Page 20 of A Wrench in the Plan
It probably made me sad and pathetic.
I also didn’t really care if it did.
“I…” he started but nothing came after.
“We don’t have to talk if you can’t right now.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, lifting his head and slowly dragging his gaze to meet mine. Those brown eyes— eyes exactly the same as his mother’s— were swirling with turmoil and sadness. Possibly a hint of anger, too.
“I can leave you alone if that’s what you need.”
His head shook, but he didn’t drop his gaze from mine.
“That’s not what I need,” he told me.
“Do you… know what you do need?” I asked, face screwing up like I knew that sounded silly.
“I saw a part of myself today that I suspected I might have in me, but never expected to release.”
“Oh,” I said, and there was no way to hide the shock from that one word. I had no clue what he was talking about, but I felt this sense of darkness washing over me. “And how did that make you feel?”
His gaze went hazy, and finally, I lost his eyes.
“Good… and unsettled,” he said, looking down at his hands, which he was currently rubbing together in unconscious circular movements. “Good at the time, and maybe a bit after. But now that I replay it, I feel unsettled.”
“Why do you feel unsettled?”
“Because of how good it made me feel. How right.” He paused, teeth scraping over his bottom lip. “I got something I’ve gotta do, and though I should feel wrong about it, I don’t. I’m looking forward to it. I’m itching to do it, even as I sit here.”
The way he was talking, it was scaring me. There was a chill that slithered up my spine with each word he spoke, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to rise.
“I’m scared of how I’ll feel once it’s over and done with,” he admitted.
“Because you think you’ll regret it?” I asked shakily, having this deep feeling in my gut that it was actually the opposite.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Because I won’t.”
I had no clue what to say to that.
He sucked in a deep breath as he tilted his head to the sky. The sun was going down quickly.
“Come on,” he said, hopping off the table like we hadn’t just had this cryptic conversation that felt insanely heavy. That was when I saw the very suspicious brown smears on his jeans. He reached a hand out to me. “Let’s take a ride. I want to sit on the beach.”
There wasn’t any part of that I would have said no to. So I took his hand and let him lead me across the lot, ignoring his swollen knuckles and the obvious bloodstains on the pants. And when we reached his bike, I climbed on right behind him without any hesitation.
This wasn’t the first time I’d ridden on his bike, and no, I didn’t read too much into it. I knew the whole rule the brothers had about putting someone on the back of their bikes. But Chry wasn’t like that. Not that he gave just anyone a ride, but I knew it didn’t mean that I was special.
The ride across town and over the bridge was amazing. My hair whipped around and my skirt danced like crazy against my legs. Dad wasn’t a huge fan of me being on a bike, but that never stopped me. Not when it came to Chry and Evan. Not when I knew they would both take extreme caution while I was behind them, even if they didn’t otherwise.
Chry avoided his parents’ place, and drove right past his uncles’ too. He parked on the side of the road at the far end where no one was around.
“I got a blanket in here somewhere,” he said after we both scrambled off his bike. Lifting the flap to his saddlebag, he reached in and pulled out a very familiar blanket. One he’d stolen from me on another late-night trip to the beach about a year ago. The very one I used to keep in my trunk for unexpected trips to the beach to clear my head.
Chry and I might not have had a spot like some people did, but we’d come to the beach together often enough that we probably should have. But that wasn’t Chry. He wasn’t predictable. He wasn’t the type to sit still for long. He didn’t get all sentimental over things like movies or songs or special dates. Heck, I was sure he barely remembered his own birthday, forget anyone else’s. I was pretty sure he didn’t have a huge file of favorite moments stored in his head either. Honestly, I’d be surprised if he thought outside of the hour he was living in.
It was as beautiful as it was frustrating sometimes.
“Today was not such a good day to wear a skirt,” I joked as soon as we stepped onto the sand. The warm breeze brought the smell of the salt from the ocean to my nose. As I attempted to tame my skirt, I thought about how glad I was that I had gone with the cute white tennis shoes instead of heels. Not that I often wore heels. But I did have a cute pair with a tiny heel that matched the yellow of my cardigan.
