“Now tell me, Ryan, why not you?”
I wasn’t expecting an answer like that. I guess I didn’t know what to expect. She looks at me, waiting for an answer. I shrug and step closer to her. “I’m plain and ordinary, Hadley. All I can offer you is me and I think that sometimes that’s not enough, especially when I see you in the arms of that guy. You bring out these crazy emotions that I don’t know anything about. I don’t know how to control them or make them stop. I’m never going to be the type that can support someone like you. This place, it’s not good enough for you and this is where I’m destined to be. My family expects me to wake up the day after graduation, put on some coveralls and go to the mill. You give me hope. You put these ideas into my head that I can get away from here and do something else, but what? I can’t go to college and the only thing I can do is flip burgers. Are you going to bring me home to your parents and say, ‘here’s my boyfriend, the burger flipper’?”
“My parents won’t care as long as you make me happy. They live in the same house I grew up in. It’s a small three-bedroom home. My mom is a teacher and my dad is a banker, who takes the train to work, works long hours and falls asleep in his recliner at the end of the night. Anything you offer me is better than what I have now.”
Hadley steps forward and into my arms. I hold her tight against my chest, burying my face into her neck. She’s wet, cold and shivering, but I am too. We aren’t too smart being out in the rain like this.
“I didn’t like seeing those pictures,” I mumble against her skin. “It made me feel… I don’t know, like I needed to hit something and I’ve never felt like that before. I didn’t like that.”
Hadley pulls back. She reaches up and moves my hair out of my face. “I don’t like him, not even in the slightest and I would never do anything to disrespect you.”
“But you loved him at one time.”
“I did, but he broke my heart in the worst way and I would never do that to someone I love.”
I lean down and kiss her softly, which is too much for me to handle. I want so much from her, but not sure how to make that happen. I hate that I’m inexperienced and that everything I’m feeling is so foreign to me. I don’t know if what I’m doing is right. It’s times like this where I need my dad to be somewhat approachable. I know discussing girls with him is off-limits and he’d ban Dylan from coming over. I need someone to talk to, though. Maybe Dylan, she knows how I feel about Hadley and I know she’s done things with guys before.
I kiss her again before pulling away. She looks like a beautiful drowned rat. Her hair is plastered to her face and her nose is red. I want to wrap her up in my blankets and keep her warm, but that’s not an option. I pull her hand into mine and walk us to her car. I reach for the driver-side door, but she side steps and opens the back door and crawls in. I don’t hesitate and follow her, shutting the door behind me.
She climbs forward and turns on the car, blasting the heat. I can’t believe she left her keys in the ignition.
“That’s not safe, you know.”
“I wasn’t thinking,” she replies as she sits back. She’s pulled her bag from the front seat and unzips it, pulling out some dry clothes. “Can you turn around?”
“No,” I say. I adjust so I can watch her. She looks at me through squinted eyes. I should feel like a shit for denying her, but I want to see her. I can’t help it. She looks down at the shirt in her hand and back at me.
“You should take off your sweatshirt before you catch a cold.”
I nod and pull my wet sweatshirt over my head. I push my hair out of my face and stare at her. Her mouth drops open. I chuckle. She probably didn’t think I’d be shirtless, but she texted me when I was in bed and I came right here to see her.
Hadley clears her throat and looks at her shirt before setting it down and peeling off her sweatshirt. The t-shirt she’s wearing underneath is white and very see-through at the moment. She crosses her arms. Her fingers grasp the ends of her shirt and lift it up and over her head.
“Don’t,” I say as I set my hand on hers before she can put her dry shirt on. I want to see her, hold her, like this. There can’t be that many consequences. I’m almost eighteen, she can’t go to jail for something I’m asking for.
“I shouldn’t be like this.”