Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,35

made the mistake of showing her face. She might as well have had the letter ‘A’ stapled onto herself.”

Nelson absorbed the verbal hits though not without wincing at each one. “Look,” Nelson shot back, “I know you think she’s little Miss Perfect, but she’s the reason we’re all tied up in this mess. If she hadn’t…”

“Hadn’t what?” Greg asked, his voice going deathly steady. “Hadn’t done what every one of us has done? Made stupid decisions trying to get someone, anyone to love us? Tell me, Nels. Tell me you haven’t done stupid things to try to get someone to be in love with you. Tell me!”

Greg’s gaze jumped past the guys over to the outer wall of the student center where the girls stood in a knot watching from a safe distance. Their faces said all of it—the fear, the worry, the sadness, the embarrassment. This wasn’t helping anything.

He shook his head, not really needing an answer. “You know what? It is what it is. It’s just… if you’re going to fire that stone at her, make sure you’ve got a right to judge her first.”

With that, he got in his car and left them all standing in the halo of the amber street light. He hadn’t meant for it to go down like that, and certainly not at the student center chapel. But it had, and there was nothing he could do to change it now.

As he drove, he realized he would have to go in tomorrow before work and apologize to Pastor Dave and Merel. He shouldn’t have lost it like that. He should have at least waited until they got home to have it out with them.

His thoughts turned then to Taylor, and his heart flipped hard. This was all his fault. He should have told them, or been there when she got there. Something. Something so she wouldn’t have faced that alone. What he should have done or could have done, he wasn’t even sure when he thought about it, but something…

At the next stoplight, his place was forward, but hers was back the other way. He knew if he let this go, it would be the end of them, the end of her ever trusting him again. The end of everything.

Flipping on his turn signal, he went across three lanes of traffic and around the turnaround under the bridge. She might not even talk to him, but he had to at least try.

There was no feeling left in her when Taylor got to the dorm door only to find it locked with a hair-tie on it. She knew well enough what that meant, and it was nothing good for her. This was going to get old, fast.

She’d just sat down in the little lounge area, too spent to even cry about any of it, when her phone buzzed. Taking it out, she shook her head. “Greg… give it up already.” Hitting the on button, she sat back. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Greg said, and she heard the worry in his voice. “Listen, I’m sorry about that.”

Readjusting her shirt and flipping at her braid, she settled into the couch. “It’s fine, Greg. Really.”

“Can we talk?”

“Greg…”

“No, Taylor, please. Can we just talk? I’m here.”

“Here?”

“I’m at your dorm. I’m down front.”

“What? Why?”

“Because we need to talk, that’s why,” he said, and she heard his car door slam.

“Greg…”

“I know, I get it, you don’t want to talk. I know you’re fine, and don’t worry about it and all of that. I get it. But I don’t want to leave things like this. Not like this.”

Taylor sighed.

“Look, I’m downstairs, in the lobby. Please, Taylor. Please, don’t blow me off.”

What other choice was there? “Fine.”

Worried beyond words to articulate it, Greg stood at the exact midpoint of the intersection in the lobby so he could see her no matter which way she came from. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but the sad, lonely figure huddled over herself that he caught sight of coming down the hallway to his left ripped his heart out and trampled all over what was left of it. “Tay.”

He met her where the wing met the lobby, and without a word, he gathered her to him. “I am so sorry.”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“That was all wrong. It was wrong of me to invite you knowing they were going to be like that.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

Oh, but he could have, and he should have. He didn’t remove his arm from around her, whether to hold