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  She closes her eyes instantly and leans back in the seat. I want to know exactly what she’s thinking about as she’s doing it, but saying anything now would ruin the moment. So turning back to the road, I pull out of the parking lot, my mind now focused on getting us to our destination.

  I thought about this a lot last night while Dean was throwing another party. He did it twice a week like clockwork and with the music blaring loud outside my door, Isabelle texting me back and forth; the idea took form in my mind.

  With the way she sits under the tree every day for lunch, I thought she would like it if we went to Wexfield Memorial Park. I haven’t been there since I used to ride my bike on the trails, but the place is filled with trees, like the one she sits under and since it hasn’t gotten too cold yet, it’s the perfect time to go. Well, other than summer.

  It’s actually kind of selfish what I’m doing.

  I used to do this kind of thing with my mom when I was little. She would take me out there and we’d sit under the trees and watch the leaves fall. She used to love being surrounded by all the colors. I don’t have a lot of good memories with my mom, but this is one of them. Up until recently, there wasn’t another human being alive I wanted to share it with.

  It’s stupid and probably a little gross, but she reminds me of my mom, at least in the way she seems to enjoy her time outside. That’s why she’s the only one I can do this with.

  When we finally get there and I put the car in park, she opens her eyes and takes it all in. This is one of the times I wish she smiled, because I swear right now she wants to. I might be a total asshole when it comes to girls, well an asshole when it comes to everyone really, but I can tell right now I’ve done something right.

  She starts fiddling with the paper and I watch as she scribbles fast across the page. With as fast as she’s going, she’s almost matching the beat of my heart with the eagerness I have to read what she’s writing me.

  You want to have lunch with me at the park?

  “I do. I know it’s not your usual spot, but just over the bend there,” I say pointing out the windshield to what I’m talking about. “Are a whole lot of those same trees.”

  It takes her no time at all to write back this time and when I read the response as she unfastens her seatbelt and opens the door, I can’t help but laugh. Yeah, I definitely did the right thing bringing her here.

  Well what are you waiting for? Race you!

  I give her a minute as I watch her race across the lot until she’s on the grass, enjoying her happiness and excitement, something that even though I’ve known her my whole life, I haven’t gotten to see. I want to lose this race if it means that I get to see her this way.

  It’s the way she should always be.

  It’s only as I finally get out of the car that I hear the now familiar ringtone go off and stop to check it.

  You’re slow.

  Two words are all it takes and I’m doing it again. Smiling. I swear it’s the only thing I’m capable of doing anymore with the way this girl brings it out of me. Typing back a quick message, I put my phone back in my jeans and take off running. It’s time to make her pay for that and when I catch her, she’s definitely gonna pay.

  Chapter Twelve

  Belle

  This is probably the first time in a long time where I’m really happy.

  The way the wind moves through the trees, the smell of the freshly cut grass crunching under my feet as I’m running as fast as I can away from Kayden, his laughter loud and clear as he chases after me. It all makes me happy. It’s a breezy day for being early fall but not cold enough to bother me. It’s pretty close to perfect.

  Starting to feel the burn in my throat as it warns me I need to slow down, I ignore it and push even further ahead. I’m almost all the way to the very place Kayden pointed out from the car and for some reason I want to be the first one there. I might not get to come here as much as I used to, but I remember it well. Mom, Tristan and I came here a lot before, bringing the picnic basket and blankets along. It’s some of the best memories I have, at least before everything seemed to get hard.

  Right as I reach my destination, I turn around to celebrate and I’m swept up into a pair of strong yet familiar arms, being swung around in the air. I’m not sure what it is, but there’s a squeak sound that comes out of my mouth as he swings me. He slows down so my feet touch ground and I immediately try and cover my mouth.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  I’m confused. How does he know what I’m thinking and better yet, what part should I stop thinking about? It’s crazy, but just when I start to feel okay around him something like this happens and I’m filled with uncertainty again.

  “Isabelle, I just didn’t want you covering your mouth.”

  I still don’t get it and it’s obvious from the look he’s giving me that he knows it.

  He moves closer to me and he reaches his hand out to my hair and catching a tendril in his hand, he tucks it behind my ear. His body so close in proximity to mine that I feel the breath escaping through his nose on my face, tickling me. It’s only when I reach up to rub at my nose that he catches my fingers and brings them into his own.

  I don’t know if it’s from the run or it’s a reaction to him being this close to me, but I can feel the sweat rising not only on my face, but my hands and I’m embarrassed by it. He’s holding my hand and is getting sweat on for it. I wait for him to notice and pull his hand away, but after a minute or so of being still with not even an attempt to pull away, I realize I’m over thinking it.

  It’s been so awkward being around Kayden, especially when we’re like this. It’s not the contact that spooks me so much. It’s the way he is with me. Two weeks ago he didn’t even blink in my direction and now it’s the complete opposite. I’m not sure how to react to it. As much as I like it, I wonder when he’s going to realize that I’m exactly what his friends think I am, get bored and leave me.

