20
1198 Words
Ten minutes and an excuse for being completely broke later, Charlie and I are back on the road—with the music turned up loud and our voices weaving in and out between lyrics. My window is rolled down, and so is his, and the sky is an inky black. Stars are sprawled across the expanse of darkness, illuminating the night and flying past as we move down the road, without a care in the world.
My phone lights up about an hour into the drive home. I look down swiftly, seeing a new message from Penny.
Getting pretty late. You okay?
I bite my lip to hide my smile—my sister, blood relative or not, has always been looking out for me. I respond quickly, to keep her from worrying.
We're fine. Heading home now.
If there's one thing Penny and I have in common, it's our ability to type fast. "Speed texting", we call it. She responds nearly a second later.
How was Lake Busbee (take two)?
I chuckle to myself, glancing up quickly to see if Charlie noticed or not. But he keeps his eyes on the road, albeit looking a bit sleepy. I had offered to drive us home, but he insisted. So I turn back to my phone and type.
It was great, Pen. Really great. I'll tell you all about it when I get home.
Her reply flies through, illuminating the screen before I even have a chance to lock it up again.
That's incredible! So happy for you.
I grin down at my phone, and then a secondary text comes in.
So Hot Library Guy is a keeper?
I don't even have to think before replying.
Most definitely.
With that, I lock the phone and set it in my cup holder, turning my attention back to Charlie, who lets out a long yawn.
"I can drive," I say, for what seems like the thousandth time since we first set off.
"No, no, I'm fine. That would be extremely impolite, and I'm not one for impoliteness on a first date."
At this, I'm a bit startled, but then the truth sinks in. I suppose it was a date. I mean, we'd kissed. And gone to dinner. And danced.
If this was a date, it was a really good one.
"So, Miss Richards," Charlie says, after a few beats of silence, "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate tonight?"
I furrow my brow in mock concentration. "Hm. Well, the fries you stole off of my plate deduct a few points—not to mention the fact that you stepped on my foot twice—but, apart from all that, I'd give it a solid nine and a half."
Of course, that's not my real answer. But I kind of like being coy.
Nevertheless, Charlie laughs. "A nine point five after professing our undying love to each other? I'll take it."
His words send my stomach into another round of cartwheels. I can hardly believe what happened tonight. Everything we said. Everything we did.
It still seems kind of unbelievable that I am in love with someone again. I thought it would never happen. Not after Parker.
But here it is. Happening.
I just hope I'm prepared for whatever's next.
________
There's only a few more hours to go. A few more hours until this absolutely perfect night comes to an end.
I did it. I actually did it. I told Hailey Richards that I love her.
I danced with her. I talked to her. I did everything a regular, competent guy would have done.
Then why do I still feel so scared?
I'm scared that I'll screw this up. That, tomorrow, this will all disappear into nothing. That I will wake up knowing that I am back to square one, back to being Charlie Portman, the popular football jock. I'm scared that she will finally realize who I am, and once she does that, she'll be gone. Just like all of them. Everybody leaves.
But—tonight—she's sitting right here.
She's sitting right here, in my truck, staring out the window and brushing her wild hair past her ears.
And as I look at her, I realize something.
Hailey Richards is a broken person. She has been broken by people who don't care. She has been broken by her parents' death, by Parker's betrayal, by the mistrust and anxiety and depression that has plagued her.
But I can't fix her.
Because I'm broken, too. I've been broken by the death of my father, by the seclusion of my mother, by the time I have spent trying to get my life back together again. I have been broken by the darkness that seemed to overwhelm me when I began to realize that never again would my father throw around a football with me. Never again would he be there to tell me how to ask a girl out, much less how to kiss one. Never again would he be there to tell me that I could do anything, that I could be anyone.
Never again.
That's why I play football. That's why I'm popular. Because that's what Dad always told me I should be. He said I had talent. He said that he would be there for every single one of my football games once I hit high school. He even joked about me winning the Heisman Trophy one day.
When he died, I felt like I owed it to him to be the best player that I could be. To ignore everything else and just play, just be someone I'm not.
Because my dad didn't know that I had been stowing books in and out of his office since I was nine years old. He didn't know that I had poured over classic and new writers alike. He didn't know that, while he was preparing me to become a football player, I was becoming the kid he never expected me to be.
So when Hailey asks me to be "the library kid", it's not just my reputation on the line. It's loyalty to my father.
And maybe that's why I'm afraid to lose her. Because I am two people at once, I am not simply me. I am Charlie Portman, football star—and I am Charlie Portman, library kid. It's all a scam. My whole life is just one big lie, switching between expectation and reality, changing who I am and what I do at the drop of a hat.
I am afraid to lose Hailey Richards because she doesn't know that I am stuck, dreadfully stuck, in a hole I dug for myself.
She doesn't know how much I care about her, and how that is so dangerous for me, because if I care about her this much—I have to tell her.
I have to tell her, and if she doesn't walk away, I have to change.
But how am I supposed to undo what has been the past five years of my life?
How am I supposed to undo the knots that I have fastened, over and over again?
How am I supposed to undo all of this damage?
- Writer
