The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) (45 page)

“Ta-da. More space. Genius, I know.”

I carefully crawl inside the car, ducking underneath the line of the trunk until I’m in the body of the car, and grin when I find I can fully lie down, my head almost touching the front passenger seat and my legs extending all the way in the trunk.

“Wow,” I say. “This really is genius. I never would have thought of this.”

Zeke closes the trunk and enters from a side door, taking off his shoes and tossing them in the front before getting inside. It’s cramped, and tall as he is, Zeke has to prop his knees up to lie down on his back, but it’s much more comfortable than trying to squash together in the back seat or recline our front seats.

“Thank you,” Zeke says, sounding smug, and we lay there for a while, and I can feel it getting a little stuffy.

I struggle upward and hit the button just above us, opening the sunroof halfway. It’s still warm out, but this late in the year the night is somewhat pleasant and not overbearingly hot. Besides, we’re still close enough to hear the ocean waves, and even though I know I should feel a little awkward with one whole side of Zeke’s body pressed up against mine, I don’t. I feel wonderful, free and without an ounce of guilt that I’m about to sleep inches away from another boy.

It doesn’t matter that Tony would have killed me for it. I barely think about that. I am living, living my life how I want to, making my own choices for myself, and that feels wonderful. I close my eyes and let the ocean lull me to sleep.

I come awake slowly, becoming aware of my surroundings and feelings slowly, one sensation after another. I’m overly warm, sun shining on my face and making the world seem bright even from behind my closed eyelids. My hip is killing me, resting over the bump of where the backseats recline, and a hot puff of air hits my neck, making me feel even hotter than before.

Then I become aware of
why
, exactly, I’m so warm; I take in the leg thrust between both of mine, the arm around my middle, the strong body pressed up against my back and the face buried into my hair and breathing on my neck.

Zeke
.

Zeke is lying right behind me, an arm thrown around me, holding me close and secure against him. I stiffen for a moment, shocked and surprised, expecting to be nervous at such close contact, freaked out at the very least because I can
feel
his hand, and one finger, his thumb, I think, is close to the bottom of my breast, directly over my tattoo, actually. But the panic doesn’t come.

Instead, a very new kind of warmth flushes through me, starting in all the places he is touching me and spreading out to consume my whole body. I can feel my face blushing as I realize that what I’m feeling has nothing to do with panic or fear, or even the usual feeling of safety and security I get around Zeke. No, this is something very different, something much more primal and it sends warm tingles through me.

Lust. Wanting. Longing. All because of Zeke’s touch, because of the shiver I get when he breathes against my neck. I close my eyes, savoring all the sensations, but a little freaked out by them as well. The underlying attraction to Zeke has always been there, hovering. But at the same time, it’s always been in the background, shoved away, denied because it was never the time or the place, and because we were so different. I’m not stupid, and I know it would be virtually impossible for Zeke to want someone like me.

And there was the fact that I never thought I would like,
love
, anyone enough to want to try and be in a relationship again. Tony still ruined me in that aspect. I still view a relationship as something to fear, nothing more than a power struggle. But with Zeke...

For the first time I allow myself to consider. What if he
did
want me? What if we dated? What if he… touched me? The idea startles a thousand butterflies into flight in my stomach, and I try to shove it away. I could never be so daring as to instigate something, anyway. It’s not me. Or then again… maybe it is. I’ve changed. I’m different now, and I want to be strong and confident. I want to be the kind of girl that goes after what she wants, even if it’s hard. Even if it might end badly or she will get rejected.

My thoughts are a confusing mess as I try and think if Zeke might even feel that way about me. Sometimes I think I’ve caught glimpses of it in his eyes, and the reverent way he always touches my hair makes me wonder… but no. Zeke has seen me at my absolute worst. Freaking out about painting my stupid toenails, bloody and almost dying on a bathroom floor, makeup-less with my arm bleeding and a knife in my hand. Not exactly romance-inspiring thoughts.

The idea depresses me beyond words and I carefully work my way out of Zeke’s arms, pushing at him gently, hoping to escape his hold before he wakes up so he won’t have to know what happened. I don’t think I’m ready to face him or talk about it. Maybe later. Maybe in a million years, I’ll feel ready.

I finally escape and then lie on my back for a few minutes, staring up at the cloudless blue sky. Tomorrow, school starts. There’s not much sound coming from the hotel, so it’s probably early yet, but to be back in time for the school day, we have to leave soon and spend the entire day and night driving. We’ll barely scrape in as the sun rises, but I don’t care. If I’m dead and wooden my first day, maybe I won’t care how people stare at me or the whispers that will circulate. I sigh, not wanting to think about that just yet, and then prod Zeke awake so we can say goodbye to the beach and start back home to real life.

Evangeline

82

After finding a few shells, burying our feet once more in the sand and splashing in the water for a few minutes, we get in the car and head home as abruptly as we left it. Maybe it’s because it’s the middle of the day, or maybe we just feel very different than we did, in the short space of barely twenty-four hours.

Either way, we turn up the radio and open the sunroof and shout cheesy pop song lyrics, fumble through the lyrics of oldies and get out and run wild at every gas station we come across. It isn’t until darkness falls, and Zeke insists on continuing to drive once again, that things turn slightly serious once more.

On impulse, I turn to Zeke, trying to ignore how dangerous and beautiful he looks with stubble starting to grow on his strong jaw, dark face, making his light green eyes pop. “So, I think it’s time to play again.”

“Play what?” he asks, looking over at me, the hotness effect ruined by the Twizzler that hangs from his lips like a limp cigar. He chews at it while he waits for me to answer.

