Laughing all the way into the bathroom, Thayle locked herself away from me, which was probably a good idea. We’d attempted to get out of bed once and head downstairs for breakfast, but that hadn’t worked. Pulling her on top of me was not a recipe for making it to breakfast.
The second time, we actually did make it out of bed, for a few minutes at least. And now, after that second time, we were almost late. Too late for breakfast, which was fine for me. I’d much rather have spent the time tasting her, devouring the woman who I’d alternately made love to and talked with all night. If we got any sleep, it wasn’t much.
“What do you think?” She was wearing the sweatshirt I’d gotten her my senior year of college. The Syracuse one that I’d promised her when she attempted to get up on water skis for the first time.
“I’ve never seen you wear that,” I told her.
Crossing the room, I grabbed a fistful of the sweatshirt and pulled her to me. Slashing my mouth over hers, my kiss was demanding, but Thayle met those demands easily. She melded with me, as she seemed to do so perfectly, but soon my phone was buzzing.
“That’ll be the driver,” I said, finally pulling away. With a squeal, Thayle ran back into the bathroom to finish her makeup.
After sending a quick text that we would be down in ten minutes, I leaned against the bathroom’s doorframe, watching her in the mirror.
“I’m not sure why I brought this sweatshirt,” she said. Watching her apply eyeliner this morning, something I’ve seen her do before at the many sleepovers she’d had with Min over the years, felt entirely different today. “I don’t wear it a ton because—” She stopped and looked in the mirror at me. “It makes me think of you.”
Thayle resumed applying the eyeliner.
“You don’t like thinking of me?” I teased.
“You know what I mean,” she said. Funnily enough, I did.
“How did we never know?” I asked sincerely, the question one we’d both pondered last night, lying in each other’s arms, with no real answer.
“We’re both good actors, I guess?”
Finished, she moved on to her hair, applying some sort of cream in an attempt to tame it.
“There was this one time,” I said, remembering there was one story I hadn’t told her yet. Though we’d talked of times where we’d been together while hiding our feelings for each other, this one hadn’t come up. But Thayle needed to know.
“It was the day after your father’s funeral,” I said.
Her hands froze.
“I was heading back to school that morning. You’d stayed at our house, and we were in the kitchen.”
She turned from the mirror towards me.
“It was just the two of us. We had coffee and leftover donuts from Devine Bakery. You’d been addicted to them even then.”
“You brought them the day before. The morning of the funeral. When I couldn’t bear to be in my house, alone, and your mom suggested we send all the food to your house, and I stay there.”
“There was a ton of food.” I could visualize that morning so clearly. “But no donuts. I’d stopped and grabbed a box just in case.”
“I remember eating them for dinner because I’d forgotten to eat the day he was buried.” She leaned back against the counter as I continued.
“That morning, we talked about the funeral. About your fears for the future.” I could feel my chest tightening with the memory. “Do you remember that conversation?”
“I do.”
“You said,” I reminded her, remembering that scared seventeen-year-old girl, the one who, before that day, had been nothing to me but Min’s best friend. Someone who swatted my arm as often as my sister. A girl, but not a woman. “That you’d spent a lifetime resenting your father. Hating him for dealing so poorly with your mother’s death that he forgot to raise you. But in the end, when he’d rallied just before you lost him, and asked for a cheeseburger even though he was in hospice and hadn’t eaten real food in days, you got one for him. And as he’d taken a bite, the pure joy of the taste of it giving you a glimpse of the man he’d been, sober, and all of the hate faded into the past. He was a broken man, and dying, and though he’d made so many mistakes, when you told him you forgave him, and loved him, the look on his face at that moment was one you’d cherish for the rest of your life.”
I regretted the tears in her eyes now. It was why I hadn’t wanted to tell her before. And maybe now hadn’t been the right time either as we were going to be late getting to Wayne, but I wanted her to know. As much as I desired Thayle Burke, I loved her more.
Closing the gap between us, I grabbed a tissue on the counter next to her and wiped away her tears.
“I remember,” she said simply, looking up at me, eyes glistening.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks. As if I’d just been slapped in the face with the truth of it.” Still holding the tissue, I wiped another tear and then cupped her cheeks with both hands. “You weren’t a girl any longer. Maybe hadn’t been for a while, but I hadn’t noticed until that moment. You were a woman, fully grown. One who had dealt with more grief and hardship than a young woman your age should have. And through it all, instead of being bitter or feeling victimized because of the shitty hand you’d been dealt, you found it in your heart to forgive the man who could have mitigated your mother’s loss a hell of a lot more than he did. I drove back to school thinking of nothing but you. My admiration and awe of you. By the time I came home for the summer, you were on such a pedestal in my mind.” I smiled, attempting to lighten the mood some. “That was the same summer you wore that fucking white bikini.”