The Art of Holding On

by Beth Ann Burgoon

  Even if I can’t give them back.

  “Realized what?” I ask.

  “That I was in love with you,” he says softly. “I didn’t know when it happened—that moment when you smiled at me or weeks or months or years before. All I knew was that it was true. And you’re right, there are no guarantees that we won’t hurt each other again, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” He lifts my chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Give me a chance, Hadley. The one thing I can promise you is that I’m worth it.”

  I already know he’s worth it. He’s worth everything.

  “I want to,” I admit and my voice is hoarse. “I’m just… I’m no good at this.”

  “You’re doing fine.”

  “I’m messing everything up. I get too caught up in the past, in our mistakes--”

  “Fuck the past,” he says, his rough tone at odds with how gently his thumb is moving over my jaw, the caress soft and warm. “Forget we were friends.”

  If only it were that easy. “Sam--”

  “No more past. Whatever happened between us before this moment no longer exists. You and me? We start right now. We start something new.”

  No past means the choices we made during the last eleven months don’t matter.

  It means our mistakes are erased.

  There’s a warm, fluttery sensation in my chest. It fills me, lightens me, until I feel like I’m made of air, lifting off the ground.

  Hope really does float.

  “No past,” I agree, covering his hand with mine.

  There’s freedom in that, in letting go of what’s been. But I can’t focus on what’s to come, either. We have no control over the future. Fate runs that show.

  What we have, all we have, is here and now.

  And I want to make the most of it.

  “You can kiss me.”

  I surprise us both. Sam draws in a quick breath, his fingers on my face tense and still.

  I wait for one heartbeat. Then two. But he doesn’t move.

  Humiliation and disappointment wash over me. “In case you were wondering,” I continue weakly, the Queen of Lame explaining herself. “If you could or not.”

  Angling his body over mine, Sam slides his hand down and around to cup the back of my neck, the pad of his thumb brushing under my jaw where my pulse races. “You wanted to take it slow.”

  I did. I definitely did.

  And it’s super fantastic that he’s reminding me of that now.

  “That was before we were starting new.”

  “So now that we’re starting new, we don’t have to go slow?”

  I lick my lower lip and his gaze drops. Lingers on my mouth. “Just not as…as slow as we’ve been going.”

  “Hadley, do you want me to kiss you?” he asks and I shift closer, as if his gruff tone is a line, reeling me in.

  “If you want to,” I whisper.

  It’s a non-answer. One that takes control out of my hands. That will force him to make the choice for both of us.

  “Tell me.”

  He’s not going to make the choice.

  He wants me to make it. To prove myself. My feelings.

  But I can’t. I can’t tell him how I feel. What I want.

  I’ll have to show him.

  Grabbing him by the front of his shirt, I yank him to me as I surge onto my toes. The brim of my hat jabs him hard on the nose and I cut off his “Oof” of surprise and pain by slamming my mouth against his.

  My knees wobble, my calf muscles burn and I twist the T-shirt’s material some more, fisting it in my hands to maintain leverage and balance. We stay that way, eyes open, mouths smashed together so hard I can feel his teeth behind his closed lips.

  Worst. Kiss. Ever.

  I fall back to my heels, stare at my hands still clutched around his shirt. “I told you I’m no good at this.”

  “We could try again,” he says and I lift my head. He’s touching the bridge of his nose, rubbing two fingertips over the spot I’d hit. One side of his mouth lifts. “If you want to.”

  He’s teasing me, tossing my own words back at me, and I give him a small smile in response. Then I give him what I couldn’t only a moment before.

  The truth.

  “I want to.” Realizing I’m still holding his shirt, I force my fingers open. Smooth the wrinkles with my palms. “This would be easier if you weren’t so tall.”

  He pulls the desk chair out and then sits, bare feet planted wide. “Better?”

  With a nod, I sit on his lap for the first time ever. His left arm goes around my waist, his hand on my outer hip, his other hand on my knee. I start to lean forward when I remember my stupid hat.

