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He stops and looks at me. “Really?” His head slants, and the confusion is clear in his voice.
“Really.” Although the joy I hoped this would create simmers inside of me, Jeremy’s doused everything in ice.
He rushes towards me and tips me back on the bed, straddling me and holding my head in his hands. “I fucking love you, Anna Rose. I’ve been pretending to myself that I don’t need you in my life all the time, but I do, so fucking much it’s like a physical pain in my chest. I’d never want to stand in your way, but I can’t even imagine how I’d cope with you leaving.”
My heart splits as I absorb his words. They are scary and everything I want all at the same time.
“If you feel like that, how could you just up and leave? I’ve been going out of my mind.” I push him off me and stand, not quite ready to accept that this is an easy conversation.
“I’m sorry. I am. It’s been fucking rough, torn between sorting my mum out and dealing with my own shit around saying goodbye to you. I don’t have any other excuse.”
“Goodbye? It would never be goodbye.”
“Not for me. But you don’t know how going to uni might change things.”
“I know I won’t stop loving you. If you think it would be so easy?—”
“Shhh, it’s okay. I don’t. I was frightened.” He pulls me against him.
“I can’t go through that again, Jere,” I speak into his chest as his closeness and comfort settle my nerves.
“You won’t.”
“And what about next year? When we do leave and go off to uni?”
“That’s a year away. We can deal with that then.” He takes my hand and holds it to his chest. “Deal?”
Agreeing is too easy. “Deal.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Iwant you to move in with me.”
I roll over and look at him. He’s staring up at the ceiling, his arms placed behind his head.
It’s been a few days since his disappearing act, and we are starting to get back to a new kind of normal.
“Really?”
“You’re here all the time. I don’t want you to leave. We have this year, and I don’t want to waste any of it. I want you in my bed, in my home. You are my home now.”
The smile catches at the corner of my lips as he turns to look at me. His words settle into the crack inside my heart, mending the damage his vanishing act put on me. He’s right, and there’s nowhere I want to be more.
“You’ll get to enjoy the year here, too. You know my mum loves you, and she’ll be glad of the company, as it will mean we’re both here.”
“I’ve not seen her for days. Surely, if she’s out of rehab, she should be around friends? Have some sort of support?” Talk of his mum sours my mood.
“She’ll be fine for a few weeks. The lawyers will play their part and hack up what’s left of their marriage, and I’ll have to pick up the pieces again. I’ve been doing it long enough. It’s just more final this time.”
I reach out my hand and lay it across his chest. “I’m sorry. Not for what he did but for what you have to go through now. You stood up to him, though. That was the right thing to do.” They are the words I trust myself to say, but there’s more I keep to myself. That his dad is the reason we’re here. His dad is the reason Jere seems so angry all the time.
“He’s a dick. This time, he’s listened. It’s better all around if they’re divorced.” He pulls back the covers and heads to the bathroom without a backward glance.
He’s in pain. I know that; how could he not be? His family is breaking apart, and I think about how sad and confused I was when I ran after my dad’s car all those years ago. But my mum scooped me up and made everything better — she made me forget and realise that a family isn’t made of two parents. It’s the people who are there for you and who matter to you.
And I want to be that for Jeremy. I want us to be that for each other.
“Jere?” I knock on the door to the bathroom, but he doesn’t answer. I push the handle down, and it opens. He’s sitting on the tile floor, propped up against the vanity, his head hung between his shoulders, as he cradles his knees with his hands.
