Focusing on my hands, I started picking at the skin surrounding my nails. “You’ve got to stop saying those things to me. I don’t know what to do with it.” My brain was riddled with conflicting emotions.
He let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself. I do just want to be your friend. I’ll be good.” He lifted my chin, and raised three fingers on the other hand. “Scout’s honor. Just get that look off your face. I can’t stand it.” He smiled, willing me to do the same.
The corner of my lips turned up in a half smile, and he dropped my chin and relaxed against the massive trunk. “I come here at least once a week. Sometimes things with my dad are too much, and I can’t think unless I come and sit with Bertha.”
I bit down on a chuckle. “Bertha?”
“Yes,” he drew out the word, “Bertha.” He patted the bark behind him as if I should have known.
“Oh.” I stifled my chuckle, not wanting to insult him.
“Don’t laugh. This is my other BFF, so I need you two to get along.”
“I’m sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Hi, Bertha. Nice to meet you.” I looked up and waved, still choking through my giggles.
A subtle wind blew, and she swayed as though she was actually waving back.
My mouth dropped open, and Blake grinned. “She likes you.” He turned toward me. “You have to come visit her now, or she’ll get upset. They don’t call them weeping willows for nothin’.”
I nodded because somehow I thought he was right. “Understood.”
Scrunching his eyebrows together, he tilted his head. “I just told you my best friend is a tree that I sit and talk to once a week, and you actually look like you understand.”
“The girl just waved back at me.” I squeaked. “How could I not?” We both laughed and leaned back together.
A slight breeze sent tendrils of my hair in Blake’s direction. The way my golden strands looked laying across his tanned arm felt somewhat intimate. I wished I had nerve endings there so I could actually feel his smooth, taut skin. Heat rushed to my cheeks, and a drumming started in my girly nether region. Shit. I needed a distraction. Something else, anything else.
“So what’s the deal with your dad anyway?” I knew I shouldn’t pry because I didn’t want him reciprocating with personal questions, but I couldn’t stop myself. The look on his face when he talked about it made me want to help him in any way I could.
His shoulders slumped, and he started picking at the grass and flicking it toward his feet. “He’s a judge on the Supreme court. I think I was born and bred for the sole purpose of following in his footsteps. When I was little, I was so proud of that. I couldn’t wait to be big and be strong and powerful like him.” He wore a reminiscent smile, seeming far away again. The corners of his mouth slowly dropped and he snorted. “People run around, hanging on his every word, and I was always one of them. But as I got older, I was interested in other things. Sports, writing, photography.” He sent me a fleeting glance. “None of them were good enough.” He fingered more blades of grass and tugged out his aggressions. “No matter what I wanted to do, he knocked it down. He’d tell me they were ‘frivolous hobbies, not fitting for his son’.” He straightened. “So I hid it. Trophies stayed in my closet. Pages and pictures were stuffed under my mattress and in my drawers. My whole existence was hidden from him.” He glanced at me. “Still is.”
He shrugged casually as if it was no big deal, but hurt radiated from his eyes. He looked like a wounded child, which is probably exactly how he felt, constantly vying for his father’s approval. “It’s cool, though. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m over it.” He chucked the last blade he’d been toying with toward his feet.
An overwhelming urge to comfort him and take this from his shoulders washed over me. To let him know he was good enough. I instinctively reached over and touched his hand. “It’s so far from cool, and you should not be over it.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Calm down, Angel. I’m a big boy. I’m past my daddy issues.”
My face screwed inward and I made a sharp turn at my waist to face him. “Like hell you are. You sit by yourself once a week talking to a tree because she’s all who’ll listen. I haven’t even taken one psych class yet, and I can assure you that’s a problem.” I slanted my head up briefly. “No offense, Bertha.” I looked back to him. “We have to fix this.”
“We, huh? I like the sound of that.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Don’t make a joke.” I slapped his shoulder. “This is serious. It’s your life. You’re what, a junior?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So that means you’ve just started your third wasted year. Don’t you see how ridiculous that is?”
Um, Eva, what happened to distancing yourself? And don’t you have enough of your own problems?
Shut up, you.