Are You Mine

Chapter 12


Fox


I lose track of time once Saige takes off. She didn’t even give me a chance to talk some sense into her. I was going to open the cab door and just hop in. I would’ve texted Gage on the way back to the hotel, but then the cab just left with Saige staring straight ahead like I was the last person she wanted to see.

At first, I feel horrible about letting her go back alone, but Gage distracts me completely. Then all of the sudden, it’s three in the morning, and I feel like a jerk.

Gage gets me back to the hotel, and with a quick slap on my back, he’s off again. I’m out of place here, and everyone in the hotel stares at me as I walk in. Well, there are only three people, but it feels like more. The suite is silent when I enter. I freak out for a minute because I can’t find Saige.

I calm down when I step out onto the terrace. She’s passed out on the loveseat. There’s a green lighter in one of her hands, a bag of weed in her lap, and a burned out roach almost falling out between the fingers of her other hand. Drunk and high and passed out.

Maybe I should be worried about her drinking and use of pot, but it doesn’t seem like she’s any different from some of my other friends who drink and smoke. But maybe it’s different with her because I care about her more than anyone else.

I just don’t understand her hot and cold thing. One minute she’s pushing me away and the next, she’s making out with me on the bed.

I pluck the roach from between her fingers and put it in the ashtray, place the lighter next to it, then close the bag of pot and toss it onto the table. I pick her up. She’s lighter than some of the boxes I load onto pallets, but her limp arms and legs make it slightly more difficult.

As I lay her down into the bed and pull up the covers, I think about taking off her clothes because sleeping in jeans just plain sucks, but I think better of it. I’d rather the first time I see her in only a bra and panties be when she’s conscious. But I do unbutton and slide the zipper of her jeans down just a little to make it more comfortable for her.

It’s difficult to keep my mind on gentlemanly topics, but I manage to do it, then do my normal nighttime routine and slip into bed next to her. I’m not sure if she’ll act strange tomorrow like she did this morning, but I’m preparing for it anyway.

With Saige, I have to be ready for anything.

***

She’s not exactly standoffish in the morning, but she’s definitely not sociable. Saige grunts her way through breakfast, then throws it up in the bathroom we share. She won’t let me in to help her, and I’m okay with that. I’m not good when other people puke. In fact, I dry heave once, maybe twice, when I offer to come in to help her.

Once I hear her turn the shower on, I go back to the dining room where Myka is half-draped on Val. “She going to be okay?”

“How much did she drink?”

“I didn’t keep track, but it was a lot.”

“Of what?” Myka asks.

“Tequila. Beer.”

She makes this noise like she can’t understand what went through Saige’s mind last night. I admit, I feel that way, too. I drank one time my ninth grade year—my second ninth grade—and that was enough. I felt like crap, and according to everyone, I was a jerk. So why Saige would want to get as wasted as she did last night is beyond me.

I shouldn’t have taken her there.

“She knows that’s a lethal combination. God, she’s got to feel ookie.”

I push a thumb out behind me. “She just puked for a solid ten minutes.”

I sit down opposite Val as Myka stands up. She puts her hand in his hair for a second, and I get the sense of watching something private, so I turn my eyes to the fancy stuff on the wall. I would never in a million years pay to stay in this hotel. I’ve been walking around all weekend afraid to touch anything, afraid to say much of anything in the lobby, afraid to be myself. I don’t even want to know how much money she wasted on this place.

Before Myka leaves, I ask, “Does she get drunk like that a lot?”

She scrunches her face up as if considering the question. I think it’s pretty specific, but she comes back with, “It depends on what your idea of a lot is.”

“Um, I don’t know. Does she pass out from drinking a lot?”

“No,” she’s quick to say, but then tacks on, “Not anymore.”

My first instinct is to walk away from the whole thing—not Saige, just the situation. I don’t want to think about her drinking too much, or what not anymore means. I hate feeling like I should’ve known, but I hate the fact that I didn’t know more.

“It’s not like she’s an alcoholic.”

“What?” I ask as I lift my eyes to Val. Myka’s gone, so it’s just us.

“You look worried or troubled or something. I just thought I’d tell you that she’s not alcoholic or anything.”

I crane my neck to look behind me. No one’s there, so if I want more information from someone who is less invested than Myka, this is my chance. “What did Myka mean about not anymore?”

His soft smile tells me I should already know, and the fact that I don’t lets the familiar feeling of stupidity take root in my mind and in my chest.

