Page 36 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
She knows how hard it is for me to meet new people. How they confuse and exhaust me. Guilt churns my stomach more thinking of Delaney dragging me out that night.
You need to make some friends, Reid. C’mon, let’s go to the party!
I clear my throat. “A few.”
“That’s good,” Clara says, but she doesn’t hide the thread of jealousy in her voice as well as she thinks she does. “Do you and your roommate also have a system?”
“I’m not with anyone,” I blurt.
Her voice is tight when she says, “I wasn’t going to ask that.”
“But you were wondering.”
She scoffs lightly. “How do you know?”
“Because I’ve been wondering the same thing about you.”
I don’t think she and Mitch are hooking up anymore. Their silly back-and-forth made it clear that whatever he’s hiding isn’t about her. But in what universe is someone like Clara single forever?
After a long silence she turns to look at me. “No,” she says, her voice soft. “No one since you.”
That last ounce of my courage fades. It should make me feel relieved to know she didn’t find someone else immediately. But it only makes what happened with Delaney worse.
The air grows charged as she waits for me to say the same thing. No one since her.
In the past I always told her the truth. Sharing pieces of myself that I never had with anyone. And she never stopped pushing me away. Shutting me out. Almost like the more devoted I was to her, the more she couldn’t bear it.
Now I’m the one who can’t.
I don’t want to lie, so I don’t say anything. As I shift my weight, my small notebook in my pocket digs against my hip. When I take it out and set it down on the blanket between us, it lands heavy with everything I could never tell her.
She eyes it and a smile—sweet and sad—takes over her face. “You’re still writing.”
Dark irony laces my tone. “Nothing fuels poetry like heartbreak.”
I was trying to be funny, but it cracks like lightning between us.
She’s too good at evading my defenses. Always has been. And beingalone with her under the stars, I need those defenses right now. It’s the only way I know how to get through this weekend. To protect both of us.
“Reid, can we—”
“Stop.” The word escapes me. Because now I know that too much has changed.I’vechanged.
Only, she’s exactly the same. Overwhelmingly beautiful and compelling and… out of my reach. My voice softens. “Please, Clara. Just—stop.”
A grunt escapes as I stand.
She doesn’t follow. Only looks up at me, every feature limned in moonlight.
“I can’t finish the doc without you.”
I sigh. I was afraid she was going to say something like that.
“I don’t expect—” She stops herself. Swallows. “It just feels like my chance to make it right. I really want to make it right.”
My pulse ratchets up again.
Makewhatright, exactly?
