The Space In Between

by Melyssa Winchester

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I wanted the distraction, but not when it comes at the price of him talking about his life.

  “All this boy wanted to do was carve out his own path. Do his own thing and find his place separate from what everyone else wanted. But no matter how much he distanced himself from everyone, he always seemed to find himself being dragged back in until he became nothing more than a designated courier to his parents and driver for his brother.”

  “Johnny, you don’t—”

  “Shhh Ems, I’m not done yet.” He admonishes before picking up again. “Despite having the money to put him into any private school in the country or ship him off to parts unknown, forgetting about him altogether, they decide public school is best and he ends up at Greenville High for freshman year.”

  Oh gross. I know where he’s going next. Sweater vests, dress shirts and plaid skirts. My mom’s attempt at making me look presentable the first day of grade nine and failing miserably. Yuck.

  But if I’m ready to upchuck over fashion choices, I’m not focusing on my problems, so maybe this little walk down memory lane story isn’t such a bad idea after all.

  At least it’s not until I hear what he comes up with next.

  “Scared out of his mind and wishing he could be anywhere but where he ends up, this boy’s not prepared at all for the girl that skips up to him in the hall that first day. The one that despite his every attempt at getting her to screw off and leave him alone, keeps persisting. Rambling off about needing his picture for the yearbook and not taking no for an answer, even after I got physical with her. Little did I know that the midget girl that kneed me in the balls that day would end up becoming my dream come true.”

  “Johnny—”

  Meeting his eyes, it’s not concern I see there anymore. No, this is something else entirely. A look that I haven’t seen cross his features since the day he dropped a dozen roses on me in class and declared his feelings.

  “A dream come true who looked a whole lot like she walked out of a private school brochure.” I snort, studying his face as I do and hoping that the look I see there doesn’t manifest itself in a way that’s going to end with me having to hurt him.

  “You’re right. That only works in porno’s.” he jokes. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I do, and its sweet, JD. Thanks.”

  I mean every word. I understood what he wanted to do, telling the story he did, even if some parts of it were harder to swallow than others, and it means the world to me.

  Johnny Davenport deserves to have a girl that will give all of herself to him without reservations or feelings for another guy.

  Someone that’s the complete opposite of me.

  Admitting that, though, it makes the pain I’m already feeling worse, because if I can’t summon up the feelings needed to be with someone I consider my best friend, I’m never going to be able to do it with anyone else either. Which can only mean one thing.

  I’m going to be in love with Christian Cayne forever.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Christian

  After spending the weekend completely alone with no texts, calls or even smoke signals from Emery to let me know she was okay, the last thing I’m in the mood for is the shove from behind I get when I finally make it to my locker, or the angry, hateful shouting that follows it Monday morning.

  “You worthless piece of shit!”

  Catching and righting myself, I turn to face the very last voice I wanted to hear, and before I can so much as take a breath to get a word in edgewise, his fist makes contact with the side of my face and I’m staggering again.

  “How could you do that to her, huh? Make her fall in love with you, let her make you her entire fucking world and then rip it all away?”

  “I—I didn’t.” I manage to spit out, my tongue feeling the looseness of my bottom teeth from the impact and praying he didn’t knock any of them free.

  I should have seen this coming knowing how close the two of them are. Johnny being here now and standing up for Emery when I’m pretty sure he’s got all the facts wrong, makes sense, and despite wanting nothing to do with it or him right now—only here at all because of my need to see Emery—I deserve what he’s dishing out.

  If I wasn’t already knocked six ways from Sunday, I would ask him to lay into me again.

  Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like someone had reached straight into me, ripped my heart out of my chest cavity and squeezed it until it was just a puddle of blood spattered parts on the floor.

  Everything I experienced with her was real. Meeting her and spending time together, opening myself up in ways I haven’t been able to do with anyone since I lost my mom, eventually getting to be with her and making love for the first time; none of it was a game to me.

  When I said that I loved her, me breaking down in the middle because the words were so heavy and meaningful that it physically pained and pleased me to admit them, I meant it.

  All of it.

  Emery may have been this force that came into my life by accident and a silly little idea planted by my grandfather about signs may have been what brought us together, but love, the real kind, even if it’s also the first kind, kept us together.

  Being without her, missing her like crazy, and not knowing if she’s okay or as torn up and broken as I am, makes me feel dead inside.

  Suddenly its four years ago and I’m right back in that damn hospital room on that last day staring into my dying mother’s eyes, screaming for her to wake up and come back to me. To us. Me and my dad. The life that had drained away from her, doing the same to me, leaving me completely devoid of what one needs to keep fighting.

  Exactly what Emery gave me back when she said she loved me too.

  “Bullshit, you didn’t.” Johnny finally speaks as he moves in closer, completely ignoring the sea of people starting to file in around us and continuing to unload. “You’ve been doing it for weeks.”

  If there was any question to how much Emery told him, I had my answer now. He knows everything.

