“I don’t care about finals. Tell me what happened. Tell me how.”
His eyes rove over my features, still calm and unhurried but intense, as if he’s trying to memorize my features. “It’s four weeks. Less than four weeks even. I want you to hold on until then, yeah? I want you to hold on and I want you to know that I’ll come for you.”
“What?”
His jaw moves back and forth as he stares and stares down at me. “I’ll come for you, Bronwyn. I’ll be there when you’re done with your finals, with St. Mary’s. I promise you that.”
“What does that —”
This time my words are swallowed up by the shrill sound of the bell, which is followed by loud and booming noises of dragging chairs and conversations and people thumping their food trays at the assigned spots.
“Go to class,” he says, dragging my attention back to him, to his denim blue eyes. “I’ll see you soon.”
I take a step toward him, hoping to stop him.
Grab onto him and ask what the hell is he saying. What does he mean he’ll come for me? Why is he promising me that?
But I can’t.
Not here.
Not where everyone can see.
So I stand rooted to my spot as he leaves. As people move around me, go to classes, to their lockers, collect their books. At some point, someone comes to collect me as well. It’s Salem and with her, I go to my class. I sit through lectures and lessons until the lunch period.
When Poe grabs my hand – who after her earlier display of rage has calmed down and looks sassy and bubbly as usual – as I’m standing up from my desk and without a word, drags me out of the class. She takes me to a quiet spot at the end of the hallway, by a classroom and a glass window and says, “Wyn, listen, my sources picked up something.”
My heart starts to pound in my chest. “W-what?”
She looks around. “There probably won’t be any more soccer practices for the rest of the term. And…” She grimaces. “And a few people saw Coach Thorne leave with a bunch of scary-looking dudes just about an hour ago.”
“What does that mean? What scary looking dudes?”
“I don’t know. But it looked like they were cops.”
Fourteen years ago, I stopped dreaming.
My mother died. The woman who raised me, who loved me and who chose the wrong man to spend her life with. She deserved better.
So much better than what she got.
But she passed away before I could give that to her.
And along with my mother, I lost everything else as well.
I lost soccer. I lost the love of my life at the time. I lost all my dreams.
It was a natural reaction to stop. To never open that door again. To never go through that pain when I was already hurting over losing my mom.
So it was easy.
To stop dreaming I mean.
It hasn’t been so easy now.
I dream now.
I dream every night. I dream all day.
I dream when I close my eyes. I dream when my eyes are open.
And it all started three weeks ago.
It all started the day I lied to her and let her go.
And it sent me into a panic, the fact that I couldn’t stop myself from dreaming, from wanting. It scared me. I was petrified. So fucking petrified.
And then I was angry.
I was angry at myself for not learning my lesson. For not getting it through my head that I wasn’t supposed to dream. I wasn’t supposed to want things, crave things, long for things.
It only brings me pain.
It only makes me miserable.
So I turned my house upside down. My empty, dump of a house that she was trying to make new. For me.
I broke things. I punched things. I raged at things.
Until I realized something.
As I sat in my bedroom, by that unfinished colorful wall that mocked me and taunted me with her absence, I realized that I no longer care about the pain. I no longer care if my dreams come true or not. I no longer care if I’m afraid.
I no longer care.
About anything other than her.
I never thought that anything could be worth going through that pain again. That I wouldn’t go through that misery, that desolation for anything or anyone.
But I was wrong.
I would do it for her.
It’s her.
She is worth it.
She is worth all the pain, all the agony. She is worth letting go of my stupid fucking self-preservation and jumping off the cliff for. She is worth walking and falling down for. She is worth stepping into the unknown for.
Her absence – which was and is much more painful and agonizing than any pain my broken dreams have caused me – made me realize that for her, I’d do it all.
So yeah, I have been dreaming about her for the past three weeks.