Page 109 of Come Back to Me

“I left it unlocked for you. It’s been locked the entire time you’ve been gone.”

“Wow, you spoke more than three words to me. I’m impressed.”

“You’re lucky I’m even talking to you at all right now.” She gets up off the chair, folding her arms underneath her chest.

“I know you don’t want to hear it for the millionth time, but I’m sorry for what I said to you a week ago. I was overwhelmed by letting Grayson come back into my life again, and I took it out on you. It was wrong.”

“You know I’m not the kind of person who likes talking about feelings and emotions. It’s a natural thing for me to retreat and keep everything to myself. I’m sorry, too. I wasn’t being the nicest person to you that night.”

“Are we good?” I ask, giving her my puppy-dog eyes.

She rolls her eyes. “We’re good.”

“Yay! Okay, I’m heading to bed.” As I turn to walk away from Sage, I swear I could’ve seen a smile creep up on her face.

I won’t be pulling any stunts when I’m with Grayson tomorrow. I can’t afford to because I have my best friend back, and I’m not losing him again.

now

GRAYSON

I hope Violet didn’t notice how I was untangling myself on the inside when she wiped the sauce off my face.

I did my best to remain calm, cool, and collected. She didn’t mention anything about how I was acting, so I guess I did a good job of hiding the reality of what was actually going on inside my head.

The reflection of the sunlight in her beautiful, blue eyes made it impossible for me to look away from her. It’s like this unbreakable spell that she’s unable to control.

For some reason, I was convinced that she was flirting with me. I know I was flirting, which is a natural instinct for me whenever I’m around her. It’s not intense in any way. It’s definitely mild. And it needs to stay that way, because I know if it gets intense, I won’t be able to revert back to mild flirting.

When I discovered my initial crush on Violet, I tried my best to casually flirt with her and hand out hints about how I felt about her. The only thing is, I was terrible at it. I stumbled over my words, the clumsiness would come out, and I’d be embarrassed for an indefinite amount of time. Luckily, themore I hung out with her as a teenager, the more confident I got with talking to her like a normal human being.

Now, all of these feelings are being unlocked from the box I buried deep inside of me a long time ago. I have no idea what to do about it either. I can’t act on them because there’s still a part of me that’s angry at her for the past. Then, there’s the other part that’s convinced she doesn’t feel the same love for me that we felt for each other when we were teenagers.

Emotions are so goddamn confusing.

One second I’m so mad at her that I can’t talk to her, and the next second all I want to do is have a conversation with her. It doesn’t have to be intellectual either. We could be talking about the weather, and it would be interesting becauseshemakes mundane topics interesting.

All I know is that I need to get some sleep, so I’m all charged up for tomorrow.

I know if I start scrolling on Instagram now, it’ll be an hour. Man, sometimes I wish I could go back to the simpler times when social media didn’t exist. It’s great to see what family and friends are up to, but my attention span is so short now. It’s a miracle that I’m able to pay attention when I’m in class.

The front door slams shut, followed by Noah and Xander whispering amongst themselves.

Oh, shit. I forgot we left everybody behind at the after-party.

Rolling my eyes, I remove the covers from my body and peek my head out of my bedroom. “You guys are the loudest whisperers I’ve ever met.”

“Sorry bro, we thought you were asleep,” Xander says.

“Let me say it again. You guys are so fucking loud. There’s no chance I could’ve been sleeping right now.”

“We’ll try to keep it down next time.” Xander points his index finger at me, wiggling it in front of my face. “Well, I’m tired as hell, so I’m heading to bed. I’ll see you boys in the morning.”

Noah shakes his head with a displeasingexpression taking over his face. “Yeah, you look like you could use some beauty sleep.”

“Screw you.” Xander shoves Noah out of the way, walking into his bedroom and shutting the door behind him.

Noah follows me as I go into my bedroom. He stands at the doorway, while I get into bed again.