I Google it, finding it’s a printing company not far from campus. I try calling, but they’re closed.
The rest of the night I’m stuck wondering what I could have possibly ordered, and by the time morning rolls around, I’m more than ready to find out, but classes begin today, so whatever it is will have to wait.
Noah
* * *
I woke up this morning with a little less weight on my shoulders.
Nothing is good, not by a longshot, but she came to me without direction. She looked at me like she used to.
She felt me like I feel her.
All over, in every part of her, she just didn’t understand it. I should have kept my mouth shut and kissed her but kissing her would be the cruelest form of torture, and I’m not so sure how much more I can take. My mom’s not here to talk me through this, and I won’t bother my friends with problems they can’t find a way to fix.
It’s been the longest six weeks of my life, but I’m hoping it gets better.
We’re back on campus now. Back to the hustle of college life and I’m hoping everywhere she goes, everywhere she looks, she sees me as I do her.
I see her in the fountain we sat on the night I found her at the bar.
I see her at the coffee shop and on the picnic tables.
In the library and on the track.
The gym, field, and every other inch of this place, because I’ve held her hand across every part of it. I’ve kissed her in every corner.
I’ve loved her in secret, but I’m not so sure how much of a secret it was.
I think she knew.
I hope I showed her what she meant to me.
What she’ll forever mean to me.
If she isn’t mine in the end, I’ll still be hers.
It’s torture.
But it’s true.
There’s no coming back from a girl like her.
The hope is I won’t have to, but as I step out of the coffee shop, I’m reminded of why I left hope behind long ago, after my mom’s second stroke.
Ari stands off to the side of the building, a peppermint latte in hand, no doubt, extra hot like the one burning my left palm this very instant, Chase a foot before her.
My baby smiles up at a man that isn’t me, and when he wraps his arm around her shoulder, mine fall.
I slip into the shadow of the tree as they start walking this way, my eyes closing as her laughter threatens to tear my heart from my chest.
Only once they’re gone do I step out, throwing the coffee I bought her in the can untouched.
I have class in an hour, but I don’t care.
My feet carry me to my truck and my truck leads me to the highway.
The same highway I drove her down more times than I can count.
It’s like I said, she’s everywhere.
My Juliet.
A bitter laugh leaves me and I shake my head.
Maybe the answer to our ending was given from the start.
If I’m Romeo and she’s Juliet, maybe this is the fate I put on us that very first day. Love forbidden, but in our story, we’re forbidden by fate.
Maybe I was the placeholder, as Mason wondered.
Maybe I’m not the man of her dreams, but the understudy who did the noble work. Who befriended a broken girl. Who showed her what it meant to matter to a man, how it felt to be loved. She knows now that she’s worth the world and deserves even more.
Ari is strong enough to demand what she’s always wanted now, and the person she still believes she wants it from is ready to give it to her.
Chapter 51
Arianna
* * *
By the time I’m done for the day and manage to track Mason down about borrowing his Tahoe, the printing shop is once again closed. They couldn’t say much over the phone, other than confirming I had an order that was getting dusty on the pickup shelf.
Chase has called a few times, but after his unexpected arrival this morning, when I was really hoping for a little time to explore campus alone, something I think he should have realized, I’ve let his attempts go unanswered.
Thankfully, Mason agrees to drop his keys and car off to me tomorrow morning before class, so I make the executive decision to skip the first day of my second set of classes.
I make sure to email the teachers before bed so that I don’t get dropped from the courses, and I’m on the road the next morning, minutes before the place opens.
It takes about fifteen minutes to get to the place, and I smile at the large neon sign above the door that reads, Paper Dreams and Things.
The woman behind the counter smiles as I enter and turns to the giant wall made of little cubes.