  I’m such an idiot, bringing up kissing when I’m still in my work clothes, a day’s worth of sweat and sunscreen clinging to me. But I’ve come this far and I refuse to back down.

  Must be some of Sam’s stubbornness is rubbing off on me.

  I straighten and Sam’s arm around me tightens, keeping me close. I take off my hat, pull the band off my ponytail then put my hat back on backwards.

  Not my best look, I’m sure, but the way Sam’s looking at me, dark and intense, the way he’s holding me, his fingers pressing into my hip, tell me he doesn’t mind. I trace my fingertips over the red mark on his nose and he shuts his eyes on a soft exhale.

  Then I finally kiss Sam Constable the way I’ve always dreamed. The way I was too afraid to kiss him last time. Long, slow, lingering kisses that have Sam pulling me closer, his right hand sliding higher on my leg, his left hand moving up to press against the middle of my back, turning me toward him.

  I tilt my head and deepen the kiss, my tongue sweeping over his bottom lip then into his mouth when he opens for me, my hands delving into his hair, my nails lightly scraping against his scalp. Sam makes a sound in the back of his throat, the muscles of his legs tense under me, but he doesn’t rush me. It’s as if he’s perfectly content to take whatever I’ll give him. However much I’ll give him.

  Unlike our first kiss, there’s no urgency. No worry about making the most of each moment because it would never, could never happen again. This time it’s a slow, steady buzz that snakes its way through my system, warming my blood, drugging my senses until all I can feel are the spots where we touch. All I can think about is the next kiss. And the next.

  Until the door opens and someone makes a gagging sound.

  I jerk back, leaping to get off Sam, but it’s too fast, too hard, and I almost fall flat on my butt. Sam’s there to catch me, steadying me while I stand.

  “You are so dead,” Sam tells Charlie.

  Charlie shrugs, not the least bit intimidated. “You told me to tell you when Mom’s home.” He chomps off a bite of orange popsicle. “She’s home,” he says around his mouthful.

  “Shit,” Sam mutters, glancing out into the hall as if expecting his mom to be there, ready to kill the both of us dead with one of her I’m-so-disappointed-in-you looks, and a long-winded, I-expected-so-much-more-of-you lecture.

  Then she’d tell Sam’s dad and his stepfather about it.

  And Sam would be dead for real.

  Or at least grounded for a month.

  “You told me,” Sam says, jerking his head toward the door. “Now beat it.”

  Charlie wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “You owe me ten dollars.”

  Sam’s eyes narrow. “I told you five.”

  “Five for telling you when Mom gets here,” Charlie says with a grin so smug, so superior it’s like looking at a shorter, rounder version of Max. Not good. Humanity can only handle one Max Constable among its ranks at a time. “And another five for not telling her that you had a girl in your room. Or what you were just doing.”

  Sam seems to consider this little blackmail routine. “Yeah. Okay,” he says with a nod as he gets to his feet. “I’m definitely going to kill you.”

  Smugness gone, Charlie’s eyes widen. He turns, but Sam’s quicker and he takes a hold of Charlie by the ear
and walks him out the door.

  “Owowowowow,” Charlie mutters, shoulders hunched. “That’ll be fifteen dollars,” he says, because while he may be cocky like Max, he’s stubborn like Sam. “Five more for my pain and suffering.”

  Sam storms back into the room, grabs his wallet from the dresser and takes out a couple bills. Goes over and hands them to Charlie. “Here’s ten. If you get Mom out of the house for at least five minutes, I’ll give you another ten. And if you get any ideas about telling her Hadley was in here, I’ll have to tell her about that stash of magazines under your mattress.”

  Charlie goes red—neck, face, ears. Guess he’s not hiding copies of People or Entertainment Weekly.

  “Deal,” Charlie says, taking the money and going to great lengths not to look my way. Thank God. No eye contact needed between us after hearing about his preferred reading material, thanks all the same.

  Charlie walks away and Sam steps out into the hall. Holds out his hand to me.

  I take it, without thought. Without hesitation.

