You Make Me (6 page)

“You sound so cute and sleepy I want to kiss your face.”

“I look like shit. I think I’m getting a cold.”

“Aw, that sucks. Do you want to skip dinner with my parents then? I can just come over to your place and we can hang out tonight.”

Right. Dinner with his parents to tell them about our engagement. I was so not up for that. “Yeah, maybe that would be better next weekend. I don’t want to look all glum when we’re telling them our good news.”

He laughed. “Probably not something that will instill confidence in them, no. Okay, I’ll call my mom.”

“I’m sorry.” I leaned against my wall, feeling guilty.

“Don’t worry about it. You can’t time a virus. I’ll call you later. I can’t wait to see you and my ring on your finger.”

Absently, I glanced down at my finger. Dang it, where was the ring? I’d taken it off the night before, worried it would pop off during sleeping, but now I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. Glancing around, I spotted it on my nightstand. Thank God. I gave an audible sigh. “I can’t wait to see you too,” I said, voice hoarse.

After we hung up, I found my water bottle and sucked half of it down. Then I called Tiffany. That September, after Heath left, she and I had developed a quiet friendship. We’d both been bruised emotionally and I had felt guilty over snapping at her. She’d inspired protectiveness in me, and it had been humbling to realize that while I didn’t have a perfect life, I still had it pretty damn good compared to a lot of kids, Tiffany included. She’d been bounced from one crappy situation to another after being abandoned by her mother.

She’d stayed with us eighteen months until her grandmother had requested custody and during that time we’d gotten close enough that I’d kept in touch. She was still only seventeen but she was wise beyond her years.

And she was the only person I was in touch with who knew the truth about my past.

“Guess who I saw?” I asked her after we exchanged greetings.

“Beyonce.”

“Beyonce? No.” I rolled my eyes. Because Beyonce would be hanging out in Orono, Maine. “Heath.”

“What? Where did you see him?”

“At the fraternity Homecoming dance.” I debriefed her, skipping the whole marriage proposal thing for the moment. That was a whole different topic.

“That’s totally random. He said he’s been in the Marines?”

“Yes. I’m meeting him later.”

There was a pause. “You sure you want to do that?”

No. “Yes. Why, you don’t think I should?”

“All I know is that I was only living with you for three weeks while he was still there and in that three weeks the two of you didn’t even know anyone else existed. You were obsessed with each other. Like it probably wasn’t even healthy.”

I frowned. “I wouldn’t say that. We were friends. We had a connection.”

“It was a little cray cray, you have to admit.”

I was offended. “I’m not admitting that. And you spend too much time on Tumblr. Lose the shorthand speech.”

“Whatev.”

“So can you do some poking around and see what you can find out about Heath now that we now he was in the Marines?” Tiffany was a computer savant. She could pick her way through the maze of social media and public records and find anything out about anyone.

“I could. Or you could just ask him. I mean, you’re going to see him, aren’t you? I know you.”

“Yes, I’m seeing me. But I don’t want to pry.”

“You’d rather stalk?”

Why was she making this so difficult? “Look, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I said in a bratty tone I immediately regretted.

She sighed. “I don’t want to, because I don’t want you to mess up your relationship with Ethan. But I will, because I know you want me to.”

“Thanks, Tiff. Don’t worry, okay? I just need closure. I never got that.” That’s why I was meeting Heath. To get the answers, and to say goodbye. To have the chance to say what he had denied me four years earlier.

“Okay. I get it. I will dig up whatever I can find.”

“When are you coming to Orono to visit me?” I asked, like I always did when we talked.

“Never,” she responded, like she always did. “You know I’m going to live and die in Vinalhaven.”

“You don’t have to. Only if you want to.”

“I want to.”

I wasn’t sure I believed her, but she was stubborn. “How is your grandma?”

