Page 21 of Love Me Boldly

What in the world was I supposed to do withthat?

SIX

HOLLY

February slowly turned to March and with it, the hope of spring. Most days, I left my winter coat in the car and was able to survive with a heavy sweatshirt. Occasionally, I was carrying the sweatshirt by the afternoon and soaking in the warmth of the sun in just a T-shirt.

It had been over three weeks since that first date with Graham, and I was no longer surprised when he popped up at random times and random places, always knowing exactly where to find me.

Odd, because whenever I looked around the campus, I never saw him. He was a ghost who appeared and vanished at will, while also becoming so real to me sometimes my chest squeezed with a pain so severe I feared a heart attack.

Tracey assured me this was what happened when you started liking someone for the first time. Your brain went a little haywire, your hormones ran amok, and all the sensible and safe choices you spent your entire life making somehow started to seem too constricting.

If I could have, I would have stopped this falling for Graham train weeks ago, turned down that first date, and never stepped foot on campus again. Liking him left me feeling more self-conscious and more suspicious than I ever had in my life. Which said quite enough.

But there were flags, as I called them, popping up. He was almost always out of town on the weekends. We saw each other off campus, but aside from him randomly walking me to a class every couple of days, I never saw him. I spent one night at his apartment, one he lived inaloneof all things, and after we ordered pizza and watched a movie, he walked me to my car and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Drive safe,” he’d whispered, like he wasn’t basically kicking me out of his apartment by nine o’clock on a Thursday—prime college getting ready to go out time.

There was the fact he still hadn’t told me how he got my schedule, but he somehow always had an answer when I asked and smoothly changed the subject.

And yet he texted. All the time. Morning, afternoon, night. Weekends he was out of town, where he didn’t tell me where he was except that he hadthings to do. One was a trip with some friends. One weekend he had to go to Raleigh, and I assumed that meant home, but then he never said anything about it except that it was good. Or exhausting.

Closet full of secrets. That’s what he called them.

Like called to like, I supposed, because I hadn’t exactly opened up to him and let him read my entire life story. Our time was spent laughing and teasing. Walking to class. All very middle-school, G-rated behavior.

And wasn’t that alone a strange thing?

Was he…just becoming my friend?

All of it left me antsy and anxious, and at the diner yesterday, I’d gotten three orders wrong. I started letting some boy into my head, and all of a sudden my critical-thinking skills were misfiring.

Which meant it was probably time to bring this ridiculousness to an end. He had to be having fun with me, playing some game.

He seemed genuine when we were together—and even through the texts—but that wasn’t enough.

It’d be simpler, easier for me for sure, and for Tracey because she wouldn’t have to hear me whine about it anymore if I just ended it.

I could block him. Clean break. That alone would tell him all he needed to know.

I was done.

Surely we hadn’t spent nearly enough time together to owe each other more explanations….

“Hey! Holly!”

I looked around, but I didn’t recognize anyone, so I turned back and kept walking.

Footsteps thundered behind me on the cement, and I straightened my back. We were on campus, and it was midday, but I still gripped the straps of my backpack in case I needed to fling it at someone.

“Hey. Holly, right? You’re Holly?”

I stopped then as a guy with labored breath slowed down as he neared me.

“Who are you?” I stopped and turned to face him.

He glanced back and forth up and down the sidewalk and shoved a hand through his chocolate brown hair. “I’m Eli. A friend of Graham’s.”

“If you’re looking for him, I don’t know where he is.”

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