  And then I close the distance between us and I kiss him again, a soft, sweet kiss. Because I want to.

  Because I can.

  30

  “You should come with me. It’ll be fun.”

  Sitting on the floor of Whitney’s bedroom, my back against her bed, I double-click a post on Instagram, then glance up from my phone. Whitney’s at her vanity applying mascara in the classic eyes-wide, mouth-open, face-forward stance.

  “No,” I say. “I shouldn’t.”

  But she’s right about one thing, Tori’s family’s annual Fourth of July Extravaganza is fun. It’s held at the lake house Tori’s and Jackson’s dads—they’re brothers and run a construction company together—built for their families to share. Each year they throw a combined party for the Fourth and there’s always live music, tons of food, games and activities, and a firework show at dusk.

  Whitney sighs and caps the mascara. Meets my gaze in the mirror. “I just don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn about this.”

  I’m guessing she meant to come off strident and scolding, but that’s tough to pull off when you look like a Disney princess and sound like a Southern belle.

  Not intimidating. Not in the least.

  As she would say: Bless her heart for trying.

  “I’m not being stubborn. I wasn’t invited.”

  I didn’t make the guest list this year.

  I knew I wouldn’t.

  But it still hurts, anyway.

  Whitney waves my extremely valid excuse away then leans closer to the mirror, checking for any slight imperfections—of which there are none. I’ve yet to see her get so much as a pimple. It’s unnatural. “Tori is not going to mind if you come along.”

  I stare at my phone, telling myself it’s stupid to get my hopes up. To even wonder. The last time Tori invited me to do something with her was a month into the school year last fall when she asked if I wanted to go to that weekend’s football game with her and Kenzie.

  I told her I had to watch Taylor.

  We haven’t spoken since.

  But still I ask, “Did she say that?”

  “Hmm?” Whitney asks, turning this way, then that, checking the waterfall braids I’d given her.

  They’re perfect, too, if I do say so myself.

  “Did…did Tori say she wouldn’t mind?”

  Whitney pauses and blinks. “Not in so many words…”

  I was right. It was stupid to be hopeful. To wonder.

  Stupider to be disappointed.

  “You mean not in any words.”

  As I’d predicted, taking Whitney to Beemer’s party that night resulted in Whitney making plenty of friends, foremost among them Tori, Kenzie, and…

  Me.

  Although that last one probably has more to do with me showing up on her doorstep that Saturday morning and spilling my guts about me and Sam. I figured us hanging out together that night was a one-time thing. Instead, we’ve become bona fide girlfriends complete with sleepovers and braiding each other’s hair.

  Crazy, I know. And unexpected. But that’s life. Always with the unexpected. You just have to go with it.

  And like so many girls before her, Whitney wants all her friends to be the best of friends, too.

  Except I’ve been there. Done that.

  Not interested in repeating that mistake.

  Neither, it seems, are Tori and Kenzie.

  Which is good.

  Or so I keep telling myself.

  “I could text Tori,” Whitney says, hesitant and hopeful. “Ask her if you can come.”

  “No,” I say again, this time firmly. The last thing I need is Tori thinking I asked Whitney to ask her if I can go to her family’s party.

  Talk about pathetic.

  I’m feeling sorry enough for myself, thanks all the same. I don’t need anyone else knowing how much I wanted Tori to invite me. How I feel like I’m missing out by not going.

  How much I miss being friends with Tori and Kenzie.

  But life is not only full of the unexpected, it’s also stingy with the good things, doling them out piece by piece. Making sure to balance any high with an appropriate low so we don’t fly too far, too fast.

  I got Sam back, but Devyn’s still mad at me for giving him a second chance.

  Whitney and I are friends, but Tori and Kenzie still pretend I don’t exist.

  Piece by piece.

  Highs and lows.

  I stand when Whitney gets her bag from her neatly made bed. Tori’s picking her up at ten and it’s almost that time now and I’d really love to be tucked away inside my own trailer before she and Kenzie show up.

  “Even if I had been invited,” I say as we step into the hall, “I couldn’t go. We’re doing the family thing today.”

