You Make Me (15 page)

He followed me in, of course, and he wandered around the kitchen, touching the napkin holder on the table, turning the faucet on the sink like he didn’t believe the water was actually running. I had thrown my coat over the back of the chair and it was easy enough to pull it on, retrieving my gloves from the pockets. It wasn’t a big house, with wonky rooms upstairs, some feeding off of each other. In my room there was a closet that had always been locked and no one seemed to have the key anymore. Given the tight quarters and small, farmhouse rooms, I’d spent most of my time in the kitchen or outside, no matter what the weather was like.

It was the only way he and I had ever been able to be alone.

So it seemed natural for us to go for a walk even though there was no one in the house but us. Heath walked backwards down the drive, watching me. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No.” I knew he meant Ethan.

“Good,” he said, fighting a smile. “Because I’m pretty sure any advice I have to offer would be terrible.”

I laughed. “Wow, thanks.”

“I have good intentions. But in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly Mr. Sensitive. Guys would talk about their girl problems in their bunks and I was notorious for offering the worst advice ever.” He was wearing dark jeans that showed how muscular his thighs had become in the military and he had an old hunting jacket on. I actually recognized that coat. He’d had it in high school. It was faded and I knew from experience it was soft and warm. I’d leaned against it, I’d wrapped myself in it.

“You’re just afraid to show your sensitive side. But I’ve seen it when you thought I wasn’t looking. You can’t fool me.”

He made a face. “Lies. Total lies. I’m a brute, Cat. Always remember that.”

I shook my head, smiling. “I still don’t believe it. You’ve never been a brute with me.”

It seemed like we were joking, teasing each other, but he stopped walking. I ended up right in front of him. He touched the tip of my hair, spilling down over the front of my coat. “I was by leaving. But it wasn’t intentional. And you’re different anyway. I can’t ever hide my feelings from you.”

“I don’t want you to.” I put my palms flat on his chest, using my thumbs to play with the teeth of the zipper he wasn’t using. I wanted to move my hands inside the coat, to touch his chest, but I held back. I wanted him to kiss me, to take the initiative and lower his mouth to mine the way we both had been craving since the minute we’d first laid eyes on each other again weeks ago.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he raised his eyebrows and gave me a mischievous look. “I’m thinking that I’m about to beat you in a race to the rocks.”

It was a long-standing source of frustration for me. His legs were longer and he had always been faster. Plus I’d been a distance runner, not a great sprinter. He’d enjoyed teasing me, tweaking at my natural competitiveness, goading me into races down the hill that I could never win. But I had once, careening into his back with a final burst of energy. We’d tumbled down onto the grass together, laughing, kissing.

Then ten minutes later he had been inside me and I had thought I understood everything there ever was to know.

“That’s not a fair race,” I told him. “You have boots on. I’m wearing cute girl shoes with zero sole.”

“Not my problem.”

“Jerk.”

“Do you want me to be politically correct? Should I give you a head start? Take off my shoes.”

“Don’t do me any favors.” If Heath watched what he said, if he held back and was carefully polite, he wouldn’t be him any more. Besides, I liked the way he pushed me to be better, to try harder. With him, I’d always felt like anything was possible. “Last one there has to chop wood for the fireplace.”

Heath snorted. “I’d love to see you chopping wood.”

“Are you doubting me? Are you suggesting I can’t?” I teased.

But he didn’t laugh with me. He said, “I never doubt you. I think you’re capable of anything you set your mind to.”

It was unexpected flattery and it meant a lot to me. I swallowed hard, not sure what to say without sounding overly emotional.

But then he leaned forward, very close to me. I waited, expected to hear something even more flattering. A profession of love. That’s what I wanted anyway. But he murmured, “Go.”

The tone was so off from what you would expect for the start of a race that it took me a second to realize that he was backing up, grinning.

“Shit,” I said, scrambling to take off at an angle from where he was moving slowly.

He laughed, turning around and running. I had a microsecond start on him, but his legs were longer, stronger. My former strategy had always been to try to keep up with him, grabbing at the back of his shirt and messing with his arms to slow him down. But now I took a different tactic. Because I ran at an angle when he turned, I cut him off. He had to draw up short, swearing.

