Page 59 of Forked (Frenched 2)
Tell him how you cried the day your tattoo was altered.
Tell him you’d put his name on your body again.
Tell him you might be crazy enough to run away with him again.
Tell him he makes you feel alive.
Tell him he makes you feel everything.
The words were all right there in my mind. But uttering them would’ve meant peeling back every layer of protection over my heart, an open wound.
I wanted to say them, but I didn’t.
I was afraid of bleeding to death.
Nick sighed, rubbing his face with his hands. “Maybe you were right. This talking about the past stuff kind of sucks.”
I nodded. Swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Ready to go back?” Nick asked. “I should get dinner started.”
“Yes.” But the thought of running back made my limbs feel heavy in the water. Rehashing the past had exhausted me. I dragged myself to the ladder on the dock, and Nick motioned for me to climb up first.
“I wish I had a big warm towel to wrap you in,” he said as I emerged, my running clothes dripping. I was shivering, but it wasn’t because of the water.
“I’m OK.” Squeezing the water from my ponytail, I walked toward my shoes on the grass, my legs shaky and my footsteps squishy. “Guess I should have stopped to take my socks off too.” I looked down at them, wrinkling my nose.
“Yeah, but then you wouldn’t have beaten me into the lake.”
“True.” I pulled my shoes on and leaned over to lace them up, tempted to make a joke but not quite up for it.
Nick sat on the grass to tug his socks and running shoes on. “You up for running back? Or would you rather just walk?”
I straightened up, pulled out my ponytail elastic, and shook out my wet hair. “I think I’ll walk, but you go ahead. I know you have to get dinner going.”
He got to his feet. “No, that’s OK. I can walk with you.”
“Actually, Nick, I could use the alone time.”
He nodded. “You know the way back?”
“Left when the path reaches the road, right?”
“Yes.” He put his hands on his hips, glanced at the path through the trees and then back at me. “You sure you’re all right?”
I took a deep breath, concentrated on slipping the ponytail elastic around my wrist. “I’ll be fine, really. That conversation was hard on me. It brought back a lot of feelings I’ve done my best to forget. But I’m a big girl.” Managing a shaky smile, I looked up and waved him off. “Go on. I’ll see you back there.”
“OK.” He began jogging through the trees, looking back once over his shoulder. I waited until I couldn’t see him anymore to start walking.
Wrinkling my nose at the first few waterlogged steps, I wrapped my arms around myself and started through the trees at a slow pace. I’d told Nick I wanted to be alone so I could think, but I was unable to draw any conclusions about what had just happened. There were so many feelings battling inside me. Was I more sad than anything? Hurt? Scared? Angry? And who was I most mad at? Nick? My parents? Myself?
I turned left at the dirt road, and admitted the truth. I still loved him. If I didn’t, none of this would matter. Revisiting our history wouldn’t hurt so much. But love hadn’t been enough to make things work between us before. How could I know this time would be different? What if I never learned to trust him? What if he was the kind of person who felt lying was OK if you had good intentions? (Oh, God. I had to call Mia and come clean about Angelina, didn’t I?) What if he was still as big a flirt as he’d always been…could I deal with that? Especially now that he was a celebrity? He’d be away from me a lot, traveling, working, celebrity schmoozing. I’d have to put up with all kinds of Internet gossip and selfies taken with pretty girls and paparazzi pics of him with women famous and beautiful and wealthy.
At least we wouldn’t argue over money anymore. I’d happily let him pay the bill at dinner whenever he wanted to.
But what about this resentment I felt? Why couldn’t I get past it? I wanted to believe I could, wanted to believe the day would come where I would look at him and not think about that fucking goodbye note. The ring on the nightstand. The text message. I wanted to forgive and forget and move forward. So why couldn’t I do it? When he called me the love of his life, all those things I wanted to say to him were racing around in my brain, but I couldn’t bring myself to say even one of them.
Oh God, that was a bad sign, right? What if the universe was trying to warn me against being taken in by him again? Nick had burned me once. Why should I give him the chance to do it again? What kind of fool takes a second bite of a bad apple?
