Page 39 of The Sun
“Yep. Figured as much.” He interlocked his fingers and raised his arms over his head, the stretch causing his biceps to flex.
It was strange seeing him in front of my closet all grown up with a five-o clock shadow and tattoos. Strange and tempting and devastating at all the same time. I wanted to bury my face in his chest and breathe in his scent. I wanted to right all the wrong, make him unable to ignore me.
A million questions swirled in my head, but out of them all, the most pressing slipped through my lips in a barely audible plea for an I love you: “Why did you stay?”
“To make sure you were safe.” He rolled a shoulder like it was nothing, but it was everything in that moment. Because he still cared. Just like when I thought he hated me as a child, he cared.
My breath snagged in my throat. I wanted to say so many things: I miss you. I love you. Please. . . But all that came out was a garbled, “Thanks.”
“Sure thing.”
When he stood, I sat up, squinting as I fought the throbbing in my skull. “Wait! Don’t leave.”
“So. . .” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost six, and I’m not trying to get shot today.” He moved to the window and flipped the lock.
The old, wooden frame groaned when he lifted the sash.
“I don’t like this.”
“It is what it is, Sunny.” He wouldn’t even look at me now.
“Bullshit!”
“Don’t start. Not this morning. I barely got any sleep,” he said, and tears stung my eyes. “I just wanna go home before your dad catches me and—” His gaze met mine, and his expression softened to one I remembered all too well. One that said I care, and you mean something.
He moved away from the window, stopping at the side of my bed. “This isn’t easy.”
“Then why are you doing it?” I whispered.
“Because I’m no good for you, and I know it. Because I care too much about you.”
“What the hell?” My throat burned, begging to cry or scream, wanting anything that showed the turmoil churning inside me. “What are you talking about?”
“You and me, Sunny. We’re from two different worlds, all right? I don’t belong in your world. And you sure as shit don’t need to be drug into mine.”
His lips pressed into a thin, hard line as he studied my face. I fought the burning in my chest when he tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.
“In another life though. In another life, I would’ve done better, and you’d be mine. I promise.”
Pots and pans clanged in the kitchen below.
The stench of burnt coffee wafted underneath the door, and a wrinkle creased his brow, his eyes searching mine before he pressed his lips to my forehead. “It’s because I love you that I can’t be selfish.”
My vision swam behind tears, and I grappled for a word, any word. Something, but my chest was so tight everything I tried to say remained lodged in my throat. He stepped to the window and threw his legs, one after the other, over the ledge. I closed my eyes, so I didn’t have to watch him leave, and I pretended that come Monday, he would change his mind.
After he left through my window, just like Peter Pan, I sat in my bed, just like Wendy. The warm August breeze puffed the sheer curtains for a good half an hour, and I cried off and on before I went to the bathroom and headed down the stairs.
Momma was at the sink washing dishes, and I kissed her cheek on my way to the cabinet to grab a coffee mug, the one with a cat’s face painted on it and a tiny chip in the handle.
“Need help?” I asked even though I felt like I may pass out at any second. Pushing through a hangover was a rite of passage that I was determined to conquer that particular day.
She smiled. “No, honey. Thank you.”
After I poured myself a cup—half filled with milk—I flopped down at the table across from Daddy who was hidden behind the newspaper.
Simon sprinted into the kitchen, circling around the table while singing the Barney song before darting back into the hallway.
Sometimes I envied him for being that age. Life was so much less complicated at seven.