“Damn it, Cat, that’s not fair!”

Breathless already, I just yelled over my shoulder, “You can dish it out but you can’t take it!” I went careening down the hill, a good three feet ahead of him. It felt amazing to run, to fill my lungs with the cold air, to let go of my restraint, my sadness, and push myself.

Chancing a glance over my shoulder, I laughed, hair streaming behind me and catching across my nose and lips. I swiped at it and shrieked when Heath caught up to me and grabbed the back of the coat. Our positions were reversed for once and I liked the lead, but knowing how close he was made it more fun, exciting. I wanted him to catch me.

But I wanted to win more. I pushed harder, lungs full to bursting. When I reached the edge of the grass at the rocks, I came to a stop and gave him a triumphant smile. “Yes, I won! God, finally!”

He went a few feet past me. “This is the actual finish line.” He winked. “I win.”

“No, no, no. Bullshit.” I punched his arm. “You know the finish line is where the grass ends. That’s the way it always was and you can’t change the rules now.”

“No?” He sighed. “I guess you’re right. I’m chopping wood.”

“You don’t really have to,” I conceded immediately. “It was enough for me to have kicked your ass.”

Heath laughed. “Now you’re just bragging.” He sat down on the ground, keeping his knees raised, and resting his forearms there. “I missed it here. It smells good, doesn’t it? Nothing like the fucking desert. I never want to see sand ever again.”

“No beach vacation for you?” I asked lightly, dropping to the ground beside him. “Damn. I’ll have to cancel that trip to Hawaii I bought you for Christmas.”

““Aw, that’s so sweet of you. But I can’t accept it.” He nudged me with his knee.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, echoing his words from earlier, knowing he would understand I meant about being deployed.

But he gave the same answer I had. “No.”

It didn’t matter. I knew he would tell me when he wanted to or was ready, just like I would. We didn’t need words. I leaned against his shoulder, threading my arm through his. “Then we’ll go to Paris instead.” It was what we used to say, when we were joking about being poor, about the future. It had seemed the truly impossible dream. It still was. But now it didn’t have the bite and longing behind it that it had then. Now it just felt… unnecessary.

“I think we should stay here. Forever. It’s the only place I don’t feel trapped.”

Which was horribly ironic because Vinalhaven had always been the one place I did feel trapped.

But it was different now. I couldn’t explain why. Maybe because I was an adult. Or almost an adult. Maybe because my mother and her pitiful wandering were gone. Because there wasn’t a house full of wary foster siblings. I wasn’t sure why. But it felt less suffocating now.

Maybe it was just because instead of running away from Vinalhaven, I had run to it, and while I could have been sobbing into ice cream in my room back at school, I was instead sitting out by the water. Feeling okay.

“Or at least stay until Tuesday,” I told him with a smile. I had expected him to put his arm around me but he didn’t, so I sat back up, uncomfortable with him perceiving that I was hanging on to him or something. “I only have groceries for two days.”

“You brought groceries? And here I was worried I was going to starve. Three hours is a long time to go without food.”

So he was planning to take the second ferry back to the mainland. I shouldn’t have expected any more but I was still disappointed. He’d said he was going to fight for me when I was with Ethan, but now I wasn’t and he wasn’t trying anything at all. It was unnerving. I didn’t know what to make of it. So I kept my tone light. “You thought you were going to starve but you came anyway? You’re sweet.”

“That is one thing no one has ever accused me of being.”

“It’s a compliment, not an accusation.”

“You know how well I handle compliments.”

“Yes, I do. You squirm.”

“You’re the same way.”

“Yeah. But I’ve gotten better at accepting them.” Which sounded like a thinly veiled request for him to give me one. That wasn’t what I meant. It was just that Ethan complimented me all the time, and I had learned to trust it, to take it at face value, for the first time in my life. But Heath wasn’t going to want to hear about Ethan and I didn’t want Heath to think that I was asking for praise from him so I added hastily, “But that doesn’t mean anyone needs to give them.”

He gave me an amused look. “Yeah, you don’t have any issues at all. None.”

I had sounded completely ridiculous. “Screw you,” I said, not upset with him at all, but equally amused. I definitely felt like I had worked hard to be different, more mature, but had I really been successful? I wasn’t sure.

