Page 30 of I Would Stay Forever
“Mum,” I said, cutting her off with a nervous laugh, “it’s Dean’s shirt. He just lent it to me because I spilled a drink on mine. Mine’s still out in his car. Totally innocent, nothing like…that.”
“Oh!” Mum flushed now and laughed, looking relieved. “Oh, I’m sorry, honey. You kids are just getting older and you never know.”
I was sure my face was still bright red and I couldn’t look her in the eyes, but I tried to laugh it off as well. At least she actually believed me, instead of assuming I was lying and pushing forward anyway.
“Trust me, I’m nowhere near doing…that.” I couldn’t bring myself to say the wordsexin front of my mum, even if it was just to reassure her I wasn’t having it. “That’s not happening anytime soon.”
The TV switched back from the commercial to the film and I let out a sigh of relief at the save. I turned to face the TV better and within minutes got sucked into the story, the premise of which I’d guessed correctly.
It was an hour later—when the Big City Woman’s horrible Stick-Up-His-Butt Fiancé showed up in the small town to “save” her and she realized she didn’t love him anymore—when the front door opened again. A moment later, Sebastian walked into the room, looking as dead tired as I was. He didn’t even say anything in greeting as he walked in and dropped onto the couch between Mum and me. He had a to-go cup clutched in his hand and I stole it from him to take a sip, the taste of a semi-melted chocolate milkshake coating my tongue.
“How was the team building?” I asked him when the film switched to commercial again. He just groaned and I laughed. “That bad?”
“Freshmen,” was all he responded with. Mum and I both laughed. Sebastian slouched back into the couch and frowned at the TV. “What are you watching?”
“Right now?” I asked, glancing at the commercial. “A commercial for a bar of soap. It’s really riveting stuff, don’t you think?”
He chuckled softly but didn’t respond. The film started back up again a second later and we all fell silent to watch the end of it. I was half-expecting Sebastian to yell about love being a lie again since it had only been a day since the break-up, but he must have been truly exhausted because he didn’t say anything.
By the end of the night, Sebastian’s head had fallen onto my mo Mum’s shoulder and I was slumped half on him and half against the couch cushions, similar to how we’d ended the night yesterday after the break-up party. It had been so long since I’d spent time with my family like this that the shift to it happening two nights in a row was a little jarring, even if I did love it. I wasn’t expecting it to feel so sudden, the move from the broken family to this new one. It felt like we were finding a new normal, a new balance.
I wondered if maybe I could find the new Lavender in me too. Heal myself the way my family healed, and stop being the version of myself that was just continually reacting based on what happened in July. Maybe I could become a new version of myself—happy Lavender. Somebody just enjoying her senior year of high school, without any other cares in the world. And then, when the time came at the end of the school year, I would leave—but this way, with happy memories of the place I’d lived in for the last five years.
The bathroom was filled with so much steam that I could barely see as I stepped out of the shower. Day one of being New Happy Lavender was off to a spectacular start so far. Today was supposed to be one of the last hot days of the year, so Mum was getting us takeout from our favorite brunch place while Sebastian was picking up Imogen and Ainsley from theirslumber party, and then we were all going to the beach as a family.
I wrapped my towel around myself and put on my favourite pair of fuzzy slippers before stepping out in the hall, mentally debating which swimsuit I wanted to wear. I’d left the radio on in my room, so as I came down the hallway, I could hear the opening chords of that song I was currently obsessed with—you know, the one I kept saying I was tired of but had played approximately forty-seven times this week alone. I smiled to myself and picked up the pace, still slightly damp and fully feeling like a glowing, citrus-scented version of the girl I was trying to become this year.
New Happy Lavender. The kind of girl who actually used her expensive body lotion instead of saving it for some vague, mythical “special occasion.”
I turned the corner, halfway through a mental debate between the coral bikini or the navy one with the little daisies, and slammed into something solid.
Not something. Someone.
I screamed at the top of my lungs. He yelled something that I couldn’t make out. I stumbled backwards, clutching my towel and begging it not to fall. The only thing worse than somebody breaking into your house had to be somebody breaking into your house andseeing you naked. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Lock myself back in the bathroom until Sebastian got home? Or?—
“I’m not looking! I swear, I’m not looking!”
I froze, the scream dying in my throat as I realized what I was looking at. A boy with dark, messy hair, his eyes squeezed shut, and his hands were held up as if he were surrendering to the police.
My entire soul left my body.
“Dean?” I squeaked. “What—why—how are you here?”
“Sebastian told me everyone was out of the house,” he said, his eyes still squeezed so tight that it looked painful. “So I thought it would be a good time to come return your shirt.”
My eyes drifted to his left hand, where the white shirt I’d worn to the party yesterday was being held in a death-grip. I did tell him to make sure Sebastian didn’t see him dropping it off, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
“So you decided to break into my house while I was naked?”
“Well, I didn’t know you were naked!”
Even though I was the one to say it first, hearing him say I was naked right now sent a whole new wave of mortification over me.
“I’m not naked!” I snapped. “I mean, not really.”
Dean grimaced but still didn’t open his eyes. “Okay, but you kind of are.”
“I’m wearing a towel.”