  “You don’t understand…”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, dickhead. I understand it perfectly. You knew for weeks that your parents were dating and you let her fall in love with you anyway.” Moving in and crouching down as close as possible, he speaks again but this time lower. “You let her sleep with you while you kept the truth hidden. Which in case you’re not keeping up, makes you a whole new level of douchebag.”

  There’s no point even trying to argue my position. Even if he wasn’t pissed, he’s already got his mind made up. It’s not like the two of us were ever really friends anyway. The only reason we hung out was Emery.

  I don’t owe him anything, but because he’s my only damn tie to her, it makes me feel like I owe him everything.

  Shifting over until my back is against the lockers, I drop the short distance to the ground until I’m leaning against it.

  “Three weeks ago, I came home early from her house and saw her mom in the kitchen with my dad. It all came out. I should have said something about it then, but I didn’t. I stayed silent because honestly at first, I was blown away. Then they asked me to keep it quiet, leaving it up to her mom to tell her the truth. You remember me back then, right? I wasn’t okay. Finding out about them and then keeping their secret seriously messed with my head.”

  “So you thought it would be a good idea to continue going on like it never happened?”

  “No. I’ll tell you the same damn thing I told her when it all came out. I didn’t want to lose her. Knowing how hard it was getting together with her in the first place, and knowing how she feels about her mom, I knew I would. Lose her, I mean. She would have found out and bailed because to her, it’s the right thing to do.”

  “You don’t know her at all, do you? All those months dating, with as serious as you two were, and you really thought she would just give up?”

  Shoving his own body down beside me, growling at the few bystande
rs there to get in their lockers and scaring them off, he leans back with a sigh.

  “She’s in love with you, man. As much as I hate admitting that because I would give anything to have her look at me the way she does you, I can’t deny it anymore. It’s always been you. But she wouldn’t have walked away the way you think. She does the right thing by everyone, that’s true, but only when it doesn’t hurt her to do it. Turning her back on you and making her mom happy instead of herself, Christian, it would have destroyed her.”

  He’s not telling me anything I didn’t already learn with Emery the night she found out. Being so afraid to lose her twisted me up so bad that I made the wrong choice.

  I took away her ability to choose.

  A choice that Emery and now Johnny are telling me would have been me.

  I don’t even need him to be disgusted with me. I’m already disgusted enough with myself.

  “How is she, JD?”

  “A mess. She didn’t come out of her room all weekend and she’s not talking to anyone, other than the bit she gave me. Her mom’s all messed up over it.”

  “Well, I’m glad it’s not just me she’s not talking to, but I’d much rather none of this be happening at all.”

  “This entire thing is bullshit, but ya know, I think you could have figured it all out if you just told her everything when you found out. You could have processed it together.”

  Annnd we’re back to me keeping it from her again. Great. Like I don’t already know how badly I screwed up.

  “Don’t you think I know that? That I haven’t spent the entire weekend telling myself that exact same thing?”

  “Why do you think I’m sitting with you instead of kicking your teeth down your throat the way I wanted to when I got here?”

  Laughing awkwardly, the irony of the entire situation finally reaching its peak, I fill him in before he can accuse me of losing my mind more than I already have.

  “You know what the worst part about all of this is?”

  “Not sure, but if you’re laughing, it can’t be that bad.”

  “How much do you know about her place?”

  “You talking about her house or the place she runs off to when I piss her off?”

  “The place she goes.”

  “Not a lot, just that it exists. Why?”

  “She took me there before we got together. This place that no one else knows about, she brought me there. I’m still blown away by it, but it was what happened that night that’s funny.”

  “Care to share or would you rather I just beat it out of you?”

  “We were talking about our parents dating and how it would be funny if the lady my dad was seeing and the guy her mom was dating were our parents. That’s all it was supposed to be. A funny joke.”

  “And you missed the part where the joke became reality?”

  “Yes! But it’s more than that. I know the way my dad is. The way he was with my mom before she died, and the way he’s been since. He’s all work and no play. The guy used to piss me off with how much he was working. I never had to worry about him going out with anyone and replacing my mom because he would have had to stop working for five minutes in order for it to happen.”

  “Which makes it worse, because me and Em, we talked about her dad a lot. How despite knowing he was never going to be around, she still had hope that one day she’d have one. She wrote a song about it and everything. Then her mom meets this amazing guy that changes her in all of these awesome ways and she’s telling me that she can’t wait to meet him because she wants to thank him for what he’s done in her life. Man, she was talking about my dad the entire time. She wanted to thank my dad for making her life better.”

  “He wasn’t the only one.”

  “That’s not true.”

  What Johnny’s saying is complete bullshit. All anyone has to do is look at the way things are turning out. I wasn’t making her life better. Not the way she was doing in mine anyway.

  Emery, from the day I showed up at this stupid school, changed me. She was breathing life into me again. She was my fresh breath of air, my muse, and reason for being.

