Page 92 of Infinite as They Come
Me and her dad had come a long way over the years, but it was hard to forget how things used to be with us. Him shooting me glares when I showed up at the front door with flowers to pick Holly up for our dates. Allthose not so subtle snide remarks when Holly was still busy getting ready in her room and I had to awkwardly wait in the living room. Those handful of times Holly had managed to convince her dad to let me hang out at their place for a few hours on the weekend, and how we’d sit glued together while we watched a movie with my arm wrapped around her and her head on my shoulder, and how he’d walk into the room with an eye roll and a scoff.
It wasn’t all that long ago, but things had changed for the better. We’d never be best friends. Would never hit up the country club for a few rounds of golf or whatever the hell rich guys did there. But we got along, we did more than tolerate each other, and it meant a lot to me that he trusted me with his daughter. That he believed I could look after her, keep her safe, love her. That was all I ever wanted to do, and now I was here messing it up.
As I drove, I remembered that look in Holly’s eyes when we were at the diner yesterday. Hurt. It had been hurt looking back at me, and I had been responsible for it. It made me hiss, made me cling to the steering wheel tighter, my hand itching and aching for her thigh to touch and grab and gently stroke my thumb against. She should have been with me. We should have been in that damn home if I could justfucking find it already.
I had made it halfway between Austin and Dallas when I heard the lightest of rumbles, but I knew enough about cars to know that any rumble wasn’t a good one. My eyes snapped to the dashboard for a second, tensing up in my seat.
“Don’t do it,” I said as if the truck could understand me. “Don’t do it. Not now. Come on. Please don’t do it.” Giving the top of the dashboard a few gentle pats, I pretended like I hadn’t heard it. That rumble went in one ear and out the other, my foot secure on the pedal as I traveled further down the road. It was mostly empty and I had passed by maybe only three or four cars in the last few minutes. A few trees bordered the roads, but it was mostly open space. Airy and bright. The kind of place me and Holly would have come to.
It had all been meant for her. All that hard work, those long hours she spent in our tiny New York apartment with a book in her hand, eyes all hazy and tired as she studied. I thought about that email. That offer. They hadasked her, offered her that job on a silver platter. I hissed a little. I didn’t want to ever keep that away from her.
The rumbling of the engine snapped me out of my thoughts. It was louder this time. Too loud. It was the kind of sound you weren’t supposed to ignore, but there I was, an hour and a half away from the love of my life, and all I knew was that I had to push on.
And then I saw the smoke. A soft grey seeping out of the engine, while that rumbling noise just tripled, getting louder and louder until my ears were met with a creak, and then the truck started to slow.
“No, no, no,” I muttered. “Don’t fucking do it.”
But it did it. Right there, in the middle of fucking nowhere, it did it. The truck came to a slow, lazy stop, the grumbling fading, fading, fading, until I heard nothing. Not a thing.
“Christ, fuck me,” I snapped, hopping out of the truck. Rolling up the sleeves of my flannel shirt, I popped the hood, instantly hit with too much smoke. When that slowly disappeared into the air, I took a good look at the engine. It didn’t look like a blown head gasket or the transmission. If I was lucky, it was just a loose spark plug, and I’d be out of here in a little while.
Digging my phone out of my pocket, I rolled my eyes when I saw there was no reception. Of course. Sounded about right. I shut the hood with a grunt and killed the engine. I needed a phone, and by the look of things, I’d have to walk around for a little while to get it. I’d walk all day and night for Holly, though.
I began my journey down the road, letting the sun hit me hard, my skin burning the more I moved. I deserved that shit. I walked and walked, eyes squinting when I finally saw a sign that told me the next town was only a ten minute drive away. That meant maybe a half hour walk for me. Again, I deserved that.
I found the first sign of life a good ten minutes later. It was a driveway, a dirt road leading to my left. The white wooden fence was shut, but it was too hot and I was too pissed off at myself to care, so I figured I’d just take the risk. It was only then that I realized how quiet the area was. I hadn’t heard a car in a good while. There were just a few birds squawking in thedistance, the sound of the hot wind in the air. It calmed my nerves down that tiny bit.
