“It’s Kiko. I’m sorry I woke you up, but I don’t know where else to go.” Oh my God, I’m crying. I definitely didn’t mean to start crying.
“Are you okay? Where are you?” His voice is loud. I’m pretty sure he’s not in bed anymore.
“I’m at your front door.” Oh my God, this is so embarrassing.
There’s shuffling through the phone and then shuffling behind the door. The lock clicks, and suddenly Jamie is there in his shorts and shirt, and his hair is everywhere—literally everywhere—and his blue eyes look as panicked as my heart feels.
“What happened?” He’s scanning me like he’s searching for wounds. I guess that would be an emergency.
But I don’t have any injuries. I have an anxiety attack. If I tell him that, he’ll probably be irritated I woke him up and whatever illusion he has of “Kiko, his childhood friend” will be replaced with “Kiko, the weird sleep interrupter who doesn’t understand what an actual emergency is.”
“My uncle,” I start, but I stop myself. I’ve never said it out loud—not since I told Mom the truth all those years ago. I don’t want to say it again. Partly because I’m too confused to acknowledge it, but also because I don’t understand what “it” is. My fingers wipe at my cheeks clumsily. “I’m sorry.”
Jamie looks into the street like he’s checking for someone. “Are you alone? Did someone hurt you?”
I shake my head quickly. “No, it’s nothing like that. I . . . didn’t know where to go. I can’t go home.”
“Here, come inside.”
I’m not sure where I get the energy to move my feet, but I follow him into the living room, and suddenly his arms are wrapped around me and he’s squeezing me against his chest like he’s afraid I’ll fly away. I melt into him and the tears keep pouring.
I cry until my chest is sore, and then I breathe and breathe and breathe, and finally I’m not crying anymore. I don’t want to look up and let Jamie see what I mess I am, so I stay buried in his shirt.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He keeps holding me.
“I can’t,” I admit.
“Can you call your dad?” he asks.
I pull away, but I don’t look up. “No. It’s . . . complicated.” Because if I stay with Dad, I’ll have to tell him everything. I’m pretty sure he’s still trying to forget what happened the first time. I don’t want to ruin another marriage for him—not when he has two little babies to take care of and he’s so happy with Serena. What I’m feeling seems to hurt everyone else more than myself. I can’t tell Dad. I can’t tell anyone.
My body starts drifting away from Jamie’s, but he doesn’t stop me. He’s looking at me like I’m breakable—like I’m made of thin glass and one nudge too hard will shatter me into a trillion tiny pieces.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I came here.” I should’ve gone to a motel. What was I thinking making this Jamie’s problem?
“I do,” he says seriously. “I don’t know what happened, but I know you shouldn’t be alone right now. You can stay here, okay? As long as you need to.”
I wipe my face again. “I don’t think your aunt and uncle would like that.”
“They’re still in Florida for Rick’s graduation trip. I’ve got the house to myself until they get back, so I’m the only one who has to know. Besides, they wouldn’t mind. They’re cool—they’d understand.”
“I need to find an apartment.” I can’t stay here forever—we both know it. This might buy me a night or two, but I can’t permanently live on someone’s couch.
Besides, Jamie will go back to California before the summer is over, and what am I going to do then? I’ll be all alone.
“We’ll figure that out when they come home. Until then, you’re safe here.” He puts his hands against my shoulders. I’m still not looking at him. “It’s going to be okay. Okay?”
I nod. What else am I supposed to do? Mom is going to kill me when she finds out I snuck out of the house. I have no way of proving Uncle Max was in my room, just like I had no way of proving he was stealing my things. But I can’t go back there. It’s not safe. I don’t feel safe. Mom will never understand that. She’ll never choose me over Uncle Max—not when he agrees with everything she says and tells her how wonderful she is all the time. She has friends and enemies and nothing in between.
I don’t fit in Mom’s world.
Jamie makes me a bed on the couch, but I’m not tired, so we sit together and watch a movie.
Except I guess I was really tired, because the next thing I know it’s morning and my head is on the pillow and I’m covered up to my shoulders with a blanket.
Jamie is fast asleep on the floor next to me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mom doesn’t call me until after two p.m. I guess that’s when she finally noticed I wasn’t home.
“I’m not staying at the house anymore. Not unless you make Uncle Max leave.” My voice shakes. I’m in the upstairs bathroom talking to her because I don’t want Jamie to hear. It’s embarrassing enough that he saw me sobbing. There was probably snot all over his shirt and everything.
Strangely enough, she’s not as mad as I thought she’d be. She just sounds irritated. “We can talk about this at the house, Kiko. Come home.”
“Is Uncle Max there?”
“He’s sleeping.” Of course he is.
“Well, I don’t want to be in the same house as him. I’ll talk to you when he’s gone.”
She hangs up the phone.
I find Jamie in the kitchen. His laptop is set up on the breakfast bar with a USB cord plugged into his camera. When he sees me, he straightens his shoulders. “Everything okay?”
“She wants to talk at the house.”
“Is that what you want?”
I shrug. “I doubt she’ll listen to me. But I might go over later.” When Uncle Max goes back out to drink, I think.
Jamie nods and points to the screen. “I’m just transferring some photos off my camera. I was planning on taking some shots at the mall. You interested?”
“Yeah, okay. What’s at the mall?”
“People.” Jamie laughs.
I could never take photographs the way Jamie does. He captures strangers like he’s invisible. And he sees the best possible version of them—it’s the way I imagine things in my head, but the only way I can make it real is to paint it. To me, ideals don’t exist in real life. I have to make them up.
But Jamie sees them everywhere. Imperfection is his ideal, because it’s real and tangible, and he knows how to translate it into a frozen moment in time that will be beautiful forever.
I could watch him take photographs all day. The way his left eyebrow digs lower than the right. The way the sides of his mouth curl down and then up again. The way he doesn’t blink until he takes the photograph, just in case he misses the perfect moment. The way he looks at me with a wide smile after he captures what he wants to, because he doesn’t live in the moments of his photographs—he lives in the moments right here, with me.
I’m so in love with Jamie Merrick I want to run straight into a wall and squash into a flat pancake because loving him feels like a cartoon.