“The Things We Can’t Change,” I explain as he rolls his eyes and sighs. “We need to go back over the questions. So. Feeling like Cindy’s death is your fault. Can or can’t change?”

Zeke regards me for a long moment, his eyes flicking between me and the road. Finally he says in a low voice, “Changed.”

I grin in delight at his answer, even as he asks, “Feeling like you made Tony the way he was.”

I sit for a moment, letting the answer rise up from the bottom of my heart, because it’s something I firmly believe now. “Changed,” I whisper, and it feels so good to say it.

On we go, until every old question has been asked, until all the loose ends are tied. Final. The game is over. And I realize that even though it’s a game without winners, Zeke and I still won. We battled our demons and for the first time, we accept the fact that we conquered them. The car is heavy with silence for a long time, until we stop at a gas station to fill up and browse for more junk food to tide us over. It’s two in the morning and we’re miles from crossing into Cincinnati, the final stretch before we get back to home and I’m not tired at all, feeling oddly wide awake.

We get back into the car and I pull out my phone and plug it into the car audio system, turning it on shuffle. “Payphone” by Maroon 5 comes on, and Zeke instantly reaches to turn it up.

“I like this song,” he says. “Good lyrics, don’t you think?”

“Me too,” I say, smiling at him. “Although I don’t get the whole payphone aspect of it. Who uses payphones anymore?”

He gives me a mock glare. “Just go with it, okay? It’s dramatic effect, he’s an artist.”

“Right,” I say, and when the song is almost over I flick through my iTunes library. “Have you ever heard the Anthem Lights mash-up with this song in it? It sounds acoustic-ish and it’s really cool. Here, listen.”

Zeke groans as the first part of the mash-up plays. “You’re
not
playing Carly Rae Jepson in the same car as me. You’re not.”

I laugh, because Zeke and “Call Me Maybe” are two such opposite ends of the spectrum. “Just give it chance,” I say prosaically, and by the end of the song he’s tapping his fingers against the steering wheel despite himself.

“Put “Payphone” back on,” he says when the song ends, and I look at him quizzically.

“We just listened to it,” I protest.

“I know,” he says. “But I like it. It reminds me of… Cindy. Not in a bad way. I just like it. Put it on repeat. Please?”

I’m helpless to resist the wide-eyed, pleading look he gives me and I put the song on repeat as he asks. I listen to the lyrics and I understand what he means about the song reminding him of Cindy, because it makes me think, ever so slightly, of Tony. Of what could have been, if everything hadn’t gone all wrong.

Then it makes my thoughts go in a completely different direction;
what could be?
I give Zeke a sidelong glance, watching with new fondness as he bobs his head to the music, mouths the words because he refuses to sing along fully. My heart begins to ache as I finally admit to myself in that moment, as we enter the city limits of Columbus, that I
want
him. I want Zeke more than I have ever wanted anything else in the world.

More than I wanted to be healed, more than I wanted to escape or fix Tony. I want him more than I want my dad to come back. I think back to how it felt to have his arms around me, holding me safe and secure from the rest of the world, as though nothing would ever be able to touch me, to scare me or harm me again. I want that. I want that feeling, I want to own it and feel like it’s mine and only mine, belongs to me because I belong to Zeke, because we belong together.

I think about fate, about all the times life has shoved the two of us together, made our paths trample all over one another’s, even when we didn’t want it and even when we hated it. I used to think it was just the world’s way of making up for sending Tony into my life, that God thought I deserved someone so wonderful to help me heal after making me suffer so deeply. But what if that isn’t the end of it? What if our story doesn’t end here? What if I don’t
want
it to end here and want to keep on writing it?

Can I do it? Can I take the next step, take us to a different level, something radically different from what we’ve been all summer? I don’t even know if Zeke would want to, if he feels that way about me in the slightest. But I’ll never know if I don’t try.

Dawn has broken and the freeway lamps are swooshing by once again as we enter familiar territory on the freeway, Columbus in the distance, home and safety, the familiar. I could sink back, and Zeke and I could be friends forever, but nothing more than that. Can I live with the torture and regret of never knowing? I don’t want to.

Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh.
The lamps seem to be talking to me, urging and discouraging by turn,
yes, no, yes, no
. We take the Grandview exit and I know we’ll be at Zeke’s house in a matter of minutes, less than five. I have to make a choice. I have to do
something
, decide exactly how brave and fearless I’ve become in the past few months, decide if I am healed enough to try to pursue this, brave enough to try a relationship again. I feel slightly uncomfortable and squirmy at the thought.

Just because something doesn’t feel good, doesn’t mean it isn’t good for you.

The words flow through me, and as the car travels up the big hill, I know that something has to be done. That I have to decide now, today, or the moment will be lost forever. It has to be today. It’s a turning point.

“Shit, I’m tired,” Zeke says, interrupting my serious thoughts, and I look over at him. “I don’t know how I’m going to get through school, it puts me to sleep on a normal day.”

“Yeah,” I say nervously, thoughts turning to the school day that starts in, I check the dashboard clock, just two hours. “Should be a fun day. A fun year, really.”

Zeke gives me a sympathizing look and then, wonder of wonders, picks my hand up from my lap and gives it a quick, reassuring squeeze before dropping it so he can maneuver into a parking spot right in front of his front door. “Don’t worry,” he tells me. “It’ll be fine. I’ll meet you out front. Look for Dominic, Koby, and me. Think of us as your body guards.”

I laugh because I find that image hilarious, and the next thing I know, Zeke is telling me he’ll see me at school in a few hours and stepping out of the car. I watch almost in disbelief as he opens and closes the door and heads up toward his house almost without a backward glance.