“And on the roof of Van’s hotel? I told you about my crush on you in high school. I wanted you to remember.”
“I know,” he says, his expression hopeless before he drops it to the floor. “I know, but everything was going so perfectly, I didn’t want to ruin it.”
“I even tried to get you to remember on the bus after I found out. But you just kept lying . . . ”
Shawn shakes his head at the floorboards beneath his feet. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
But he did lose me . . . And now, I’m just lost.
“And six years ago?” I finally ask. The words come out strong and confident, betraying the doubt, the hurt, the brokenness inside me. “What about then?”
Shawn sinks heavier against the sill on a defeated sigh. “This is the part where I don’t know what to say.” He hesitates before lifting his gaze back up to mine. “I wasn’t a good guy six years ago. I’m sorry you thought I was, but I wasn’t.”
“Kale told me what he said to you,” I say. “After that night, when we . . . ” I trail off, unwilling to give life to the ghost of a memory, but understanding is clear in Shawn’s eyes.
“Do you think that’s why I didn’t call?” he asks after a while, and I don’t know if I truly want the answer to what I ask next.
“Is it?”
“Kit,” he says, like the words coming out of his mouth are hurting him to say. “What happened wasn’t your brother’s fault. I could have called.”
My voice threatens to crack when I ask, “Why didn’t you?”
Shawn’s eyes close for a moment, holding mine when they reopen. “I didn’t know you six years ago. You were just a hot girl I met at a party.”
Tears scald my face, and Shawn crosses the room to wipe them away. His thumb brushes lightly across my cheek when he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were fifteen, and if I had known it was your first time . . . ”
“You never would have done it,” I answer for him, my voice holding years of knowing those words to be true. What happened between us was as much my fault as it was his.
“I wouldn’t have,” he agrees sincerely. “I fucked up with you, Kit, and I’m sorry.”
“Did you ever even think of me?”
His palm is still cupping my face when he says, “At first . . . once in a while. But it’s not like I’ve spent the past six years thinking about you. I didn’t know what I lost when I let you go. You need to know that.” Both calloused hands thread into my hair to gently hold my face in place. “I wasn’t the guy you wished I was. I did forget about you up until you walked into that audition. I had no idea what I’d walked away from.”
“What about now?” The words push free in a moment of desperation I wish I could take back. But with my face in his hands—with my heart in his hands—I have nothing left to lose.
“Now?” he asks, never breaking his eyes from mine. I’m drowning in them when he says, “Now I think I know the answer to what you asked me out on your roof.” When I just stare at him, he says, “You asked me if I was half a person, and I asked you how I’d know.” His thumb grazes my cheek, his eyes clinging to mine. “You. You’re how I know.”
I close my eyes and let his words consume me, remembering that day on the roof so many weeks ago. He said it was like no one ever realized Joel was half a person until Dee came around, and when I asked him if he was half a person, he asked me how he’d know. Neither of us had an answer. Now, he says he does.
And my heart tells me I do too.
With my face still cradled gently between his calloused hands, I open my eyes and lift onto my tiptoes, meeting him in a kiss that promises to put me back together—even as it breaks my heart. He’s so close, but I feel like I miss him. Like I’ve always missed him. And I’m desperate to make this feeling go away—this distance, this emptiness.
His hands tunnel into my hair, and he draws me up as I draw him down, but we’re still not close enough. I need more of him, and I find myself walking him backward, step by step to the edge of my bed. When the backs of his legs are against it, I crawl on top of him, my knees sinking into the mattress next to his hips and my lips forcing his head down to my pillow. We’re both breathing heavy as I kiss him, as he kisses me back—little moans escaping my lips and big ones rumbling in his chest. His hands slide under the hem of my shirt, greedy for soft skin, and mine scratch over his scalp as I kiss him desperately, needing him more than I need to breathe.