  All I did for her was take everything she already had and rip it away.

  Including my dad.

  I made her as alone as I was when I landed here.

  “If you say so, Chris. But if that’s the way you want to look at it, maybe I was wrong before and it wasn’t always you that was meant for her. Because that guy wouldn’t be sitting here arguing with me about his impact on her life before.”

  “Oh yeah? What would he be doing instead?”

  “Fighting to make sure that his impact never ends.”

  Emery

  Duck and dodge.

  Who knew I would be such a master at it?

  Even having the classes we do together, I’ve still managed to get in and out before he can corner me and force me to talk.

  I’ve had enough talking. I think we did all the talking we needed to at dinner the other night. I know what everyone wants, but I can’t give it to them. I need time to process it all.

  Too bad my mom didn’t get the memo.

  It started when I slinked my way into the kitchen this morning and the only reason it stopped at all is because I grabbed my bag and took off before she got back out of the shower.

  She means well, I know, but after dropping not only the bombshell of who her boyfriend was on me, but also the proposal and what it means for all of us, I’ve had more than enough.

  I can’t hide away forever. I know at some point I’m going to have to face it head on, but for now, it’s the way it has to be.

  Coming to school and pretending that the weekend didn’t happen; that Christian and I are as in love as we were the night we confessed it to each other before making love for the first time, I can’t do it.

  I want to do it. I miss him. It takes everything I have not to look across the room, meet his eyes and smile like I’ve done so many times before. Or find him at lunch and curl up on the grass in his lap spending more time kissing than talking, completely addicted to the way it feels being that close to him. I want to do all of those things, but I can’t.

  I can’t torture myself by pretending.

  This is real, it’s happening and now I’ve gotta figure out how to move on, live my life and adapt in the best way possible. Which for now means staying apart.

  Too bad that in all of my decision making, I’d forgotten to inform the guy I’m trying to avoid of my plans. And now, after an entire day of hiding away, he’s putting an end to it.

  This was supposed to my safe place. No one ever comes in here unless they have to, because like me, they don’t want to deal with Jordan’s overbearing attitude. Christian especially. After spending two months of our relationship holding him back every time Jordan got within a foot of us, he’d gone out of his way to keep his distance.

  Until now.

  The unique sound the door makes when completely pulled back alerts me to someone’s presence first, the hinges in desperate need of a spray, but it’s the click as the door closes and the intruder clearing their throat that has my attention torn away from my work and landing solely on them.

  “I figured when I couldn’t find you anywhere else that you’d be here.”

  Sliding out of my seat and ignoring my heart’s desire to run to him, I move around the desk and back up as far as I can go. A little overdramatic to be sure, but it’s the way it needs to be. If I get within a foot of him with the way I feel about him still so fresh, I’ll cave and melt quicker than butter that’s been left out overnight.

  “A photographer’s work is never done.” I hesitantly joke. “Or at least that’s what Jordan thinks.”

  “Can we talk?”

  “I—uh, I don’t know.” I stammer, watching as those bright blue eyes I love darken as his shoulders sag and his eyes fall to his feet.

  He’s just as nervous doing this as I am.

  I’m not sure why I thought he wouldn’t b
e, but there’s something about the way he’s reacting, like a bubble that’s been caught and popped, that surprises me.

  Maybe it’s because everything that’s happening could have been prevented.

  I think we still would have found our way to this spot, I mean it’s not like we can go back and undo the fact that our parents were dating and are now engaged, but the reason I can’t step forward, why I can only go back until my back slams into the chalkboard, is because of the gigantic space he put between us when he chose to keep it a secret.

  “I’m not ready, Chris.”

  “Please don’t do that,” he pleads, lifting his head up from the floor and focusing on me, putting the full extent of his pain on display. “Don’t call me Chris. You never do that. I’m your Mikey, remember?”

  My Mikey.

  God. This. Standing here with him, acting out the result of our choices over the last few days, it’s debilitating. It’s suffocating me. This moment right now is exactly why I spent the entire weekend dodging his calls and texts and I’ve been avoiding him all day.

  It’s too much. This much pain in your heart isn’t supposed to happen. It’s not healthy and I’m not strong enough to handle it.

  “Not anymore. You can’t be.”

  “So, that’s it then? You’re ending things?”

  No. Of course that’s not what I’m saying. I mean, it’s not, right? I can’t be ending things. Not when even after being given a fallback option in Johnny, I still chose him.

  Giving up on Christian isn’t possible.

  Except with what I just said, that’s exactly what’s happening.

  I’m letting my mom’s happiness, and the pain of being lied to for weeks, win.

  It’s over. It has to be. I’m not allowed a happy ending.

  “It’s the way it has to be.”

  “That’s fucking bullshit, Emery!”

  I want to raise my voice like him, scream back and admit that I know it is, but I can’t do it because it doesn’t change the facts.