I clapped my hands and rubbed them together for warmth. If I had known we’d be outside this long, I would have brought gloves. It turned out Artie had a pair of leather gloves in his pocket, but he put them on his own hands.
My glutton-for-punishment brain insisted that he would have given me his gloves. Heck, he would have given me the shirt off his back if he thought I might have need of it.
“So, where to next?” I asked. My eyes darted hopefully over to the Chinese restaurant.
“Back to campus. I have a real treat in store for you.”
I tried to plaster an enthusiastic smile on my face. “That’s . . . great.”
On the long walk back to campus, Artie talked about himself. He spoke about his childhood and family. He described all the awards he had won and mentioned that he was president of five clubs, including the chess club. He never asked one question about me. I would have been shocked if he even knew my last name.
My mind wandered to a conversation with a very different man.
I heard his warm, hypnotic voice very clearly. Suddenly, I was standing under a tree. The tree where I’d said good-bye. The tree where I’d last gazed into his cobalt blue eyes. The cold, chafing wind of Oregon dropped far away, and I felt a balmy Indian summer breeze blow softly through my hair. The gray overcast evening faded, and I was looking up at twinkling stars in a night sky. He touched my face and spoke.
“Kelsey, the fact is . . . I’m in love with you. And I have been for some time. I don’t want you to leave. Please . . . please . . . please . . . tell me you’ll stay with me.”
He was so beautiful, like a warrior-angel sent from heaven. How could I have denied him anything, especially when all he wanted was me?
“I want to give you something. It’s an anklet. They’re very popular here, and I got this one so we’d never have to search for a bell again.”
My ankle tingled as I remembered his fingers brushing against it.
“Kells, please. I need you.”
How could I leave him?
My mind snapped back to the present, and I struggled to contain the strong emotions that surfaced when I allowed myself to think about him. As Artie droned on about how he’d won the debate championship single-handedly, I berated myself for allowing my thoughts to take me to a dangerous place. The fact was, even if I was having second thoughts about my choice to leave, he hadn’t called. That proved that I made the right decision, didn’t it? If he really loved me as much as he said he did, he would have tried to contact me. He would have pursued me. He would have come for me. He needed space. I was right to leave him. Maybe now I could start healing and let him go.
I wrenched my attention back to Artie and made a real effort to listen to his conversation. There was absolutely no way Artie was the right guy for me—or for any girl for that matter, but that didn’t mean I was out of options. I still had a date with Jason tomorrow and one with Li next week.
When Artie and I arrived back on campus, my stomach was growling so loudly that it could be heard within a three-block radius. I seriously hoped that we would be eating at the campus café soon.
He led me to the Hamersly Library media center, asked for two headsets, and gave the lady a paper. Then, he pushed two wooden chairs in front of a six-inch, black-and-white television in the corner of the media section.
“Isn’t this a great idea? We can watch a movie, and I don’t have to spend a dime!” He grinned while my mouth dropped open. “It’s very clever, don’t you think?”
I pursed my lips. “Oh, it’s clever alright.”
I quickly shut my mouth after that and bit back a sarcastic reply. Did he think girls actually liked to be treated this way? It wasn’t that a date had to be expensive or that any money had to be spent at all. What annoyed me was that Artie was smug about everything and he didn’t think his dates were important enough to listen to. I felt disgusted and hungry. As the movie started, he slipped giant gray earphones over his ears and pointed to mine.