Page 103 of Lessons in Forgiving
I let go of my breath, and I couldn’t help the snorted laugh. The disappointment settling in my stomach.
“You’re the man with the plan,” I said. “Tell me, what does your schedule look like after graduation?”Do I still fit in there? Or is it bursting with appointments and responsibilities already?“What’s in your calendar on May twentieth?”
The day after we’d officially graduated.
Catching my drift, he paused. His hand went very still against mine, our fingers still locked around the other.
“Oh,” he offered unhelpfully.
“Yeah.” My head turned, and I noticed his eyes had been on me for a while.
The green of them was only a slither away now, so close I could see the brown around his pupil, could make out the way they were lighter in certain parts. “So? What’s it say?”
I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t the least bit curious despite the fact it would ruin me—set in stone that we were not meant to be.
Our breaths mixed between us, air thick with the weight of the unsaid. Although he hadn’t given an answer, I could imagine what it was.
Run. Shower. Drive up to New York. Get home. Unpack. Training at the stadium. Dinner with his teammates.
His life was about to change fundamentally. The very foundation of what he knew would be uprooted, rebuilt.
I didn’t think I fit in there. Into a busy schedule like that. Into New York City. God, who could afford to live in New York?
And why was I thinking about moving to New York?
My head shook to cut my thoughts short, and Henry swallowed thickly. “I can’t tell you,” he finally whispered, looking… mortified? The confused frown on my lips urged him to say, “It’s embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing?” It was the last word I expected to hear.Private, full, none of your business—all things I’d been bracing for. Butembarrassing?
Henry nodded. “Very much so.”
Half a laugh on my lips, my eyes rolled. “Maeve just told you I glow when you’re around.” I hated to remind him, but, “I’m sure it cannot be worse than that.”
His head shook, but at least it was with a smile this time. “It’s not the same,” he said. “That’s cute! My schedule on May twentieth is… serial killer-esque.”
I did not understand why that made my stomach flutter. It kind of concerned me.
“Tell me,” I said in a sing-song voice.
Henry groaned, turned back to look up and feverishly avoid eye contact.
I reached for him. My hand only lingered against his cheek before I guided his head back in my direction and our eyes met once more. My fingers continued their way along his jaw, trailed across his cheeks, and I watched as he became really still—likehe didn’t want to miss any of my touch by accidentally breathing too hard or moving too much.
His eyes fluttered shut, my hand disappearing in his hair before he sighed, more content than I’d seen him in… a while. Ever? I think I could watch him for the rest of my life, I realized. Without getting bored or wanting to do anything else.
“Please?” I asked, voice soft.
Henry’s eyes remained closed. “Just you.” He barely said the words at all—he breathed them, and I read them from his lips. “Just your name. On May twenty.”
My breath hitched in my throat, and when his hand found mine again, his fingers trailed up my arm and left a wake of goosebumps behind. He hadn’t opened his eyes.
“Henry.” I couldn’t interpret the way I’d said his name either. I’d never sounded the way I just had. “Surely you have to get to New York that day. Settle in?”
“I’ll do it the next.”
The words stretched between us. And I didn’t know whathewas thinking, but I wasn’t. Thinking. At all.
There was this loud, thunderous booming in my head, and it might’ve been my heartbeat. I didn’t know what I would say until it came out of my mouth.
