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“You’re… moving?” I repeat, as if I didn’t hear exactly what he just said.
“I promise it won’t make a difference to anything, River, I promise. But I have to move because my mom and her boyfriend are getting married, so they found a bigger place outside of town for us all to fit in. I’m going to try and move in with my dad as soon as he’s all set up and then I can transfer back so that we’re still at school together, even though I won’t be across the street from you anymore. I really, really wish that I didn’t have to, and I’m so, so sorry. As soon as I can I’m gonna come back for you, River. I promise I’m gonna come back for you.”
His eyes are shimmering and my chest is constricting tightly. I’m confused. I’m hurting. But I’m also awe-struck that, with all of the shit that is getting in our way right now, Tate Coleson still wants to be mine, and he still wants me to be his.
I’m only fourteen but he wants to wait for me for as long as it takes. His mom is moving him away and he’s going to try and come back as soon as he can. As sad as I am, I can’t help but feel lucky that this perfect boy is willing to fight anything to keep me in his life.
“Please say something,” he says, pulling his hands back and pushing them into the pockets of his pants, visibly nervous as he assesses my silence.
I hop out of the Wrangler and wrap my arms, which are now enveloped in his suit jacket, around his neck. His hands instantly find my waist and he grips me tightly, pushing me slightly against the back door of the Jeep.
“I want to wait for you too,” I whisper, and he lets out a strained relieved groan, dipping his forehead so that he can press it against mine.
“River,” he moans, his palms running up to my shoulder blades. “I don’t want to lose you. Ever. Please will you…” He takes a deep breath. “Please say that you’ll be my girlfriend.”
My heart stutters and my eyes widen in shock. He meets my gaze, irises glowing with a hunger that I don’t quite understand yet, and I nod as if I’m under a spell. “Tate,” I say, “of course I’ll be your girlfriend. Yes –yes– of course.”
I run my fingers through his soft hair and I stand up on my tip-toes, ready to show him just how much I mean it, but his lips catch mine first, to show me that he means it even more.
Chapter 19
Present
Kit getting detention has really messed with our end of term plans, but I’m going to make it work for us anyway. She hasn’t told mewhyshe got detention – only that some incident happened outside of class – but she’s been exiled from lessons for the rest of the day and, even worse, she’s been disqualified from racing in the track competition at the annual pre-Christmas sports evening tonight. I wasn’t going to race, even though I’m Kit’s running partner on every other occasion, but I was going to be up in the stands praying for her to win, and then jumping up and down with her when she destroyed the egos of everyone who shunned her from the athletics team.
She has to stay back for an extra hour after school, so I go to the library to wait it out for her, and then I promised her a girly evening, even though that means bringing her to Mitch’s house for the first time and that makes me feel really nervous.
Seeing as it’s the end of term I don’t have any assignments left to do, so I decide to freak myself out further by flicking through the college brochures for my chosen schools instead. The thought of starting work long-term in my mom’s chosen field for me makes me feel nauseous – it will be like school all over again, and what if I hate the people? That’s the crux of it: as someone who is not a people person anyway, the thought of working withpeople who I don’t love for the rest of my life makes me… I sigh just thinking about it. It gives me very dark thoughts.
Kit finds me in the library after she’s released from her imprisonment and she gives me a sad hug from behind as I put the catalogues back in the wall holders. I go to put my hand over hers but it feels weirdly hard so I look down at it and instantly scream. I spin around and see that I was being hugged by the life-size skeleton that we used as a decoration at the Halloween dance, only now it’s wearing Kit’s track tank and a floppy Santa hat.
“They were going to recycle it,” Kit explains as she rests her chin on the skeleton’s clavicle.
I try to bring my breathing back to normal and I nod as we exit the library. Even though that thing just gave me palpitations I say, “You did the right thing.”
As we walk across the grounds outside I shield Kit’s eyes so that she doesn’t have to see the mascot, the cheer squad, and the banners being set up for the sports evening tonight, but I can tell that she’s already in better spirits because she’s shielding the skeleton’s “eyes” too.
To make up for the absence of a sporting victory we’re going to have a night full of sugary Christmassy distractions. In all honesty, I think that I might need the distractions more than Kit. Kit is so normal (okay, skeleton-kidnapping aside, she’s sort of normal) that it makes me mad at myself for having such temperamental hormonal fluctuations.
When we get to Mitch’s house I feel really anxious because Kit being here and seeing this as my new home makes it more real. She scopes it out as we ascend the porch with pursed lips.
“So does he live here then?” she asks.
I know who she’s talking about. I shake my head. “No, but he works with his dad, so he is around quite a lot.”
She squeezes her arms around her body and nods, and we drop the subject as we enter the house. I walk into the kitchen where we take off our bags and coats, wash our hands, and then I get milk out of the fridge so that I can warm it up for hot chocolates on the stove.
“Sugar cookies or brownies?” I ask, retrieving chocolate bars and the sugar icing box that I recently stashed in Mitch’s boring protein-powder cupboard last week. I hold them up for Kit to decide.
Kit is emitting little pink hearts when she sees the sugar icing box. “Sugar cookies, please,” she answers, and I think that she’s fully over missing the track event now.
I grab the butter, sugar, flour, and eggs, and I set them on the table before pulling out the mixing bowl from one of the lower cabinets.
“This house is nice,” she comments as she eyes up the kitchen, her aura still aglow with sugar cookie anticipation.
I twist my mouth to the side as I pour in the flour. “I know,” I mutter quietly, and then I smash the blade of my knife into the shell of the egg, cracking it open.
She flicks her eyes back to me. Kit doesn’t know exactly what happened all those years ago, but her female instincts inform her that it doesn’t merit an apology. “You’ll be out of here in less than a year,” she says. I think she said it to console me, but my stomach tightens and I scrunch up my face even more.
