“She what?”
Milo stood in the door to the kitchen, his face serious. I couldn’t have heard him right. He said, “That’s why I’m here. I’ve been trying to catch you all week. I came home when she was leaving the other night. The girl was torn up, sitting at the top of the stairs waiting on a ride. It looked like she’d been crying for a while.”
Something twisted in my chest, and even now I wanted to find her and comfort her, even if I was the problem.
“Did she say anything to you?”
“Just to tell you that she was sorry.”
I sank onto the end of the futon and buried my head in my hands.
Milo continued, “All I’m saying is . . . whatever is between you guys isn’t nothing. Girls like that don’t cry over nothing.”
It hurt to get my hopes up, and they hadn’t even been shot down yet. The crash would be infinitely worse.
If I fought for her and lost . . . I just . . . I couldn’t. She couldn’t stay and I couldn’t go after her. We were both crippled by our pasts. And for once . . . I needed to think about myself first.
“You’re overthinking this. I’m not saying you need to lay it all on the line, tattoo her name on your ass, or write I love you across the sky. Just talk to her. Feel it out. If you never see her again, you’ll always wonder.”
If I had overthought a few more things where she was concerned, maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation. Besides . . . crying didn’t mean she had feelings for me. It could have just been the guilt getting to her. If she had really been upset, she would have come back. She would have called. She would have done something.
“I have to go, Milo. I’m working with the after-school program today.”
Volunteering was the perfect antidote to how I was feeling. Most of those kids had it infinitely worse than I ever had. One afternoon with them would kick loose all of the self-pity that I couldn’t seem to shake. Those kids lived in a stark reality, and it was time I woke up and realized I was there, too. Hoping for the impossible with Max was only going to mess me up more.
“You’re being stupid, hermano.”
No. I thought it was the smartest damn thing I’d done in ages.
30
Max
It was a shit storm of an idea, but somehow I’d managed to bury all of my concerns until I was facing down his door. I had a completely legitimate reason to be here. My parents had already bought the plane tickets, so he might as well have his. Or maybe I just wanted to see him so badly that I didn’t care about how it could go wrong.
He had to be angry. I’d slipped out without a note. I hadn’t called. I didn’t do well with fights—too messy. Fighting was for people who cared, and I made it my policy not to.
So then why was I more worried about the possibility that he wouldn’t be angry? That he wouldn’t care at all?
I raised my hand, and before I could change my mind, I knocked. My heart slammed against my rib cage, and my mouth went dry.
I was going to see him. If I thought I’d wanted that, craved it, before, the feeling paled in comparison to the spike of anticipation I felt in those silent, waiting seconds. He was under my skin, buried in my thoughts. I could still see him, smell him, and feel him as if it had happened moments ago instead of days. A week.
How could I go so freaking crazy in a week? I’d lost all direction, all sense of what I wanted. My compass just kept spinning and spinning with no true north in sight.
The thought of Cade was the only thing that made me feel steady.
If I could just see him, things would be easier. Closure. That’s what I needed. If I could just see that he was okay, I could stop feeling guilty. I could stop obsessing over whether or not I’d made a mistake.
After a few moments, I knocked again.
No answer. Not even a sound on the other side of the door.
He wasn’t here. The influx of emotions rocked through me, and I couldn’t tell whether I was more devastated or relieved.
“You just missed him.”
The voice came from behind me, and I spun so fast that I lost my balance and had to steady myself against the door. It was his neighbor, Milo. The same one that saw me leaving a week ago.
My eyes widened, and my mind blanked.
“I’m just . . . I . . .”
He held up a hand and said, “You don’t have to explain it to me.”
That was good because I didn’t have an explanation. I was hoping I would miraculously know what words to say when I saw Cade. That I wouldn’t just hold out the tickets and then run for it. Hell, I still didn’t even know exactly what I wanted out of all this.
I cleared my throat and fixed my eyes on his forehead so that I didn’t have to look him in the eye.
“Is he . . . how is he?”
Milo leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms casually over his chest.
“He’s good. Really good, actually.”
“Oh.”