Page 73 of The Love You Fight For
“It’s okay. It’s very dense and parts of it really drag.” He holds the fishing pole out to me and gestures for me to give him the book. “Trade me.”
I stare at the fishing rod with distrust.
“I don’t fish,” I say, and he rolls his eyes.
“You won’t be fishing. You’ll just be holding the rod so I can read you some of my favorite parts.”
My jaw drops, and my eyes sting. I blink quickly, grateful I’m wearing sunglasses, then clear my throat. Fuck, my heart aches.
“You want to read to me.” I try for humor. I try to make a joke of it. But instead, I just sound...young.
Chris’s smile falters, and his eyes scan my face before he nods slowly.
“Yeah, princess. I’d like to read to you.”
I can’t speak. I can’t say anything for fear of crying, and when Ihold the book out to him, I can’t hide the way my fingers tremble. He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t want to embarrass me by bringing attention to it, and I’m certain it’s the latter.
He hands me the rod, tells me how to hold it, and then lifts the end of the blanket and throws it over his own legs before settling back in his seat.
I turn my head toward the side of the boat so it looks like I’m watching the fishing line, but I keep my eyes on Chris.
When he starts to read, it’s like a soothing balm has been applied to my muscles. With every passage, every sentence, my body relaxes, and I find a new appreciation for the text. Every so often, he’ll even stop reading to tell me about his or his grandfather’s thoughts on the passage, or to recite the annotations from the margins.
“This line here,the sun is but a morning-star, is why I got this tattoo.” He sets the book down and lifts his shirt to show me the script and a sunrise on the side of his rib cage.
I smile.
“This book is that important to you,” I say, and he nods.
“Some parts of it more than others, but yeah. I like the idea of wanting and needing less. Of enjoying time as it passes instead of dreading it. Of finding happiness in the simplest of things.”
I pull my sunglasses off my face and hold his gaze for a moment. I take in his big brown eyes and thick lashes. The sincerity and kindness behind his soft smile. He’s talented and humble and caring. He’s the best kind of person, and it makes my chest tighten when I realize how much more beautiful he’s become to me. Every minute I spend with him makes him more beautiful in my eyes, and I hate it. It scares me. If it continues, it will ruin me.
“I’m sorry for what I said about Sable,” I say finally. “It was cruel, and I didn’t mean it. I don’t believe that.”
His mouth tips up on one side.
“So youdoknow her name,” he teases, and I roll my eyes and flip him off on instinct, making him laugh.
He grabs my ankles and props my feet onto his lap, then turns his attention back to the book.
“I told you I heard you loud and clear at my sister’s, princess, but maybe you didn’t hear me. You don’t fool me. You can’t hide from me. I see right through it.”
He doesn’t wait for me to respond before he starts reading again, and I’m grateful for that. I can’t make sense of everything going on in my head. I feel like my heart’s been riding on a rollercoaster, or like someone made me a passenger on a broken, ever-spinning tilt-a-whirl.
I want things I know I shouldn’t want.
I long for the impossible, yet I find myself thinking maybe, just maybe, I can have it.
I want to laugh and cry at the same time. I feel joyful and frightened. I feel everything, and I can’t understand any of it. It’s been so long since I’ve felt even a whisper of attraction to someone. Even longer since I’ve been interested in spending time with a man. I feel all of that and more with Chris. I need to breathe slowly through the ache in my chest.
When we decide to quit for the morning—thankfully without a single fish sighting—Chris steers us to a local marina where we get sandwiches and listen to live music while watching people on jet skis in the middle of the lake. The whole time, I find myself stuck on two particular lines fromWalden. Both from the book’s conclusion. Both important enough to Chris that he’d highlighted them.
They war in my brain. They dominate my thoughts. I think too much, struggling to decode the omen within them.
“Things do not change; we change,”and,“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
Can I change enough to give Chris the truth he desires?