“We’ve all gone to the same school forever, man.”

“But I wasn’t always in your grade.” And to be honest, I never really paid much attention to people outside of my friends.

“Right,” he says before he sighs. “Well, Myka didn’t get here until tenth grade, so she has a limited knowledge of before that, but what she’s told me about Saige from tenth grade until the very end of eleventh was that the girl could party.”

“I don’t think I saw her at any of the parties I went to.”

He shakes his head and wraps his fingers around his small coffee cup. “No, not like, she went to parties. She could party, meaning, drink a lot. Smoke a crap-ton of weed. But then something happened last summer and she just started slowing down.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like Saige tells me anything. I’m just Myka’s boyfriend, so I only get what I can glean, but I think it had something to do with her money and her grandmother.” He shrugs and messes with his hair. “I don’t know.”

“Lots of high school kids drink.”

At this, Val laughs. The rooted feeling of stupidity blossoms into idiocy because it’s obvious I’m missing even more of the puzzle. “Why is that funny?” I ask.

“It’s not funny. Don’t you remember in sixth grade? Wait, you were in seventh then, right? Okay, so I had Mr. Donner’s class with her. It was after lunch, and she came in way late and can barely even make it to her seat without falling down. I sat three seats away, but I could smell the alcohol. I didn’t know what it was back then, but Mr. Donner did. He asked her to go to the nurse, and he was going to talk to the principal. He didn’t outright say it in front of the class, but it was implied.” Val leans back and stretches his arms out. “She just went off.”

“Went off?” I want more details than that.

“Yeah, like started unloading on Mr. Donner. No one knew what to do. She knocked over her desk and called all of us brainless zombies.” He tilts his head and closes his eyes like he’s trying to remember something. “Yeah. Zombies who had no idea just how good our brainless lives were.”

“What happened?”

“Mr. Donner wrapped his arms around her because she was thrashing all over the place and took her out of the classroom. She was suspended for, like, a week, and everyone whispered about the therapy she was forced to go to.”

“Jesus.” I don’t even mean to say it, but it just comes out.

“Don’t freak out or anything. She’s better now. I mean, she’s a little negative sometimes, but both her parents are dead. Like, horribly dead. She doesn’t say anything about it, but I don’t need to experience what she has to know it’s probably shaped her mind a little on the negative side, you know?”

“But she doesn’t drink like this often anymore? You said she wasn’t an alcoholic, but what you just said makes it seem—”

“I don’t know what she drank last night, so I can’t say. If you ask me, the girl doesn’t like herself, and it’s probably because people have been shits to her since middle school.”

“I don’t—”

“She’s fine. Hung over, but okay.” Myka sits back down next to Val.

As she takes his hand, I stand up again. I don’t bother saying anything else before I leave. I just want to check on Saige. I don’t know what to think about all of this. I wasn’t looking to get involved with someone who had all these issues. I think I have enough issues in my own family, but it’s not like I can deny how much I care about Saige now. I can’t just stop liking her because she’s complex.

I find Saige fully clothed on the bed. She’s lying down with her arm draped over her eyes. I sit down next to her. “You okay?”

“Perfect.”

I smile at how imperfect her croaked word comes out and place my hand flat on her stomach. “No more trying to outdrink college dudes, okay?”

She groans, but then says, “Okay.”

“So checkout is soon. Do you want me to drive us back home?”

“Yes, please.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yep.”

“Why’d you get so drunk? I wish you would’ve told me you were. I would’ve come back with you. Something could’ve happened.”

“Nothing did, and you were with your friend.”

“You’re way more important than Gage.”

She takes her arm away from her face and turns her bloodshot eyes to me. “Am I?”

Her words are serious, but I chuckle with the intention of making them less so. “Of course.” Leaning down, I kiss her, and then lie down beside her. “I can’t kiss him.”

“Nice,” she says. “But if you could, you’d pick him over me?”

It’s like being hit by a bullet train when I realize what she’s asking. “I’d pick you. I am picking you.”

Saige drapes her arm over her eyes again. “Why?”

“Because you’re cute.” She groans, so I continue with nonphysical reasons. “Because you’re funny and interesting and challenging and smart.”

“Lots of girls are those things.”

“So?”

“So why me?”

“Why are you asking? I mean, isn’t it enough to simply say I like you? It’s not always easy to explain why something grabs your attention, but it does. There’s something deeper than what’s on the surface, and whatever it is, it’s got a hold of me. And I. . .”