The more I moved, the clearer the building in front of me got. A house. One of those old ass farmhouses—I knew the exact type, the exact name, because I had looked at a million of them by now. Hopefully someone was inside and I could use their phone. It was a simple, one-story building with a big porch that wrapped around the front and a few oak trees sprawled around the front yard. Despite how old the house looked, it still seemed like it was in pretty good condition. Decent looking paneling covered the front, white and bright under the sun.
It was when I pressed just one shoe to the first stair that I realized I had wasted my time, though. Right there in one of the windows was a sign I hadn’t seen earlier.For Sale.
I grunted, hands pushing through my hair as I spun around. God fucking damn. Of course. My hands lowered to my face as I leaned back against the closed, wooden door. No truck that worked, no phone that had reception, no help, no good fucking luck, but when had I ever had it?
Holly was the only sign of that. She was the best thing in my life. Bright, warm, beautiful. So beautiful. Sometimes I wondered if she knew she was the most beautiful girl in the world. That not a single person could hold a candle to her. That I saw her in my mind in an instant when I stood in front of a canvas. My first thought was to always paint her, and I still always imagined her there in my mind when I was making something else. I saw Holly in every sunset. Every starry sky. Every bit of land that went on forever and ever. I saw her in ripples of rivers. Every looming tree dressed in lush leaves. Every stream of sunlight that poured in through the window. Every stroke of the brush against canvas, every color, every detail—it all came back to her. I was lucky as hell, actually. I had the brightest thing in the world. Even better, I got to be hers. I got to be Holly’s, and she got to be mine. I had my mom too. I had Spencer and Kurt. I had family. I had Holly’s love, and that was the best thing in the fucking world. I hadeverything.
My hands pulled away from my face and pushed back some hair that had fallen in my eyes, letting me see a little clearer. There was so much openspace here, and for a second, I let it calm me down so I could breathe again. It had that crisp blue sky, not a single cloud above me. The blanket of green grass. The area at the front that would be perfect for planting all those daisies Holly liked picking when she was a kid. The empty spot on the porch to my left that I could perfectly imagine one of those swings. Me sitting there, Holly laying down, her head on my lap while I moved my fingers through her hair.
For the first time today, my heart started racing in a good way. Hand on the railing, I quickly moved down the stairs and made my way to the back. It was just as beautiful out there with more mountains and trees in the distance that I could imagine painting, and then there it was: the only good thing I had seen all day right in the middle of the yard.
“No fucking way,” I muttered.
Chapter 25
Holly
I was in Dallas just a little while after the sun rose.
It was nice to be back, to be in familiar streets and pass by buildings I could draw—badly—off by heart. The mall. The library. The restaurant Sawyer took me to on our first date. My heart ached, guilt sweeping over me there in the back seat of the cab. One hand reaching up, I grabbed that necklace that sat there against my chest every second of the day. I didn’t ever want to take it off. My fingers gave the little pendant a squeeze as the driver rounded a corner into Highland Park. In a few minutes, I’d be back at my parents’ place.
There was a reason why I didn’t bring much with me. Just my purse, my phone, some cash. The basics. I had every intention of going back to the motel at the end of the day, it was just that in the meantime, I needed a little wisdom. The kind you could only get from the people who knew you from the second you came into the world.
I felt awful leaving, though. I hadn’t done it to hurt Sawyer. I hadn’t done it to end things, because that was the last thing I wanted. Sawyer was my forever, my only future, the person I was meant to spend every last one of my days with. I had given him space and time. Me being patient wasn’t the problem. It was everything else. And I could handle all of that: him being gone all day, the sneakiness, the phone calls, the secrecy.ThatI could tolerate. It was him lying right to my face that had made my chest feel all sore.
I thanked and paid the cab driver who had brought me back to the house I used to call home. It was still home, really. I guess you were allowed to have more than one. The cab driver took off, and I let the sound of his rumbling engine fade into nothing before I moved up the steps. It was a little after nine on a Saturday, so my parents would be up. My dad especially. He wasn’t good at sleeping in.
Knocking at the door, I let my foot tap against the cement below me, waiting to hear that clicking sound. When it hit my ears, I looked up to see the door open, my father standing before me.
“Holly.” He smiled wide, eyes scanning behind me. “How’d you—”
