Page 28 of The Best Kind of Forever
I want to laugh, but that’s the first helpful idea anyone’s given me. “Is that a real book?”
“Yeah, and why areyoureading it?” Casen asks, squinting suspiciously.
Fulton goes to open his mouth, but Gage beats him to it.
“Because he’s in love with the barista who makes him a latte foam heart every time he goes to Deja Brew!” Gage yells, eliciting stares from some of the people around us.
Fulton smacks Gage on the arm so hard he winces. “That wasn’t a secret to share with the class,” he hisses through gritted teeth, glaring daggers at him.
“Aw, does Fully have a little crush?” Kit sings, barking out a laugh when Fulton reaches across Bristol and tries to strangle him.
While Bristol plays peacekeeper, my mind keeps going back to Aeris. I wish I knew what she was thinking right now.
As if she can hear my thoughts, my phone pings in my pocket, and I open it to find a text notification from her.
AERIS:Can we talk?
13
A LEAP OF MUCH-NEEDED FAITH
AERIS
“Am I making the stupidest decision of my life?” I whine, planting my face into a pillow.
I feel Lila’s hand surf over my hair, running some of the strands between her fingers. “You’re scared, love,” she explains in that motherly tone of hers, and when I conjure enough courage to look up at her, her sage eyes are sympathetic.
The sigh that exits me seems much older than I am, like it’s been bottled inside for years. “Why? Why can’t I just give him a chance?” The shakiness of my voice forewarns that I’m seconds away from turning into a sobbing mess.
“It’s scary. Letting people in is scary. Wilder made himself look like a good guy and still broke your trust. And now you have Hayes, who has a bit of a reputation, trying to poke his way through the cracks in your guard. It makes sense that you’d be hesitant.”
It feels like liquid nitrogen is tunneling through my bloodstream and numbing my nerve endings. The rational part of my brain knows not everyone’s out to get me, yet I still believe that a little disappointment in the beginning outweighs a lot of inevitable heartache in the end.
“He’s not a bad guy,” I whisper, not even sure why I can’t say the words out loud. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid to feed that frightened, caged animal inside of me. Because if I feed it, I give it power—I give it a reason to sink its claws deeper into me and never let go.
“I don’t think he is,” Lila concurs.
With a strangled intake of air, I force myself onto my hipbones. Filminess whitens my visions, and my cotton mouth tries to find a single droplet of saliva that will sustain me for the next few minutes. “What would you do in my situation?”
“I’m not you,” Lila coos, and the mollifying ministrations she’s making on my arms are becoming fruitless.
I cycle between sadness, confusion, self-pity, anger, and guilty rumination as the silence bridges between us. Call it my Five Stages.
Sadness: I just want to let him in.
Confusion: Why can’t I get out of my own head?
Self-pity: I’ll never be able to trust him.
Anger: I’m a coward, and I don’t deserve to be loved.
Guilty rumination: I shouldn’t have pulled away that night.
Hugging my arms around my midsection, I squeeze my eyes shut to banish the moisture in them.
I feel the couch cushion shift, then I hear Lila’s footsteps pad somewhere to the left of me. When she comes back, I open my eyes to find a carton of Ben & Jerry’s in her hands.
She has my favorite flavor—chocolate chip cookie dough—and she pops the lid off, scooping a generous mound onto a spoon for me. I’m half-surprised when she lodges it into my mouth without warning, but as soon as it melts on my tongue, it hits the spot right away.