  “You’re frowning. You should know, that isn’t allowed here. It’s a pretty big rule and you’re breaking it.”

  I’m not sure when the park started making rules, but I definitely don’t want to break them. I pull the phone out from my jacket and I text him. If there are more rules I need to know about, he’s the only one that can tell me. It’s so beautiful here; the last thing I want is to be kicked out before I’ve gotten to enjoy it.

  Are there any more rules I need to know? I don’t want to get kicked out.

  He laughs and it makes no sense to me. I read over my text and I don’t see where I said something funny. It’s only when my phone goes off, that it all makes sense.

  I was kidding. There are no rules. Well other than making sure that the princess gets home before turning into a pumpkin.

  My stomach does this weird flip as I see the emoticon on the screen. In the time we’ve been texting back and forth he’s never once done one, happy, sad or otherwise. Seeing it now makes me feel all tingly. I really wish I understood what this means because it’s strange.

  “Come on princess, you need to eat. We don’t have much time before we gotta head back.” He says out loud this time before pulling me closer to the group of trees.

  It’s only when we’re both seated across from each other, our hands no longer together, me already digging into my lunch that the questions start.

  I’d been expecting them since he rescued me from school, but considering he went the entire car ride without saying a word; I thought maybe he didn’t want to know what happened before he got there. I’m finding out now just how wrong I was.

  “What did Dillon say to you before you texted me?”

  Putting my canister of soup down carefully on the grass, I text back my response.

  Nothing. I texted you before he actually said anything.

  “Okay well, what happened after you texted me then?” he pushes and again I pick up the phone and answer him back as quickly as I can, hoping that my answer is good enough so I can finish what’s
left of the soup. If I don’t eat all of it, my mom’s going to worry and that’s the last thing I want.

  That he was sorry and he wanted the chance to talk to me about it.

  “Son of a bitch!” he yells which immediately makes me flinch and back away from him. “I’m sorry, Isabelle. I’m not yelling at you. I just don’t know what his game is and it’s driving me nuts.”

  For two days after Amy and her friends hurt me, I didn’t eat. I couldn’t even look at food. The day I spent at home, my mom tried everything to get me to at least try and eat something, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t just because of what they did to me; it’s also because of what I’d seen between Dean and Kayden. It was scary and it tied me up in knots. I hated that Kayden had to live with that, especially after doing something so nice for me.

  I went back to school the day after and still wouldn’t eat. She made me soup like she always does, but I didn’t eat a bit of it. I just let it go lukewarm, then cold in the container. Eventually my appetite came back, but for a little while it looked like I might never eat again.

  Talking about Dillon and what happened is bringing that feeling back again. I want the soup so bad I can taste it, but I feel my appetite fading fast. I just don’t know if I have it in me to tell him that we need to stop talking.

  “Here,” he says as he lifts the spoon from the container, holding his other hand underneath it and moving toward me. “Someone needs to eat. I can see it all over her face.”

  As I accept the spoon into my mouth, I feel a familiar ache in my chest. I’m sure he wasn’t intending for it to be anything other than sweet, but if he remembers anything about our time together when we were younger, he has to realize just how close to the way things used to be this is.

  I feel like a baby.

  “Talk to me, Belle. You went from being so damn happy, to looking like I ran over your cat or something. What’s going on?”

  Talk to me Belle.

  If only it were that easy.

  As I start typing to him, I stop because I feel the wetness on my cheeks before I even realize I’ve done it at all. I’m crying.

  “Shit! I keep doing this to you. Belle, I’m sorry!” he says, his voice pleading as he reaches across to me and wraps his hand around my own. “I keep saying shit without thinking about it. Please forgive me?”

  I want to text him and tell him he has nothing to be sorry for, that I have no idea why I’m crying and that it doesn’t have anything to do with him, but I can’t do any of that. The tears keep falling and my eyes are so clouded with them I can’t even see my phone, let alone the letters to touch to get the words out.

  He pulls me to him and I’m calmed by the beating of his heart through his shirt. It’s strong and steady and at certain points it seems to speed up and then slow down again. It sounds like the beat of a drum, the steady rhythm that’s happening now. It’s only when I attempt to pull away that he stops me, placing both of his hands on my cheeks, his light green eyes locked on my now tear stained blue ones.

  It’s almost as if time stops in that moment and as much as I want to break the eye contact, unable to handle it, I’m frozen in place. I can’t look away; it might actually hurt me to do it.

  “Isabelle…” he says his tone calm, the sound of his voice low. “Say you forgive me…”

  I know what he wants me to do, but I can’t give it to him. Not without completely pulling away and reaching for the phone that somehow dropped when he pulled me to him.

  “Screw it.” He says, this time his voice crystal clear, but before I can process what he means by it, his lips press to mine and any thought I might have been able to come up with fades away.

  At least it does until I remember that I’ve never done this before and I don’t have the first clue what I’m even supposed to do. Our lips are pressed together, neither one of us moving. Just the way it was when we were looking at each other, we seem to be completely locked in place. My eyes are closed as I embrace the tingling sensation that came the minute his lips touched mine. The one I never want to end.

