Page 30 of Heartbeat

He nodded. “I mean, I do hope your head is better. “I just—I wanted to see you.”

It was as though he was admitting to the biggest of secrets.

“Ethan—” I was starting to get the impression that this, whatever it was, was probably not a good idea.

“I know.” He shook his head. “I know it sounds—”

“I’m in therapy,” I blurted out.

“You are?”

“And I medicate. Quite heavily.” I widened my eyes.

He didn’t though. “You do?” he asked calmly.

I nodded. I didn’t say anything else because something else had started to happen. I was beginning to fear that if I continued to speak, I might end up confessing my close relationship with broken glass, and I really, really didn’t want to do that. At the same time, I couldn’t stop talking now, could I? Not with him looking at me the way he was—as if how this moment turned out depended on me, and how I was possibly going to either make or break his heart, depending on what I said next. So, I decided to speak. I hoped I’d be able to refrain from saying too much.

“When Liam… After he died,” I said but really hated having to do it, “I kind of lost it.”

“That makes sense—”

“No, I mean…I lost it. I just—I was just gone.”

“O-kay,” he said slowly, frowning.

He looked so nervous, and so beautifully confused.

“I’m saying this because I need you to change your mind.”

“You do?” He tilted his head.

“Yes,” I said, with as much resolve as I could possibly muster.

“Thomas—”

“On the first day of school, someone texted me asking if I was the psycho kid.”

Ethan instantly widened his eyes. “Who did that?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters—”

“No, see, they’re right. I am the psycho kid,” I said, managing a half-smile. “And if they knew enough to text it, that means it somehow followed me from Magnolia to Grant, which means it’ll catch up with me and implode, at some point.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. It’s the kind of thing that catches up, and it’s always messy.”

“But—”

“I’m not the guy you go after, Ethan.” It fucking hurt like hell to admit it. “I’m the one you run away from.”

He looked at me in a way that made me feel utterly exposed.

“I get what you’re saying, I do,” he eventually said. “You make sense.”

That was a first, right there.

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