Page 20 of Love at First Sighting
All right, then, I lust to myself.
The mountains are quiet, aside from a distant rush of cars and the lap of ocean waves. The air is colder here, breezes nipping at my bare legs. He rounds the car and meets me on the other side. Before we begin our ascent, I pause. I want to show him where it happened, and I’m hoping he’ll have answers and we can prove Ididsee something. Maybe then people will care. But I’m terrified. There’s a thumping ache in my chest and an urge to cry, because all I want is for everything to go back to reality.
Back to a reality where I posted about shampoo and makeup and smoothies, where I’d be doing an Instagram Live with Bex to apologize for my meltdown.
Back to a reality where no one cares at all…
Do I even want that?
“El,” Carter says, resting a hand on my arm. His touch is tender and the tone of his voice softens—zero swagger, zero intimidation. “Are you okay?”
I don’t pull away and try to run from him this time. He isn’t judging me for being scared, because at one point, that’d been him, too. What he went through is so much worse. Who am I to complain?
Silly little rich girl doesn’t get sponsored toothpaste anymore? No one is going to care.
“Iknowhow scary it was.”
“And you’re fine,” I sigh.
“To be fair, there’s a lot of years of therapy to thank for that.” He slips his hat off and sets it on top of his car.
“That’s…emotionally healthy of you.”
Carter’s eyes dart away. “My uncle who took me in—he, uh…he was tired of me waking up with nightmares.”
There’s sadness in his voice, but the kind he’s lived with and coped with for long enough that it barely hurts. Or at least he’s convinced himself it doesn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I say back.
“Me, too. You don’t have to feel bad for being afraid—”
“It was something stupid. I mean, I’m fine. Nothing really happened. It could have been way worse. I don’t know why it keeps lingering with me. I just want to forget about it.” My eyes water and I will not cry in front of Carter, but the weight of the past few days is so immense.
“It wasn’t stupid. What happened to you wasreal.” Carter props an elbow on the roof of the car and holds my gaze. “It might not be as bad as it could have been, but we don’t get tochoose what leaves scars on us. We don’t always decide what leaves a mark.”
I swallow the tears building in my throat and glance up at him. His eyes are heavy with compassion. I follow where his hand rests on the car’s roof, up his dark sleeves and over his broad shoulders.
“What are you thinking about?” His voice is a whisper, a secret for the two of us, even if no one’s around.
As much as I fight it, a single tear drips out of the corner of my eye. I wipe it away as quickly as I can. “Just the irony that the first person to believe me is the person who got sent to shut me up.”
“I didn’t get sent,” he says with a grin.
“What?”
“I chose this assignment. When I saw your video, I went and fought for this one.”
I swallow as Carter drops his arm and tosses his hat onto the front seat. “I bet you regret choosing this job.”
With a low laugh, he nods. “Oh, I totally do.”
I deflate.
“I would have picked someone who didn’t have me running all over LA, outsmarting me. Someonewayless cunning than you.”
I smile, too.Cunningis the last word anyone uses to describe me. I getbeautiful, I getsocial media savvy, I getphotogenic. No one cares what’s going on in my brain, and that’s been okay for so long. I forgot how nice it might feel for someone to notice I’m more than a pretty face.
“Hey, Ididstop posting about the UFO.”
