Page 59 of I Would Stay Forever
I pulled away for a second to take a gasping breath and brush my hair out of my face. Dean stared back at me with swollen lips, which only made the sight of him in his jersey that much hotter. I glanced at the time on my phone.
“Three minutes until the bell,” I told him breathlessly. Five minutes wasn’t enough. An hour wouldn’t even be enough. I could have a whole day open in front of us and I would still be annoyed that it wasn’t a full week—I would always need more of him.
Without a word, I pulled him back in. I hadn’t caught my breath yet but I was pretty sure I would never be able to catch my breath when Dean was around. The kiss was more urgent now, now that we both knew the very limited time we had and damn it, we were going to make the most of it.
A muffled shout echoed across the field somewhere and we both froze, pulling away just enough to not be touching. Whennothing else came, Dean laughed softly and went in again. I met him halfway, locking our lips together, then shifted my grip on his jersey, pulling him just a little closer. He kissed the corner of my mouth, then the other side, then came back to center like he didn’t want to stop. If I had my way, we would never stop doing this.
Just him and me and all the secrets we kept between us.
“I think tonight will be when I make my move,” Zoey said as we waited in our favorite pizza place after school. Molly and Paige had gone next door to get us snacks from the convenience store while Zoey and I came to get the food to takeout, then we would all meet up to eat before we went to the football game. “After the game, I’ll just walk right up to him and say, ‘Jackson, I have feelings for you. I think we should go out.’”
“Very bold,” I commented.
“Well, I need to be bold if I’m ever going to have a boyfriend again.” She sighed, twirling her hair around her finger. She froze, looking at something through the window, her face hardening. Her free hand came to grab my wrist and I frowned. I looked out the window as well, but whatever it was she saw wasn’t visible to me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Is that your Dad?” she asked softly. My heart leapt into my throat. Zoey knew about the divorce, but she didn’t know that I hadn’t spoken to my dad outside of the day at the Urgent Care or why we’d run into him in the alleyway that night. There was no reason for her to react this much to just seeing him—not unless he was doing something now.
I steeled myself then moved to step behind Zoey so I could see what she could through the window. It was my dad all right. Him and the woman I’d seen with him that night. They were leaning up against her car, and though they weren’t kissing now, it was obvious they had been at one point, with his tie so loose and lipstick smeared along his face. My stomach turned, just as the pizza guy called out that our order was ready. Neither of us reacted like we’d heard him.
“Lavender…” Zoey whispered to me. “What’s he doing with her?”
My eyes burned and I wished so desperately that I could explain this whole situation away. I wished I could say that I knew who this woman was and that my dad would never have had an affair with her, but what excuse could I give?
“We should go,” I said in a rough voice. I broke my gaze away from the window and turned to the counter where the two pizza boxes were waiting. The worker, who didn’t look much older than us, watched me with concern, but he didn’t say anything as I took the boxes and stiffly walked out of the shop. Molly was standing by the car, but Paige was nowhere to be seen, which meant we couldn’t leave yet.
“Do you know who that woman was?” Zoey asked me as she rushed to keep up with my fast strides. “Why was he with her? They only got divorced last month. Has he already moved on?”
They were fair questions, and she probably thought I would know more than I actually did since she didn’t realize I hadn’t had a real conversation with him in nearly two months. But I wasn’t in the mood for explaining any of this right now. I wasn’t even sure if I planned to tell her about this at all. Maybe it made me a bad friend, but a part of me was hoping to keep this a secret for the rest of the year. I didn’t want to have to admit that my dad had an affair, that he and I never spoke, that my once perfectfamily had come apart at the seams. But in his usual acts of late, he’d come along and ruined my plans.
The smart thing to do would be leaving. Get in the car, wait for Paige, and then drive off without acknowledging what happened. I could make up something to Zoey about how my dad had started going on dates and that I was pretty sure my parents knew they were planning to divorce before they told us so he hadn’t actually moved on too fast. But I was tired of trying to protect him. Tired of having to keep all my feelings in. Tired of pretending that this wasn’t bothering me. So as Paige started walking up to the car with another bag of goodies, I didn’t get in the driver’s seat. I shoved the pizzas into Zoey’s arm and said, “I’ll be back.”
I stormed over, stomping my feet along the pavement of the car park. A piece of me hoped that he would hear me coming, that he would stop and realize. But as I walked up, it was obvious that he hadn’t. He was standing even closer to her now, cupping his hands around her face and whispering something to her. I was tempted to walk up and just slam his hands away, but before I could even consider acting on that impulse, he noticed me standing there and jumped away from her like she was on fire.
“Sorry,” I said in a tone of ice. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
The woman looked at me then at him with a hesitant look on her face. I wondered if she recognized me from that night. I wondered if he’d told her who I was or if he tried to keep his family life a secret from her entirely. Did she know he’d been married when they started going out? That he had four children at home that he abandoned so he could be with her?
“Lavender,” Dad said. Being called by my full name instead of Lovey, even though I knew it was exactly what I had asked of him, was like a shot in the chest. He finally pulled his hands offthe woman completely and straightened his tie. “What are you doing here?”
“This is the closest plaza to my school,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Why are you here?”
He looked deeply uncomfortable and I was glad. There were only two reasons I could think of that he would come here, knowing where it was, and neither of them were ones I was happy with—either he’d planned to see one of us or he didn’t think of us enough for it to occur to him that he might.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. It wasn’t genuine. It was because he didn’t know what else to say, and that only served to make me angrier.
“Why can’t you just accept that we don’t want to see you?” I snapped. “Is that so hard for you to get through your brain? You ruined our family and you didn’t even bother to try to stick around to make it better.”
“Your mother?—”
“This isn’t about Mum!” I was yelling now. I was sure other people must have been looking our way to see what was going on, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. “Don’t you dare speak about her ever again or try to use her as an excuse. You cheated on her, not the other way around.”
“She didn’t want me to speak to you!”
“I don’t care!” I yelled back. My voice cracked on the last word, although it was true. I was sure he’d been using that as his excuse all this time, that Mum asked and he was being a good man by honoring her wishes when he hadn’t bothered to during their marriage, but ultimately, it was his own choice to stay away from us. He could have fought her decision, if she even said it at all. “You could have seen us if you wanted to and you didn’t. So don’t try to change that now—just leave and don’t come back. We don’t want you here anymore!”
He made a choking sound and stepped forward like he was going to put a hand on my shoulder or brush my cheek the way he used to. I didn’t give him the chance as I spun on my heel and ran, unable to stop the tears from falling down my cheeks. I swiped at them as best I could as I came up to my friends, but I was sure it was obvious regardless. Nobody said anything as I unlocked the car and ducked in the driver’s seat. They all just followed suit in their own seats. Paige didn’t even fight Zoey for the passenger seat like she normally would. Just as I was about to reverse out of the spot, Molly’s hand appeared by me—her nails painted blue and silver in honour of the game—and opened to reveal some pink Starburst sweets. My favorite. I sniffled and took them.
