this with me, he’d also feel like he’d cast one off, too.

“Diana and I met freshman year. We got together right away, and I...I loved her so much.” His voice cracked.

It hurt, hearing that. Ty, before, wasn’t afraid of dating. Before Diana—now I knew her name—he must’ve been fearless. He believed in happy endings.

“She was clever. Ambitious. She was studying genetics and had her sights set on running her own lab by the time she was thirty.”

Wow.

“Early in our sophomore year, she got bronchitis. She was on the pill, and they gave her antibiotics at the med center. Nobody said it could mess with the effectiveness of birth control.”

“Which was how she got pregnant,” I guessed.

He nodded, carefully not looking at me. “As soon as she realized, she wanted to get an abortion and move on. She didn’t want kids.”

“Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

“Because of me. I begged her to keep Sam. I said there was no reason we couldn’t make it work. Other people do.”

I was shaking, because he radiated pain, and there was nothing I could do. “But...?”

“Diana hated pregnancy. By the time she gave birth, she hated me for making her go through it. We broke up the day Sam was born. I kept my promises, took care of things the way we’d planned, but two days after she came home from the hospital, she moved out. Then we shared custody, but she hated being a mom. And I couldn’t understand, couldn’t see her side...because the minute I heard about Sam, when he was a tiny peanut, I just loved him so much.”

“Some women aren’t cut out to be mothers,” I said quietly.

“I know. And that’s understandable. I should’ve respected her choice. Pressuring her like that is the worst thing I’ve ever done, and yet how can I be sorry? Because she gave me Sam.”

“And you put her through so much pain.” It wasn’t a judgment, just a summary.

“Exactly. The scales can never be balanced. Five weeks after Sam was born, Diana dropped him off and I never heard from her again.”

“She left town?”

“Yeah. I made her so miserable, she ran from her whole life. Her parents don’t even know where she is. They’ve tried to find her.”

“Damn.” For me, it was tough to fathom the misery and sorrow that would drive a woman to burn all bridges behind her.

He made a soft, agonized sound. “And you wonder why I don’t date.”

“Not anymore,” I said as my heart snapped quietly in two.

After the concert, I saw Ty a fair amount, often when he picked Sam up from day care, and a few nights a week, I sat with him on the balcony. Well, me up above and him down below. It was no longer a private thing, though, because my roomies were home more. The first time it happened when Lauren was around, she’d stared at me in puzzlement when I came in.

“Why don’t you just go downstairs to talk to him?”

“It’s complicated,” I said.

Since we went to Ann Arbor, there was distance between us. His story didn’t change the way I felt about him, but it affected his sense of how we were together. Before I knew the truth, I was a safe haven. Now I was somebody who might be judging him. That night, I’d tried to make him understand that I didn’t blame him. It was shitty how he’d pushed Diana, no question, but having met Sam, how could I be sorry he was born? Some questions had no right answers, only shades of wrong, and people couldn’t live in black-and-white. Sometimes there were pops of glorious color, and on other occasions, gray was the only visible hue. Mostly, I hoped Diana had made peace with her decision to start fresh and that she was happy, wherever she might be.

So now, halfway through October, I took a much-needed breather. Lauren was watching Storage Wars that afternoon when I sat down on the couch. The guys were out, something to do with Max’s bike; Angus had gone along because he still hadn’t forgiven Josh. At this point, I suspected a permanent breakup was inevitable.

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