I’m horrible at stuff like this. I can usually get my meaning across without problem, but I’m not as good with words as she is, so whatever I say is going to sound stupid. It takes a quick second to formulate it, but then I say, “Sometimes you can’t explain why you feel something, but you know you do. I don’t have to understand why I think you’re the best thing since English football; I just know you are.”

Saige sits up and swings her legs over the edge of the bed. “I think I’m going to puke again.”

As she makes her way to the bathroom, I ask, “So did we agree on no more drinking contests?”

She’s in there for a few minutes before I hear her brush her teeth. “It wasn’t a contest,” she says when she comes back to the bed. “I just thought. . .I mean, I guess I didn’t think about anything other than being Super Saige.”

“Super Saige? I love it. Like your superhero self? But what does that have to do with binge drinking?”

She mumbles something and rolls over. Her eyes are closed, so I figure the conversation is over. In the car we listen to The Avett Brothers on the drive back to Pechimu. Myka loves the music and agrees with me that many of their songs would be good for the “Myka’s Metal Valentine” soundtrack.

But when “Pretend Love” comes on, Saige crosses her arms over her chest. I can see her sitting in the passenger seat through the corner of my eye, and as Scott Avett sings that he’ll never return the love of the girl he’s singing to, she huffs. “That’s just mean.”

Myka pipes up from the backseat. “He’s lying. He says so in the beginning. Start it over.”

I do, and we get until almost the end before Saige asks in a lower than usual voice, “But what’s the point? Why would he say he’s pretending?”

Since I’m The Avett Brothers expert in the car and probably the only one who’s given it any thought, I answer. “Maybe he’s been hurt and this is a way to protect himself from giving another girl the power to hurt him again.”

Then again, maybe that’s just me projecting, but I’ve listened to enough of their songs to know they’re not cruel men, and I think it’s far easier to tell yourself that you don’t love something when it’s hurting the hell out of you.

I can tell Saige doesn’t like to be wrong, so to get her back into the light spirit the rest of us have, I change the playlist. Pink Floyd’s “Fearless” plays, and when it gets to the end, I say, “That’s the Kop choir singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’”

“Huh?”

“The Kop is a stand in Anfield. So fans are called Kopites, or Scousers, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it. Anyway, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ is like an anthem for the football club. It’s just cool that Pink Floyd put it in their song.”

I’ve lost everybody, but they listen as the fans of Liverpool Football Club sing the anthem, and then they listen to Frank Sinatra sing it. After that, I turn to Saige and say, “You can choose now.”

Saige looks at me with her red, sunken eyes and pushes the OFF button on the stereo. The rest of the drive home is silent, except for the soft conversation between Myka and Val. Every time I try to talk to Saige, she curls away from me, closer to the passenger door and grunts her answer.

I hate not knowing what’s going on with her, so after I drop the other two off, I follow her into her apartment, even though she didn’t invite me up. “So what’s wrong?”

“I’m hung over. Thought it was obvious.” She lets her suitcase drop to the floor, and then flops down on the couch. I go to the kitchen and bring her back a glass of water. She doesn’t take it when I hold it out to her.

“It’ll make you feel better. Get the poison out of you.”

She makes some noise that leaves no doubt about her mood. “What?” I ask.

“Poison? Really? It’s alcohol. Your Goodie-Two-Shoes-ness is annoying, you know?”

“I’m not a Goodie-Two-Shoes. I’m a graffiti artist. I think that rules me out for having two shoes made of good, right?”

“Whatever.”

“What’s your deal?” I probably should have said it nicer, but I can’t go back now. “I thought we were okay.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be together,” she says and my stomach drops.

I keep my voice intentionally light, but I feel sick at her words. “Don’t break my heart, Saigey. Please?”

“Not breaking your heart. Just saving you the trouble.”

I stand up, cross the room, and hope she’ll look at me, but she doesn’t. “Saving me the trouble of what?”

“Wasting your time. I’m like a novelty to you, but you’re going to get bored, or if not bored, you’re going to see what everyone else sees about me.”

“What’s that?”

“That I’m toxic. You belong with fun people, doing fun things. I can’t be like your friend Gage.”

Her voice oozes hate as she says his name.

“I get that you don’t like him, but he’s my friend. You could at least be civil when you say his name.” Maybe I’m missing the point, or shifting the focus, but this is the shiny object of the moment.

