He pulls my hands away, and I see him hover over me and take my face in his hands. “You’re going to stand up,” he tells me, “and you’re gonna do your homework, and you’re gonna go to prom.” My stomach twists into knots, and I shake my head. I can’t. “You’re going to be in the same room with her, Monday thru Friday for the rest of the school year, and you’re not sacrificing yourself out of fear. You’re going to do all of this, Liv.”
I cry harder, squeezing my eyes shut. I’m not in love with her. She can’t do this to me. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“You’re going to go to Dartmouth.” He dips his head down close to mine, holding my eyes. “And you’re going to join a club and make some friends, and in a couple of months you’re going to have a life.”
How?
“You’re going to leave,” he grits out. “You’re going to leave here and leave any hope of her. You’re going to do the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do, because it’ll save you, Liv. Because you’re Trysta Jaeger’s daughter, and we’re going to do what she would’ve wanted us to do and didn’t have the courage to do herself. We keep biting back. We survive, because sometimes that’s the most violent thing we can do to other people. We stay alive.”
My body shakes as the tears pour.
“And in a year, you won’t even understand how you could have loved her this much,” he tells me. “I promise you.”
How can he promise that? He doesn’t know. No one does. I don’t think I can see tomorrow, much less months from now. God, how do I leave?
“I promise,” he says again, his eyes hard. “I promise.”
But I can’t imagine not wanting her. I can’t see not hating her with someone else and wanting anyone else as much as I want her. I cry, covering my face with my hands again, so he doesn’t see how fucking awful and pathetic I became because of her.
How I let this happen to myself?
But for a moment, maybe I understand a fraction of what my mother felt all her life. The despair. God, I hate it. I hate it so much.
Macon doesn’t say more. He scoops me up into his arms and carries me out of my room. Holding me tight, he carries me into his, where my father’s old recliner still sits, and sits down, hugging me close.
“Old world pepperoni,” he orders as he tucks my head into his neck.
And faintly, I hear Trace’s grumble, “I hate old world pepperoni. It scratches the roof of my mouth.”
But he leaves, following instructions, and after a moment, I let my arm circle my brother’s neck as he holds me until the pizza comes.
“YOU OKAY?” KRISJEN asks.
I empty my books into my locker, pulling out my Spanish book and my copy of Othello for homework tonight. “I’m fine.”
Liv stands across the hall, chatting with Chloe, and I hear laughter. I glance over my shoulder, trying not to look like I know exactly where she is every moment. Chloe leans in and greets Jessa Washington and Erin Merluzzi who approach. Girl certainly makes friends fast. They strike up a convo in their small group, Liv smiling and like…actively-fucking-participating.
“Are you sure?” Krisjen’s voice is low. “You look like hangry, like you haven’t eaten in days and you’re going to morph into something outrageous if you don’t get to dine on an unbaptized baby soon.”
I shut my locker and close my bag, tearing my eyes away before Liv sees me looking.
“Clay…” She touches my arm.
But I pull away. “I’m fine.”
“Did you tell her you loved her?”
I snap my eyes to Krisjen who stares me in the eyes, dead-on.
“I don’t.” I drop my eyes, fiddling with my bag. “It just felt really good. I don’t know, I’m…” More laughter echoes behind me, and I look over my shoulder, watching all four girls head down the hall away from me. Liv doesn’t spare a glance my way as if she actually never noticed that I’m right here. I swallow. “I’m just confused.”
“Are you?”
Oh, shut up.
I walk away without saying goodbye and leave school with most of the other students, Liv probably staying late for rehearsal again.
She didn’t even look at me. She hasn’t looked at me in days, as if she wasn’t begging me not to leave her bed last weekend. Gone. Done. Over. She’s surviving.
And from the looks of it, surviving well. For someone who had a chip on her shoulder about the new girl, she’s making her a bestie awfully fast. She has people now.
And all I want is her. What the hell happened?
I drift to my car and drive home, my head wracking with pain from holding back tears all day. But I finally let them go.