Page 90 of Spring Awakening

Zach shakes his head. He should have known. “Fuck you, man.”

“Bro, it’ll be good for you.”

“How would you know what’s good for me?” Zach asks. “I’m happy. I am so stupidly fucking happy that I can’t believe I left her at home so I could come and get you when you just—fuck, you let me down every time. I can’t believe you’ve done this to me.”

“Your bird will go with you,” Devon says, like he has any idea what he’s talking about.

Mali doesn’t like long distance, and she won’t leave her parents. She’d be miserable. She said so herself. She can’t go with him—she worked so hard to get this job and her house, and he’s barely been in her life three seconds.

Zach can’t look at Devon anymore. The brother he’s been trying to save is not there. He’s hurt Zach, and he’s hurt Mali in the process. She won’t want to go with him, or she will but she won’t be able to. Zach can’t ask her to make that decision. It’s too early, too much to ask of someone. He’ll tell her he’s not into her like that. He’ll lie, and she might be hurt for a little while, but she won’t shackle herself to him. It’ll be better for her.

“I’m going home,” Zach says, getting off the floor. How is he going to face her? How is he going to tell her he has to leave? He wishes it was three months ago, when he had no idea what any of her expressions meant. He wishes he didn’t know her wellenough to know that she’s going to be broken about it, but she’s going to tell him it’s great for him either way. He wishes for a tiny second that he didn’t love her like this, so when he leaves, he won’t die.

All he wants to know is how to get out of this. He wants to get on his knees and pray, but nothing has ever felt more like religion to him than her. Zach should have known this was never going to end like the movies. There’s no world in which he’d deserve a woman like Mali, and now, he’s not going to get the chance.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Mali screeches around thekitchen to “I’m Every Woman” by Whitney Houston, sliding over the tiles in her fluffy socks. It’s too hot for them now, but she wears them all the same. Buffy glares at her from where he’s lying on the windowsill. He was asleep, as he always is, but Mali has the wooden spoon to her lips as if she’s at a concert, so Buffy has no choice but to entertain her now.

Zach wasn’t here when she woke up this morning, and Mali forgot that the outside world even existed. She thought she lived in the moments between Zach kissing her, ducking out for breath, and kissing her again. She’s not sure she cares about anything else. She will later, when she can barely move because she’s been dancing all morning. It might be because she can finally move her arms above her head, or it’s because she had the best orgasm of all time, or it’s because Zach’s the love of her life.

It might be all three.

She misses him, and it’s stupid. Her phone bleeps with a text, and she pouts when it’s Frankie telling her dinner tonight sounds good, not Zach. Then she feels bad about it. Mali was alittle hurt when Zach wasn’t there this morning, but she’s not mad at him. She just wishes he was around. Maybe that he would have woken her up when he went to training.

If he wants to do it again, which she’s hoping he will, she’ll tell him that. She wonders if he’ll sleep in her room from now on, or maybe she’ll go to his.

Mali preps the dinner with Frankie and Ezra. Frankie asked if he could come, and she had no desire to say no. She thinks it might be easier for Zach too. She’s in the kitchen peeling potatoes when the door finally opens, and a smile blooms on her face so fast she knows Zach is going to call her out on it. She doesn’t run up to him, but she regrets it almost as quickly when he strides to the kitchen like he’s just as excited to see her.

“Hi,” she says, when he comes in. His jaw is tight when she sees him, but she wraps her arms around him anyway. She hooks her chin over his shoulder, and she wonders if she can kiss him now.

“Hi.”

She pulls him closer, and his hands linger around her waist. Something happened.

“What’s wrong?” She pulls back, and his hands stay against her. Zach smiles, but he’s clearly tired. She’s just going to kiss him really quick, and then she’ll figure out what’s wrong. Her nose brushes his, and she pushes up on her toes, but their lips never connect because he moves back. She’ll pretend the gasp was from pain in her ribs, not him. She’s not sure which is true.

Zach takes a step back, his hands floating along her arms until her reaches her hands. She wonders if his mum is hurt. If Devon is back in jail. Her heart lurches for him.

“Mali,” he whispers, holding onto her fingers. “We shouldn’t have done that yesterday.”

She frowns. “What? Zach, I’m fine.”

“You’re a relationship girl,” he says, and she drops her hands.

Oh.

“What?” she asks, even though his hidden words are clear. It makes no sense. He used to be a casual guy, but not with her. He wasn’t supposed to be casual with her.

“You’re—” He’s not looking at her. He starts pacing. He’s lying. She knows he’s lying because she knows him, but he’s not meant to lie to her.

“Relationships are for you, and they’re not for me, and we shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”

She knew he was casual about as well as he knows how important sex is to her. How she can’t sleep with anyone she doesn’t feel something with. How she asked him to stay forever, and the next morning he was gone, and she didn’t make the connection because Zach would never do that to her. How there’s never been a single thought in her head that Zach would use her like this. Does he tell other girls that they’re everything? Does he imagine his children with their hair? Did he only tell her those things to get into her pants?

“So why did it happen?” she asks. She clenches her jaw until it hurts, but it stops the tears forming, as she hoped it would. He looks at her, and he looks so much like her Zach. She takes a deep breath as he opens and closes his mouth while he thinks of a lie to tell her.

“You were hurt.”

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