Page 27 of Late Nights & Love Lines
“What about me?”
“Well, you didn’t have an idyllic childhood. Did that shape you and the kind of family you want and surround yourself with?”
My laughter is a little unhinged. “No, actually. I stay away from entanglements altogether. I’m temporary, remember? I use my history as a reminder to help children find people who can give them the love and affection they need.”
“You make it sound as though you don’t give those things.”
My feet squelch in the mud, and I slide down a small hill. When I’ve gotten my footing, I focus on what he said.
“I don’t. Not really. Don’t get me wrong, I give the children in my care what they need, but I’m more of a wordsmith than a hugger. But I do realize children need affection, so I make sure I’m always?—”
“Temporary.” His tone is low and whisper-soft, almost as though he’s repeating something so unfathomable, he doesn’t dare say it too loud. “That’s a lonely fucking existence, Peach.”
That knife only he can wield slips between my ribs. He’s always called me Peach with so much affection my body would go numb, but when he says it now, it’s a wildfire, blazing hot as it races across every pore.
And yet, I don’t, can’t, acknowledge the stupid nickname that means so much I tattooed the damn thing to my body—a small peach on the inside of my wrist that’s always covered by my crystals.
“It’s survival, Sebastian.” I don’t know what makes me hiss his name, but I do know he has no right to judge how I live my life. “Not all of us get the happily ever after. Not all of us have the same capacity to give or receive love, and that’s a fact.”
“Do you think this is weird?”
His subject change has me spinning in a circle, glaring at the clouds as if someone up there’s to blame for all the turmoil uncoiling in my mind.
“What? Do I think what’s weird?”
“That we’re bickering like we’ve known each other our entire lives?”
My stomach lurches up to my throat, but the rest of my body behaves in a very different way.
When did fighting turn into foreplay?
“We’re not?—”
“We are. I remember finding you behind the snack shack at camp. You were crying, but you wouldn’t tell me why.”
“I was eleven. What’s your point?”
“I was thirteen, and I came to your rescue then. You hated it and did everything you could to make me leave you alone. You did the same thing when I found you at the pavilion, hiding from swim lessons.”
“I was a chubby kid who hated bathing suits.”
“You were perfect. You were my friend.”
I snort, thankful he can’t see the blush heating my cheeks.
“And after that asshole dumped paint water on you, I chased you into the woods, sat with you against that giant tree, and talked at you until you eventually gave in and talked back to me.”
“Okay, so you’re relentless. What’s your point?”
“My point is, in the end, I always made you laugh and would sit with you until you were ready to face the other campers, but it was the story you hid behind your eyes that has always stayed with me.”
My throat itches. I must have formed a new allergy in the last ten minutes. Can I sue him if I go into anaphylactic shock because of him?
No. I do not get worked up and emotional. I just don’t, so I reach for anger instead.
“Yeah, well, I remember you taking pity on me when I was twelve, and no one, I mean no one would choose me to be on their team—for anything. In whiffle ball, they pretended they didn’t see me. Arts and crafts, oops, sorry, there wasn’t enough room at their table. I know you always felt bad for me, but honestly, you didn’t need to do it then and you certainly don’t need to do it now. I. Am. Fine.” My nostrils flare with my last three words.
“That wasn’t pity, Peach. That was friendship, and we can—will be friends again. I know we could fight about this all day, but I have a meeting with an office in London that’s about to start, so I’ll leave you with one thing to remember. It’s never been pity I felt when I looked at you. Not when you were ten, not when you were thirteen, and definitely not now.”
