you down. I get that your father just died. I even get you wanting to stay to help Mandy and Leena. But staying much longer…it’s just insanity.”
“You know how I feel about that word,” I told him, my heart hardening ever so slightly.
The first time I’d told a teacher I saw math and science formulas in my head, she’d pulled Jersey aside after school and suggested she take me to a counselor. I was ninety percent sure it was why Jersey had chosen to get a psychology degree. It was her way of protecting me yet again. Lord knew it wasn’t her passion, like making characters from nothing on a page was. Thank goodness Truck had come along and convinced her to follow her heart.
Silas sighed. “I know you hate it, but I’m also coming up empty with an alternative word at the moment. Even if you say I’m not your boyfriend anymore, I’m still your friend, and this choice…it feels rash. A knee-jerk reaction. You need to really think it through.”
He came closer, pulling my hands from the food.
“I’ve stayed because I thought I could make you see reason. I stayed because I love you,” he said, and his voice choked, and I went from mad to sad all over again.
“Si…I honestly believe you think that. But I also believe that once you find the person you’re really supposed to be with, you’ll be glad I ended it.”
He was shaking his head, but I believed it deep in my soul.
The stairs creaked, the guests making their way down.
“I’m sorry, Si,” I told him again.
He turned away. “I’m going out for a little while.”
I hated myself for being relieved that he was walking away.
When he’d shown up the day of Dad’s funeral, he’d thought he was going to stay with me, in my room, but I’d disappointed him yet again by showing him into his own suite. Since then, he’d tried a few times to take my hand, to kiss me, to show affection, and every time, I reminded him we’d broken up. That we wanted separate things.
As Silas left, a man and a woman came into the kitchen. They were an older couple, but they were holding hands, looking at each other as if they were teenagers with their first crush and not seniors with gray hair and wrinkles. They were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary and were so in love it reminded me of Jersey and Truck. Like they couldn’t be without each other for even a few moments without feeling the loss.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel that way about someone again. I certainly hadn’t felt it for Silas. More proof that I was doing the right thing. That it was better for him to go back to California and move on. He deserved what I saw in front of me. What Jersey and Truck had. He deserved someone who got butterflies and goosebumps and couldn’t wait for him to kiss her.
That wasn’t going to be me because I’d turned off those emotions long ago.
As I turned back to the sink, one of the kabobs sticks I’d been using for the fruit rolled off the counter and fell into the slot between it and the refrigerator. My brain swished back five years to a glittery gel pen rolling off into the same place.
I had my head and shoulders wedged in between the cupboard and the fridge, trying to find the pen. It was my favorite pen because it made the chemical formulas I was writing in my journal shimmer and glow. They weren’t normal formulas. They were a secret code. Vanadium plus Bromine because there was no element that was d or da on the periodic table and that would have been way too obvious anyway. Bromine was perfect for the broody boy who’d arrived on our doorstep.
“You’re going to get stuck.” Dawson’s deep voice chuckling at me caused me to jerk and hit my head on the cabinet.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tossed back, sitting on the floor and rubbing a hand on my temple.
“Did you get hurt?”
His smile fizzled away, and just knowing he was concerned made my stupid heart beat at a faster pace. Then, he was there, right next to me, replacing my fingers with his own, rubbing my temple and causing my body to burst into bubbles of joy at the gentle motion. I would willingly have slammed my head against the counter a few more times if it meant he’d continue touching