White brings the side-by-side to a stop by the old oak tree that, when I was younger, used to be my favorite place to sit and dream. I usually dreamed about White. He never knew that and I never planned on telling him. Right now though, I have the strongest urge to tell him everything.
“Kayla? You okay?”
I look around to see White standing on the ground looking through the opening of the UTV at me. I shake off my thoughts and smile at him.
“Just thinking. I loved this place when I was younger,” I tell him as I get out and walk to my favorite tree.
“I know. Whenever Mom couldn’t find you, she’d send one of us down to this pond to drag you back home.”
“This tree was my best friend growing up, even before Ida Sue gave me a home,” I tell him, placing one of my hands on the trunk as memories come back to me one by one.
“I thought that was me.”
“Ah, but there were things I couldn’t tell you. Secrets that were just between the tree and me. He’d hold me while I poured out my heart in ridiculous teen-angst-filled poetry in my notebook, or while I cried.”
“Cried? I don’t remember you being sad a lot growing up. Did you keep a lot hidden from me?” White asks, and I can tell the thought of me being upset hurts him.
“Every teenage girl is sad at some point, White—even without the family trouble I had.”
“I’ve been such an ass for so long. I thought we were there for each other, but I was blind to so much. I’m sorry,” he says, pulling me around to face him, his hand cupping the side of my neck. I close my eyes, my hand going over his. I breathe in his scent. “If I could go back,” he continues, “I’d move Heaven and Earth to give you the world.”
“Now you’re just being silly,” I tell him, but his words mean something. They answer a need in me from the little girl, and now the woman who has always wanted more from White, but never held out hope to receive it.
I slide down on the ground as White settles beside me, letting the tree support my back. White has his hand on my thigh, sitting close beside me. It seems surreal. How many times did I dream about this exact thing when I was seventeen?
“It’s not silly,” White says, squeezing my leg. I lean into him, kissing the side of his face just under his chin. Then I snuggle into him. “You snuggle like a cat,” he whispers into the top of my head.
“Well, right now I kind of want to purr like one. And it is silly. You can’t make a teenage girl fighting puberty and hormones happy. I’m pretty sure that’s impossible.”
“I would have tried my damnedest. Even if that meant making Green get a brain and see what he was throwing away,” White says, and I can’t help but laugh.
“My feelings for Green were much less significant than you give them credit for.”
“You were upset because he ditched you for Cynthia.”
“Only because of the prom. I never had those type of feelings for Green, not really. He was…”
“Was?”
“Let it go, White. Doesn’t everyone have crushes as a teenager that don’t mean anything?”
“I can’t say. I think life is different for teenage girls. With boys, it pretty much boils down to sex. You get a small taste and it’s like opening Pandora’s Box. You’ve got to keep experimenting. We’re ruled by hormones too, really. Just a different sort.”
“Eww.”
“Eww?”
“You just described every teenage boy as a mindless zombie bouncing from warm body to warm body just trying to get a fix. In the meantime, there are the girls writing love songs and sonnets over a boy and dreaming of forever.”
“That’s pretty much how it is.”
“Well, that’s the single most heartbreaking and unromantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Sorry, honey. If it helps, teenage boys are stupid and they do grow up.”
“Have you?” I ask jokingly.
“I’d like to think I know exactly what’s important now,” he says, turning my face to him. His fingers comb through my hair and his thumb brushes against my cheek. The look on his face is intense and my breath lodges in my throat and I’m afraid to breathe.
“White?” I question, hoping, but not knowing what it is exactly I’m hoping for.
“God, Kayla, you’re so beautiful,” he whispers so softly I’m afraid I heard him wrong. His breath fans my face, heating me up from the inside. I’m scared to move or even close my eyes, so I keep them open even as he leans in further to kiss me. They flutter shut just as his lips touch mine.
CHAPTER 38
WHITE
“Every time we kiss, it just feels better and better.”