“Civil to a guy who—”

“Get over it, already. He’s not the same guy from high school. People can change.”

At this, she sits up and stares me down. “No, they can’t. That’s just your wishful thinking. He’s an ass. He’s mean and cruel. He’s always been that way and always will be. He’s everything you’re not, and I don’t get why you hang with him.”

“Because he’s been my friend forever, and we have fun together.”

“People judge you by your friends. Don’t—”

“No. You judge me by my friends. Other people judge me by who I am.”

She won’t look at me now. “Fine. So I judge you based on having an a*shole for a friend, it doesn’t change that we don’t belong together. I’m toxic and weird and you’re—”

“Who says?”

“Your friend.”

“Gage said that to you?” I’m going to kill him. Like straight up murder. But I can’t think about that now. All of my attention has to be on her, on fixing this situation, so I go to her and kneel down. I take her hands in mine and duck my head so I can peer up into her eyes and force her to look at me.

“Weird’s just another word for different. Of course, you’re different. I’m different, too. Life would be really boring if we were all the same. You’re weird. I’m weird, so that means we’re perfectly suited for each other.”

I can tell I’m making a bit of an impact, but still she says, “Right, but I’m toxic and you’re not.”

“So maybe I’m the antidote to your toxicity. Maybe without me, you’re lethal, but without you, I’d serve no purpose. Don’t take my purpose away just because some guy doesn’t understand how well we work with each other.”

“It’s not just some guy,” she says. “It’s—”

“A friend of mine, I know. I’ll deal with him and tell him not to be such a dick, but—”

“You shouldn’t have to command your friend to be human.”

I take my hands away from hers and drag them down my face before straightening my back. She continues to look at me, so for that I’m grateful. “I don’t want to talk about Gage anymore. I’m sorry he was an ass to you, but it shouldn’t matter what he thinks. It should matter what I think. And I think you’re beautiful and kind and good.” Taking her face into my hands, I lean forward and kiss her. “I don’t know a word that sums up all those things, but I know toxic isn’t it.”

“Why do you have to be perfect all the time?” The look on her face gives me permission to let out a sigh of relief. She’s not breaking my heart. At least not today.

“Because I have to be Super Fox to keep up with Super Saige.”

Her voice sounds like a laugh when she says, “You’re a dork.”

“A perfect dork, and don’t you forget it.”

“Okay.”

I take her hands once more and tug her to her feet. “Let’s go tag another bridge tonight. You can wear that pretty dress again. You look terrific in it.”

The color has not only come back to her face, it’s a little pinker as she blushes.

“Want to go, Oregano?”

Saige’s expression lifts into a smirk. “Oregano?”

“Yeah, you know, a play on Italian herbs. Sage. Oregano. Maybe tomorrow I’ll call you Rosemary, and after that Thyme.”

“So funny I forgot to laugh,” she says, deadpan.

“But you smiled,” I say before pulling her into a tight hug. “Don’t hurt me, Saige,” I whisper into her ear, but she gives me no reaction. “I promise if you give me your heart, I won’t break it.”

***

We don’t tag any bridges. Instead, she goes to sleep and I go home and work on a few panels for our book. After a while, I switch to the picture of her asking me if I’m hers. This is the third version. I like these colors better, but I’m stuck on whether I want to draw me giving her my heart or her giving me hers. I stop working on it when I can’t decide.

I dial Gage’s number.

“Hey, Foxy!”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Gage, but I’m going to come to New York and junk punch you.”

“Wow. Is there more than one way to take that statement?”

“Why’d you have to be rude to her?”

He lets out a deep breath into the phone. “Of course that bitch went and cried to you about it. What’d she say?”

“First, she’s not a bitch, so if you don’t want me to junk punch you and stick my foot in your ass, you’ll take it back.”

“Sound sexy, Fox. How about—”

“Damn it, Gage.”

“Fine. I take it back. She’s not a bitch, but I wasn’t rude, I was drunk.”

“You told her she was toxic.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Do you want me to go around telling every girl you try to hook up with who you really are?”

“Well, that would take you an awfully long time since my list of chicks I want to hook up with is pretty extensive. Plus the kind of girls I hook up with wouldn’t care if you told them I’m a prick. Most of them love a bad boy.”

He’s right, and of course I wouldn’t actually do it, so I say, “I like her, Gage. Don’t mess things up for me.”

