“I don’t remember you being this … persistent.”
“You don’t know everything about me, Sophie. I was never okay when you walked away.”
She doesn’t know how I kept tabs on her when I found out she’d run away. She doesn’t know what I thought of her that very first night she slept in my clothes, in my house, either.
“Meet me tonight.” Although I’ve given her an order rather than a request, I’m not sure that she will. Her movements pause, halting the hoodie midair before she slips it on and then nods.
“I’ll meet you.” Her expression turns soft as she tells me quietly, “I was dreading seeing you, you know?” She shakes her head as if in disbelief then adds, “But somehow I knew I wouldn’t be able to set foot in this city without running into you.”
She offers me a kiss on the cheek before she leaves, bells chiming as I watch her walk away, thinking about that first night I met her, the night I saved her, and how everything shifted the first moment I saw Sophie Miller.
She may have dreaded seeing me last night, but there isn’t a damn thing I ever dreaded when it came to her except for her walking away. Since the moment I saw her, it’s always been her.
“Is she homeless?” Ryan asked me from the front seat of Cody’s Mercedes. He asked the question from between tightly clenched teeth, but she heard him anyway, stiffening beside me in the backseat. She was so beautiful. Her vulnerability though, her trusting me, it called to me like nothing had before.
Cody rolled down the windows, letting in the night air as we drove back to our place by the park. It was a smaller place, one owned by Cody’s parents, and we used it as our party pad. Brett had stayed back to play video games, but he was the only one there. She’d be safe there; we could keep her safe. I could keep her safe.
“I left my parents’ house… my car, fuck…” the small girl trailed off and whirled around to look out the back window. “My car is back there, just–”
“It can wait,” I said, cutting her off. She’d already freaked out once, but she listened to me. She trusted me. At least enough to calm down.
“I don’t want to go home.” Her words shook like her shoulders did, and when Cody looked back at her, she scooted closer to me. She did that all night, clinging to me like I was her savior whenever anyone looked at her. No one had ever looked at me like that.
She needed a shower, clean clothes and someone to look after her. At least until she stopped shaking.
“Should we call the cops?” Ryan asked, peeking back at me in the rearview mirror.
I shook my head, feeling the familiar anger rise inside. I didn’t need the police involved. I already knew what I was going to do. The anger would have taken over, like it used to ever since what happened with my father, but in that second, her side touched mine. She leaned against me, soft and warm and wanting to be held.
She needed me to.
It should anger me that I crave that moment back. She was anything but okay, and I have no right to want to go back there when she was in so much pain.
But no one has ever needed me like she did then.
It took hours before she agreed to sleep in my room at the house. I told her I wasn’t letting her sleep in her car, and I thought she’d fight back, but she was too tired. I could see it in her eyes.
I locked the bedroom door before closing it shut… I locked it because I didn’t trust myself to leave her alone that night. I wanted to sleep beside her, to be there if something happened, to watch over her. Something was broken inside of her and I recognized it. I just didn’t know what.
I wanted to kiss her more than anything. She was younger than me, she was vulnerable and it was wrong. It was fucked up that I craved her like I did. But worse than that, I felt deep inside that she’d kiss me back. She’d do whatever I asked that night, and I didn’t trust myself not to ask for more than she could give.
I promised myself in that moment when I locked the door to the guest bedroom, leaving her safe inside, if she ever wanted to walk away, I’d let her. What we had scared me, and I couldn’t imagine what it did to her. I thought she’d know I would still be there waiting. How could she not know that?
I didn’t take into account that we came from different worlds. She was used to running and fighting. It’s what she knew. What I knew was something completely different.