Page 61 of The Getaway List
“You wouldn’t be. I’m deciding.”
I shake my head again, pressing my hands to his chest. I have every intention of pushing him away, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m leaning into him and he’s leaning back, the two of us in such a perfect balance that it feels inherent.
“You’ve spent your whole life worried about everyone else. Making friends with outcasts like me. Taking care of everyone with your giant backpacks of supplies. Being worried about what your mom thinks when she’s the one who’s being shitty to you.” I reach up and cup the hand he has under my jaw, lacing my fingers through it. “But I won’t let you do that for my sake. I love you too much for that.”
Tom swallows hard, his eyes searching my face. “You want me to go?”
Fuck, no. I want him right here, wherever here is. I want him at my side the way I have every moment since he left, the way I will until the day I die.
“I want you to be happy,” I tell him.
His voice cracks enough that it almost cracks through my resolve. “I’m happy with you.”
I take a deep breath. I shake my head again. It feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
“That’s not—I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work,” I tell him. Every word feels like sandpaper on my tongue, but they need to be said. I love him too much to say anything less. “You need to be happy with yourself. And if I stand in the way of you doing that—I’d never, ever forgive myself for it.”
A true fucking choice of words, because I’m not sure if I’ll forgive myself for saying them, either. For brushing up so close to something I want more deeply than anything I ever have, and letting it slip through my fingers. For saying these words with the hope of preserving him and knowing that I’m hurting him just the same.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt, for lack of anything else to say.
Tom comes back to himself then, in a way that breaks my heart because I know he’s only doing it for my sake. He presses a kiss to my forehead and says, “Don’t be. You’re right. I want—if we ever do this, I want to do it right.”
I didn’t think relief could hurt until he said those words, but there it is—a warm knife pressed against my ribs just before it slides into my heart. Something that somehow heals but opens up another wound, one I don’t know the shape of yet, or if we’ll recover from it.
We pull apart. It feels strange to be in command of my body again so suddenly and so easily, like snapping the rubber band of myself back into place. A painful, instant happening.
“How’s this?” says Tom, his eyes steady even as his voice is wobbling. “You have your talk with your mom. A real one, airing the whole high-school thing out. And I’ll stay here on my own an extra few days to talk it out with mine.”
This is a deal I can make. A deal that should be easier than any I’ve made in my life. But I’m stuck on the feeling that something else has already been broken, something neither of us had any power to prevent.
“Yeah,” I say. “And if you need me for any of it—I’m right here.”
Tom nods. “I know,” he says, like he means it. Not like the times we texted back and forth these past few years, when I’d reach out and he’d pull back. This time he’s meeting me there. “Thank you for that. For all of it.”
I smile and say, “You’re my best friend. If you thank me for that kind of shit again, I’ll kick your ass.”
Tom smiles back, even if it’s every bit as weary as mine, and says back, “I’d expect nothing less.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Oh shit,” says Jesse candidly, staring at the line around the block as Luca guides us toward the side entrance of Brownie Bonanza. “I feel like we just cut past the bouncer in a club.”
Sure enough, every single person in line stares at us like they want to chuck brownie batter at our heads. Luca closes the door behind us fast, like he’s practiced in this and not so sure they won’t try.
He leads us into a hallway just off the main entrance with bright purple walls full of giant blown-up pictures of brownies hung up in neon frames. From Tom’s intense dessert chronicling I know that Brownie Bonanza has four mainstay flavors and two that rotate out every week, so I recognize more than a few of them in this brownie hall of fame—a giant, rainbow-sprinkled one I know is stuffed with cookie dough, one with piped-on frosting roses that’s full of passion-fruit jam and coffee, another with a spicy-sweet salt crust filled with caramel.
Tom is gaping at the wall like they’re signed posters of his favorite celebrities. He’s wearing an expression not unlike the first time he tried that Pop-Tart at our apartment and Tom the Dessert Person was born.
“Aw, look at you in your own personal Disneyland,” I say.
Tom pulls in a breath as if to soak it all in. “I can’t believe I’m going to peak at eighteen.”
I flash him a quick grin instead of ribbing him like I usually might. It’s been two days since the “surprise, it turns out we had mutual and deeply intense feelings for each other the whole time” kiss, and ever since then it’s like we’ve been playing friendship on safety mode: unfailingly polite and avoiding touching each other whenever we can.
It’s all well and good except for the part where I’m possibly losing my mind being in constant proximity to Tom knowing what it feels like to have all of the proximity to him. But that’s what throwing myself into my attempts to come up with a short-story idea and cold showers are for.
“Wait. I know this place,” says Mariella.