“But you could do better. She’s not even in the same league as Natasha.”

I feel an actual pain in my heart when he says her name. “Just promise me you’ll behave from now on. I don’t care if you like her; I do.”

***

It’s hard to go back to work after spending so much time with Saige. I think about her all day at the warehouse. Normally, I could do this without it affecting my job performance, but we’re one picker short today since Erik called in, so I’m relegated to fill orders until we catch up. Even though it’s only June, schools, teachers, and students are buying their books for the fall.

One reason I like my job as packer is because I can just match up the words on the paper with the words on the books, but as a picker, I have to find the spot in the warehouse and select the right book. The warehouse is laid out with numbers and letters on the aisles and shelving, so I constantly have to sing the ABCs to myself to remember where H or any other letter comes in the alphabet so I’ll know which direction to turn my cart.

Numbers are no better. I keep transposing them, so I keep a cheat sheet on my clipboard, but it’s not a big help since after I read it on the clipboard, my mind grabs hold of it and the numbers get switched around by the time I look up at the shelving.

It takes forever for me to complete my first order, but even longer to complete the second one since thoughts of Saige distract me. I feel better about where we left things, but she almost broke up with me based on something stupid my friend said. She’s not the kind of girl who accepts affection, and I think it’d be easy for her to cut ties early and never look back, even if she kind of likes me.

“Fox?”

I turn and see Jason. “What’s up?”

“You’ve been standing in this section for like ten minutes. What’s wrong?”

I glance down at my order sheet, then back up at the shelving. I’ve lost my place, and while I’ll be able to recover, it’ll take a second to do it. I’m not thrilled to have to do it in front of Jason. No one here knows about my dyslexia. I know there’s nothing I can do to change how my brain works, but I don’t want to show the whole world something they consider a weakness.

Before I know it, Jason’s scanning my sheet and looking at the books in my cart. “These aren’t the right books. Are you working off the wrong sheet, or did you forget to put these with your last order?”

On instinct, I pull the order sheet away from him. I double check what’s in my cart and realize he’s right. Nothing matches.

“Damn.”

He looks at me for a second, but I can’t tell if he’s figured out I’ve got a learning disability, if he thinks I just made a mistake, or if he just thinks I’m stupid. “I’ll help you put these back, then let’s get lunch.”

As if the thing with Jason wasn’t bad enough, when I go to Saige’s, she hands me her laptop. A document is open and is filled with words. She wants me to read it. “One of my projects,” she says.

She never opens up, and I’m sure this is her way of giving me a little insight into her and how her mind works, but the last thing I want to do is struggle to read something in front of her. Feeling stupid in front of Jason today at work was enough, but now it seems I’m going to feel it again in front of her. She already knows my limitations, but this will be such a big demonstration, she won’t be able to ignore it.

But I can’t say no, so I start reading. After what seems like forever, I look up. I feel the heat just under the skin of my face as our eyes meet. “Sorry.”

“Is it that hard?”

“It just takes me a while.” I glance back down at the laptop, flip open the document files and see all the items she may eventually want me to read. “I probably won’t make it too far unless you have a screen reader.”

“Like a robotic voice reading it to you?”

I nod. “My dad got me a program a while back. It helps. A tutor back in fifth grade said I just didn’t try hard enough. Maybe it’s true, but I guess there have always been things more important to me than reading.”

Saige just watches me. I don’t see much judgment in her expression.

“But now I wish I’d tried harder so I could read your work faster.”

“You don’t have to—”

“No,” I say. “I want to. This is straight out of your head, and I want to know everything about you.”

It’s her turn to blush. “Well, I don’t have a screen reader, but I can do you one better.” She scoots closer to me on the couch and takes the laptop. “I’ll read it to you.”

Even though I’m embarrassed to have her read to me like I’m a child, there’s something comforting in her voice and that she’s so willing to do it.

She reads the story about a girl who decides one day to walk across America. The girl just gets up and starts walking from New York to California. “Is that you?” I ask when she sets the laptop on the coffee table.

“Not really. I mean, I’ve had the idea, but the character isn’t me.”

“But you want to go to California.”

“True.”

“And you like to be alone.”

“Also true,” she says. “But I’m not going to walk to California, nor will I leave all my stuff behind.”

“Why don’t you finish the manuscript?”

She just shrugs. I pull her close to me and wrap my arms around her. We’re quiet, and while I love conversation, there’s something incredibly special about just holding her. It’s not like she’d let just anyone do this.