  It doesn’t happen often, mainly because one, two or all three of us are usually working, but today’s special.

  Like a Fourth of July miracle.

  “I thought Devyn had to work tonight,” Whitney says.

  We stop by her front door and I slip on my flip-flops. “Not until later.” Which, in this case, means seven p.m. “We’re having a cookout this afternoon.”

  Hot dogs, potato salad, chips, soda and the blueberry pie I made. Not exactly the variety of food the Vecellios will have at their party, but it’ll still be festive.

  And after we eat, Dev will go to work at the hotel, and Zoe and Taylor will meet Carrie and her daughter so they can watch the fireworks the country club puts on every year.

  Zoe invited me to join them, but I’d feel like a third wheel, so I told her I’d rather stay home.

  On the porch, Whitney makes sure the front door is locked before we head down the stairs. Her mom left an hour ago to work a 5K race at the YMCA, but she’s meeting Whitney at the lake this afternoon.

  “I don’t have to go to Tori’s,” Whitney says, and while I know she’s being nice, it only makes me feel even more pitiful.

  “Uh, yes, you do. She’ll literally be here any minute.”

  “Well, Mom and I could come home early, before the fireworks. I’m sure Tori and her family will understand.”

  “I’m fine.” It’s the same thing I told Sam when he offered to skip his family’s trip to his grandmother’s in Rochester. Not that his mom and Patrick would have let him miss it, but he has a tendency to hope for the best despite the odds against him. “Besides, that outfit would be wasted at my house.”

  She’d gone the patriotic route in a light blue strapless maxi dress, thin red belt and white sandals. Plus, it’s already hot, the sun beating down from a cloudless sky. A perfect day to spend at the lake.

  “But it’s Independence Day,” she says. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  I open my mouth to tell her I like being home alone, that it doesn’t happen very often and I won’t be the least bit lonely. But ever since that truth session in Sam’s bedroom last week, I’m trying not to lie as much.

  It’s
harder than it looks.

  “It’ll give me a chance to try my hand at croissants,” I say.

  Which isn’t a lie at all. I’ve been wanting to make croissants for months.

  I already have the dough chilling in the fridge, along with the butter I’d flattened out into a thin rectangle that I’ll use to laminate it, which should, hopefully, result in a nice rise and tons of flaky layers.

  “I’m sure it’ll be nice for you,” she says, accepting defeat the way she goes through life—gracefully, “not having to entertain Taylor while you’re baking. Or staying up until two a.m. to do so.”

  “Nice? I dream of times like this. I might even make a cake.”

  I’ve had the idea for it ever since Sam and I got ice cream—our first official date.

  Funny how easy it is for me to call it that now, two weeks after it happened.

  Funnier still how easy it was, going from just friends to more than friends. Makes it hard to remember why I’d resisted the idea for so long.

  “A chocolate cake,” I continue, “three layers, with peanut butter filling and a marshmallow frosting. Oh! Or maybe marshmallow filling and peanut butter frosting. Or one of each.”

  I’m picturing them both now—the marshmallow frosting all sticky and peaked, the peanut butter frosting thick and creamy—and doing a mental review of my baking supplies when I realize Whitney is smiling at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing.” But she’s looking at me like an indulgent mother. “It’s just you’re the only person I know who gets so passionate about cake.”

  I roll my eyes. “Please. Everyone loves cake. Except psychos.”

  “Actually, a dislike of cake isn’t listed on the Psychopathy Checklist.”

  Spoken like the daughter of a psychologist.

  Yes, her mother is an English teacher and her father—who she does not like to discuss…at all—is a professor of psychology.

  It’s a wonder she’s turned out so normal.

  “Not liking dessert, cake in particular, should absolutely be on that checklist,” I say as I walk backward across the empty street. “Hey, you could do an experiment at the extravaganza. See which people avoid the dessert table and note their personality traits. I bet they all have similar antisocial views, hate kittens and pop little kids’ balloons when they’re not looking.”