His voice at the pond echoes in my mind: You’re one of my best friends now.
I sit on the lid of the toilet and press the heels of my palms into my eyes. I’m exhausted, I’m drained, and I’m making something out of nothing. Mike rubbed my shoulder to tease me, like friends do. He wanted me to come to bed so we could keep talking and laughing, like friends do. He carried me through the woods, he picked me up from the animal shelter, he confided in me about his feelings for Danica, because those are all things that friends—really, really good friends—would do.
He’ll miss me when I’m gone. But not like I’ll miss him.
And anyway, even if he did like me like I like him, it’s not like it would matter. He’s a rock star. He’s going to be ridiculously famous. He’s going to have girls throwing themselves at his feet in every country in the world, starting next week when he goes on tour. Most of his life is going to be spent far away from Virginia. Far away from Indiana. Far away from me.
Maybe he was always just meant to be my one exciting story. Fifty years from now, when I’m still living on the farm my parents lived in and my grandparents lived in, when my own granddaughters have tired of a thousand boring stories about livestock and weather and crops, I’ll tell them about the hot drummer I pined after during my one semester in Virginia. Maybe I’ll even tell them about the night I slept in his bed. They’ll probably think he’s the one that got away, and maybe I’ll think that too . . . but I’ll smile anyway, because there are worse things than being Mike Madden’s friend—I could have never even known him at all.
Ignoring the sting in my chest, I push open the bathroom door and pad down the hall to Mike’s bedroom. In the dim light of a corner lamp, he’s straightening the sheets of his oversized bed. His brown eyes lift to mine, dark under thick lashes in the soft lamplight. He straightens to his full six-foot-something, in a white T-shirt, red workout shorts, and black ankle socks, and it strikes me how big he is—how if he wrapped his arms around me, I could get lost in them completely.
“Which side do you want?” he asks.
“Whichever side you don’t normally sleep on.”
“I normally sleep in the middle.” Mike drums his fingers on his leg, and I curl and uncurl my toes against the floor.
“It’s your bed. You pick.”
“I guess I’ll take that one,” he decides after a while, pointing to the side closer to the door. I nod and chew on my lip as we walk past each other at the foot of the bed. The faint scent of his cologne makes my heart ache. It smells like running through the rain, like being carried through red leaves.
Mike and I climb under his covers at the same time—me, teetering on the edge of the mattress; him, getting comfortable on his side. When his eyes find mine in that soft yellow light, I nearly roll right off the bed.
I expect him to crack a joke about how awkward this is, or ask me if I’m comfortable, or say something, anything, but instead, he just lies there, and so do I. In the gentle light, I let him study me, because it means I get to study him. I take in the curve of his black lashes, the golden undertones in his eyes, the strong slope of his cheek, the adorable shape of his ear. It feels forbidden, staring at him like this, being this close. But not because of Danica. It’s because he’s too perfect. How soft his hair looks against his navy pillow. The way it fades perfectly into the scruff on his jaw. The tempting shape of his lips.
I close my eyes and try to commit it all to memory, because I want to take this moment home with me. I want to keep it close forever.
“I missed wishing you sweet dreams,” Mike says, and his quiet voice persuades my eyes to open. I find him still lying inches away, studying me with that gaze that pulls the strings inside me.
I want to ask why he stopped, but I already know the answer. It’s because I stopped responding. I didn’t want him to realize I had a crush on him, and I still don’t. I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering if that’s the reason he never talks to me again once I leave this town behind.
“Me too,” I say, and when my gaze twines with his, I let it. I let myself fall into those eyes, and fall, and fall, and fall.
“Sweet dreams, Hailey.”
My fragile heart bangs in my chest, threatening to break with every beat. I force myself to swallow, force myself to breathe. “Sweet dreams, Mike.”
When he turns off the light, I close my eyes again. And in the dark, I listen to my heart splinter beneath the weight of saying goodbye.
Chapter 22
In Mike Madden’s room, in Mike Madden’s bed, it’s no wonder I can’t sleep. Not even the light of the moon penetrates his thick blackout curtains, so there’s nothing to claim my attention except the thoughts racing through my head.
Tomorrow, a call from my uncle Rick will show up on my phone. He’ll recount Danica’s accusations, and I’ll deny them. I’ll be careful not to use words like jealous, or delusional, or psychotic when describing his daughter, but I’ll defend myself. I’ll tell him I would never, ever do something like steal her boyfriend, and maybe he’ll even believe me.
But it won’t matter. Danica’s tears have always meant more than my honesty. Like the Christmas she wouldn’t let me play with her toy jeweler because she said there weren’t enough rhinestones to go around. Or the Easter I couldn’t use any of the pink egg paint because she said she needed it all for herself. So I won’t beg, and I won’t cry, and I won’t even tell my uncle about her breaking my computer, because there’s no point—computers are as replaceable to him as number two pencils. Meaningless: my feelings will be meaningless. And in the end, he’ll decide that if Danica doesn’t want to share this town, she doesn’t need to. He’ll never understand how much playing with that jeweler meant to me.
The bed shifts with Mike’s weight for what must be the hundredth time, carrying my thoughts to someplace closer. I don’t think he’s slept yet either, judging by how much he’s been moving around. Lying next to him in the pitch black, I’ve been acutely aware of every shift, every turn, every deep breath.
“I can’t sleep,” his quiet voice confirms, though I’m sure it’s for entirely different reasons. I can’t sleep because it hurts to be this close to him. It’s a tightness in my chest. It’s a cramp in my fingers. It’s the torture of being so near, but so, so far. It’s been easier to let my mind drift to the future than to be here, now, in his bed, with him close enough to touch. I don’t know if I’ve spent mere minutes struggling to breathe evenly next to him, or if it’s been hours, but it feels like hours. It feels like days. Weeks.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Can’t get comfortable.”