“I want you to meet my mom,” I say.

Saige pulls away. “Your mom? Like in the. . .the. . .” Her voice trails off like she doesn’t want to say it.

“The hospital? Yeah. I mean, if you want to.”

She turns her head away as she screws her lips up. She nibbles on the inside of her cheek like she does when she’s thinking. “Is it, um, scary?”

“The hospital?” I’d never thought of this being a concern before, but then again, I’ve grown up visiting my mom in hospitals. “No. This one is like a resort. Okay, not really, but it’s much better than a few she was in when I was little. There was this state funded hospital and some of the people in there were straight up scary. My dad worried about my safety when we went to visit and about my mom’s every day she was there. That’s why he works so hard to pay for this private hospital. There are fewer patients, more staff, and they eat good food. There’s some nature around them, so my mom’s able to get outside and see some beauty, not just lime green walls and fenced windows.”

“Why do you want me to meet her?” she asks.

“You’re so funny, Saige.”

She creases her brow. “Why am I funny?”

“Because you’re asking why I want you to meet my mom. It’s not obvious?”

“Obviously, it’s not obvious if I’m asking.”

I take hold of her waist and pull her into my lap. As I cradle her, I lock my eyes with hers. A little chunk of her hair has fallen over her face, so I use the small finger of my left hand to sweep it away. “Because you’re important to me. I want her to know I have you, and I want you to meet her because she’s important to me.”

Saige swallows as if choking down something disgusting and breaks eye contact with me. I can feel her pull away in my arms. I don’t let her go until I absolutely have to. She sits up, but I keep her in my lap, my arm around her waist.

“Maybe you should meet my grandma then.” Her words are so soft I just barely catch them.

“Because I’m important to you, too?”

She’s silent as she lifts a shoulder and tilts her head toward it. I give her a squeeze because I want to hear it from her. Saige presses an elbow into my stomach. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Obviously not if I’m asking.”

I shift her just a bit so I can look into her face again. Another strand of hair hangs over her eye, so I move it. “Yes. You’re important to me,” she says. Her voice is quiet again, so I squeeze her once more. She elbows me, so I tickle her.

Saige is incredibly ticklish for a girl with such a hardened personality. Her giggles are awesome. If they could be bottled and put into pill form, there’d never be a depressed person in the world. Saige is also very strong for such a little person. She’s about a foot or a foot and a half shorter than me with not much muscle bulk, but she can put up a struggle.

She wiggles and squirms as her hands wrap around my wrists in an attempt to get my tickling fingers away from her, but she’s laughing too hard to be effective. When I think she’s had enough, I let her go, and to my surprise, she jabs her fingers into my armpits and starts twisting them around. I’m already laughing from watching her squirm, but now there’s no way I can stop.

She slides her hands down my sides, which makes my whole body freeze. If there’s one place that is my tickle spot, it’s my lower sides. Once my paralysis wears off, I grab her hands and hold them up so she’s unable to touch me. “No fair,” she says in a whine.

“I love you.” It’s out before I could stop myself. It’s her that freezes this time and panic grips me all of the sudden. It’s way too soon to say something like that, especially to a girl like her. She looks freaked out. “Oh, God. Did I just say that out loud?”

She doesn’t answer me, but she doesn’t look away either.

“Yeah, I did, and now you’re flipping out.”

I let go of her hands, and they come flopping down onto her lap. She’s still in mine, and I don’t know if I should move her off me or hold her tighter. I don’t want her to use this as an opportunity to run away, but I don’t know how to keep her here.

“How does the man on the moon cut his hair?”

Saige licks her lips. The crease on her forehead deepens. Shit. I’ve messed this up, but I can’t let it show. That would start an avalanche of emotions I’m not prepared to have, so I give the answer. “Eclipse it. Get it?”

Something presses against my chest. I look down to see her hand there. She curls her fingers into my red shirt. All I have to do is turn my head a centimeter and my eyes are connected with hers again. Those hazel eyes show the intensity of her thoughts, but it might just be too much to hope that she’s thinking she loves me, too.

Just when I think she’s going to turn away again, she leans closer to me and lays her head on my shoulder. It’s not an admission of love, but it’s not a heavy shove out of her life either. She’s not breaking my heart, so I relax, both mentally and physically. We spend the next half hour on the couch. I hold her, and she slowly grows more comfortable inside my arms.