  He breaks away, but instead of completely backing away the way I expect him to, he places two more kisses on the corners of my lips and the tingle, along with the scent of whatever cologne he’s wearing, mix with the feel of his breath on my skin, making me lightheaded. It’s only when he finally backs away that I open my eyes and I’m met again with the intense stare coming from his.

  “I—forgive—you.”

  Kayden

  I have no clue what I’m doing. I just know I can’t stop.

  I brought Isabelle back to school with five minutes to spare, proceeding to walk her to classes before driving her home. We fell back into the same routine, like we didn’t just have this monumental shift happen a couple of hours before.

  Not only did I do something completely out of character and kiss her, but right after it she spoke to me.

  When I told her I was sorry, I meant it. Not thinking as usual, I lost my mind when she mentioned what Dillon said. I’m not sure how, but it seemed to get more messed up after that. All I did was attempt to be cute and feed her some of her food, but tears started falling. I screwed up again.

  I could tell she’d never been kissed before. The minute I pressed my lips to hers, it’s like she completely froze, but then again, so did I. It wasn’t planned, me kissing her, but the way she looked at me, I knew I had to.

  Her lips were so damn soft I didn’t want to break away from them. I’m not sure what she puts on them, but they are the softest pair of lips I’ve ever felt before and it’s not exactly a secret that I’ve kissed a lot of girls.

  Things got even weirder after that because when I asked her to forgive me, it should have been for making her cry, but it wasn’t, not entirely. I was asking her to forgive me for everything. I needed it like I need air to function, that’s how important it was to me. I didn’t expect her to ever say it out loud. All I wanted was her familiar text and I would have been fine, but I got so much more than that.

  The minute the words came out, I went speechless. It’s new to me because I normally have a response to everything, but this, no freaking way. She stunned me. It was a turning point for us or at least I think it is, but considering she went back to texting and writing after that, I can’t be sure.

  I need to go inside, but after dropping her off and driving over here; I can’t seem to get out of the car. I don’t want anything to ruin the way this day has been for me. I know the minute I get out and go inside, Dean and his stupidity is going to do it.

  What I really want to do is drive back across the street, go to her door, knock and when she opens it, pull her to me again. It’s so crazy, but it’s the one thing that can make this day even better than it has been. She might not have a lot of experience with kissing, but it didn’t mean she doesn’t have someone dying to teach her.

  When she told me that actions needed to speak louder than words, I really did take it to heart. The problem is, now that line is blurred. I still want to prove to her that I can be a better guy, but it’s not innocent anymore. I want to do it because I like her. That guy that deep down I don’t believe I can be, I want to be for her.

  I can’t be selfish with this though. I know how timid she is, how all of this must be for her and in order for me to be the person Ms. Taylor thinks I am, I have to do it right. I can’t treat her like every other girl I’ve been with. She’s not like other girls because she’s different. I want her kind of different.

  If I’m serious about being with her, I need to start at the beginning. I need to forget about how amazing her lips felt pressed to mine, the way hearing her speak stopped my heart and focus on what really matters. I need to understand her and change everything that for the last eight years I’ve believed about her. I need to make right all of the damage I’ve done.

  It all starts with me. I need to learn everything I can. Moving forward with her depends on it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Belle

>   It’s strange. When Kayden dropped me off at class this morning, he actually stuck around longer than usual. He didn’t do it to talk to me though. He was talking to Ms. Taylor instead.

  It didn’t last longer then maybe two minutes, but it’s all I’ve been able to think about. I’m trying to focus on the math we’re doing, but even my excitement over numbers can’t distract me. I need to know what they were talking about. It’s going to bother me until I do, I just know it.

  I’ve been like this since Friday, when we kissed and I spoke to him. I can’t concentrate on anything but what he thought about it. We haven’t brought it up since it happened and I guess that’s why I can’t let it go. I’m thinking about it so much that it’s becoming obsessive. I had to stop myself all weekend from spilling my guts to my mom, that’s how much it got to me.

  At some point we’re gonna have to talk about it, but I don’t want to be the one to bring it up. I’m already nervous as it is and I really don’t want to know how he feels if it’s going to hurt me. Things have been going so well and I just want to keep it that way for as long as I can.

  There’s something bothering me though. I told him that I forgive him, but haven’t been able to say a word since. The way he’s been should be enough to get me past this fear I have of speaking, but it doesn’t. Maybe Mom’s right and it’s time to see the speech therapist again. I might not need help with words anymore, but I do need help to find out how to get over the fear I have of actually speaking.

  I made the decision over the weekend and I haven’t said anything to anyone. As much as I know my mom supports me, I want to do this on my own. She’s been so good to me and this, well if I can fix it, is something I want to surprise her with. She deserves something good to happen after everything we’ve been through. I want to do it for Kayden too, but I’m trying my hardest not to make it about him because I still can’t figure out exactly what it is that I feel for him.