“I think I should probably get you home,” he breathed.
His actions belied his words, his mouth suddenly capturing mine again. His hands released my shirt and dove into my hair, his fingers tangling in the waves, his lips firmer than they had been before, more desperate. My arms wrapped around his neck, my mouth as insistent as his, our breaths mingling in the night, fogging up on the winter breeze.
“Okay,” he gasped, pulling away, his eyes on mine. “I should really get you home now.”
My arms fell away from his neck, and he released my hair, his hand finding mine as we moved over the hay to the edge of the truck bed. He climbed out first, and then assisted me, his hands spanning my waist briefly as my feet found the ground.
Neither of us spoke. We simply walked across the yard to his truck. The silence seemed important somehow, as if the kiss spoke for itself, the emotions in it too big for words. I wouldn’t call it love. It was more like discovery, like an uncharted journey into a confusing mix of emotions. Forget the cup half full or half empty thing. My cup was a little bit of both. One moment it felt too full, and the next it didn’t feel full enough.
Heathcliff drove into the night, the windows down, the wind rushing around us. The sky was clear, the stars bright. Pine, wood smoke, and freedom. That’s what the night smelled like. It smelled like grass and pond water, like beauty and harshness, and we breathed it in.
The tires crunched over gravel, dirt, and then asphalt, over open roads and tree-lined dirt paths, from highway to back road. We were on the lane leading to the plantation when Heathcliff glanced at me. “What was better?” he asked. “The kiss or the fall?”
He pulled to a stop in front of the house, and I smiled, my face averted. “Aren’t they the same thing?”
Those words hung in the air as I climbed free of the vehicle and ran for the house before he could even think about walking me to the door.
My fingers found the unlocked knob. The door fell in, and I closed it quickly behind me, locking it before settling against it, my breath coming in gasps.
There was a light on in the kitchen, and I knew my uncle had remained up. It wasn’t too late, but it was for him, and I knew it.
The chair in the dining room scraped against the floor, Gregor’s shadow falling over the hardwood as he paused in the doorway.
His worried gaze found my face.
I smiled. “It’s okay, Uncle,” I said. “Tonight, I learned how to fall.”
Chapter 7
The next two days, I didn’t see Heathcliff outside of English class. He was doing work for his father on the Parker farm, but the separation didn’t matter. Something had changed between us, and we both knew it.
For two days, we traded glances, his foot hovering between our chairs, his hands fisted on the edge of his desk.
Our shoes spoke for us, color smearing into my sneakers as we wrote, erased, and then wrote again.
“Friday night?” his shoe asked.
“I’m in,” mine answered.
It was corny using our shoes to speak when we could have just as easily used paper, but there was also something really special and unique about it. I didn’t own a cell phone because my uncle and I had just never thought it a necessity, but now I wished I did. Maybe it would have eased the uncomfortable feeling in my gut as I lay awake at night staring at the ceiling. It wasn’t that he consumed my thoughts—he didn’t—but there was no denying that I felt his absence more keenly than I should.
I found myself wondering things as I lay awake, questioning myself and my feelings. Fear ate away at me. It was good that I was letting my heart fall, but was I doing it because I truly cared about Heathcliff on a primal level, or was it because I needed someone to help me through the pain of my uncle’s illness?
For two days, Heathcliff worked, and I accompanied my uncle to three separate appointments, two of them for lab work and another with his oncologist.
Each time I saw Heathcliff’s shoes in English class, my heart stuttered, my body heating. Each afternoon, that same heat was doused by chilling grief.
In all honesty, I think my uncle would have preferred to do his appointments alone, but my heart wouldn’t allow it. So, I sat next to him, our feet fidgeting against tiled floors and plastic chairs, the smell of antiseptic assaulting us. There was little conversation, just a lot of hand holding and swallowed worries.