“Be careful what you wish for.”

It sounded like simple teasing. Not sexual. Not a suggestive innuendo that would be followed by a touch, or a kiss. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but I didn’t want to ruin the afternoon. I didn’t want him to leave, or for us to argue. So I just plucked at a dead patch of grass. “I’m not sure I believe in wishes any more.”

“I never did.”

“What did you believe in, Heath?” I asked, aware that my butt was numb from the cold ground and my nose was itchy from the sharp wind. I sniffled and rubbed it, shifting my perch. The cold felt as raw as my emotions, the water slapping against the huge rocks below us.

“I believed in us.”

So had I, and that made me deeply sad. I hugged my knees to my chest, leaning my cheek on my gloves so I could look over at him. He was staring out at the ocean. “Thank you for not covering up your tattoo.” It reminded me of when I had existed on hope, and hope alone. I had graduated and created plans for myself and now those had all crumbled. But I could make new plans. Maybe sometimes hope was more important to have than a checklist.

“I’m not comfortable with praise, remember?” He picked up a stick and threw it, hard. “There are some things you just can’t cover up.”

That was definitely true.

“Remember when that church lady came and brought those bags of clothes and they were like the ugliest hand-me-downs over? Covered in dog hair and deodorant stains?”

“Oh, God. Yes. I remember.” At first, we’d been insulted. Even my father had looked at the woman with a WTF expression as she’d repeatedly said the clothes were ‘for the orphans.’ “It was so 1945. Weird.”

“It was satisfying as hell to burn all those clothes. We had a hell of a bonfire that night.”

The memory made me smile. We had taken an inordinate amount of pleasure in setting those crusty clothes on fire. My father shook his head but hadn’t said anything in protest, just not to try to cook s’mores because of the chemicals in the fabric. “I feel kind of bad. I mean, she was just trying to be nice.”

“She was being patronizing.”

He was right. The woman most likely had slept better at night thinking she’d done her part to help poor kids. Her motivation hadn’t been true generosity, but impressing herself. “What made you think of that?”

“I was thinking burning shitty clothes would be easier than chopping wood.” He laughed and stood up, holding his hand out to me. “Come on. You look cold.”

“I’m fine.” I was cold, but it didn’t matter. But I took the hand he offered and hauled myself up, brushing off the butt of my jeans. “I can’t believe it’s almost Halloween.” It was a nothing comment and I wasn’t even sure why I said it, except that looking around me it was obvious that the trees were already bare. With Heath I’d always had a habit of thinking out loud. I’d never been afraid to share my thoughts, had never been guarded with him.

“That was the best thing about being in the military. We always got all these care packages at holidays. Tons of candy after Halloween. I’m going to miss that.”

He had let go of my hand and I wished that he hadn’t despite the fact that I was wearing gloves. “I haven’t been trick or treating since fourth grade.”

“If I had to beg for it, I wouldn’t have gotten any. You know I’m lousy at asking for things. But it just showed up by the bagful. Well-meaning people looking out for soldiers.”

He was definitely lousy at asking for things. “Let’s carve a pumpkin this year,” I said, even though it was a stupid idea. We had nowhere to display a pumpkin in his studio apartment or my room at the sorority house.

“Can I make it look like the dude from Hellraiser?”

“Sure.” I wasn’t even sure who that was but it was probably gross. I didn’t really care. I just wanted to do something that was traditional. I wanted to know that at least one holiday I had someone to spend it with. It was just a few days away so it didn’t feel grasping to suggest we hang out. Even if it was a little bit desperate. I could rationalize that we were friends.

We were friends.

And suddenly I was wondering if that was all he wanted to be.

It was what I had asked him for initially, to at least be friends. I was grateful he seemed able to do that, even as I knew I was already secretly hoping for more.

When we went back to the house, it was comfortable and easy. I made sandwiches with the lunch meat and bread I’d bought at the grocery after seeing Billy, and I watched Heath out the window chopping wood. I’d told him he didn’t need to, but he’d insisted. He had peeled off his jacket and was swinging the ax with easy, confident swings in only his T-shirt.