Tiffany was responsible for taking care of the house and her grandmother, who had emphysema. I always thought it was a little suspicious that for years Tiffany had been shuffled around in foster care and her grandmother had never asked for custody, but when Tiff was fourteen and capable and her grandmother was on oxygen, suddenly she wanted her around. It seemed super selfish and shitty to me, but Tiffany chose to believe her grandmother had had a change of heart and had missed her, and I wasn’t about to take that away from her.

But it annoyed me that her life choices were limited because she felt chained to that hunk of rock we’d grown up on.

“My grandma’s okay. You know.”

“Yeah. I know.” That was about all I could say about my mother. She was okay. “So any cute guys that you’re interested in?”

“I may be interested, but it is not returned. Dudes aren’t dying to talk to me, Cat, and if they are, they’re creepers. I look like I’m twelve.”

She did. There was no real denying it. Tiff had been underfed most of her life and whether it was that or just genetics, she wasn’t even five feet tall and she had a pixie-like look to her. “The magic is in the makeup,” I told her. “It’s taken me from crazy Cat to reliable Caitlyn.”

“If I wear makeup I look like a middle school hooker. Or a kid who got into her mom’s makeup.” She didn’t sound particularly upset though. “I’m waiting for a massive growth spurt. I still think it will happen.”

“I’m sure it will. Drink your milk. It’s full of growth hormones.”

She laughed. “True. Okay, call me after you meet up with tall, dark, and disappearing.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re funny, you know that? Cute and funny. Love you, talk to you later.”

“Bye, Cat. Keep it off the streets.”

Tiffany could never say she loved me. It was her personal belief that if she said it to someone, they would disappear. Which, given what happened to me, should be my personal belief as well. But I was more optimistic that there was an explanation for everything. That people weren’t as selfish as they seemed to be.

I took a shower and checked my phone a hundred times. I didn’t want to be the one to contact Heath first. He should text me first to confirm our meeting. I didn’t want to text and have to do the whole what’s your address thing. It just seemed like then I was eager. Which was ridiculous. But that’s the way it felt, rational or not.

Fortunately he texted me with his address as I was drying my hair. I knew that it was risky to meet him alone, at his place. But I didn’t want to have a private, potentially emotional conversation with him in front of a bunch of random people at the coffee shop or wherever. We would get interrupted if I ran into anyone I knew and it was entirely possible someone would say something to Ethan.

But most of all, I didn’t want to cry in public.

Because I was pretty sure I was going to at some point.

As I walked up to the place Heath was living in, I was sick to my stomach from nerves. I hadn’t been able to eat anything because I was so tense, and the coffee felt like it was curdling in my gut. I had messed around with my hair for half an hour and had put on makeup, only to wipe the eyeshadow off. I wasn’t trying to impress him. I threw my hair up in a messy bun and wore jeans, a basic sweater, and fuzzy boots. It was Sunday. Effort on a Sunday looked like you were trying too hard.

My palms were clammy in my gloves and I wasn’t sure what was going to come out of my mouth, but the second Heath opened the door and gave me a small smile, I forgot to be nervous.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” He opened the door wide and gave me a searching, sincere look. “Thanks for coming, Cat. Seriously.”

I moved past him, curious to see where he was living. It was a studio in an old house and he had almost no furniture. Just a futon couch that had blankets on it like he slept there, and a rickety chair in the corner. No TV. A suitcase propped open, clothes spilling out. The kitchenette was mostly bare. It was cold. Sad. There was nothing homey about it, but I figured he had just moved in. He wasn’t going to bust out the framed photos on day one.

“When did you get out of the Marines?” I asked, pulling my gloves off and standing in the middle of the room.

“A year ago. I stayed in Afghanistan working for a private contractor and I banked a ton of money. Just got back a few weeks ago.”

So he had some money saved. That was good. I worried. Which was ridiculous. He didn’t need or want me to worry about him. “It sounds… scary.”

He shrugged. “Yeah. At times. But the bank account is looking good. It was worth it.”

“Not if you had been killed.”

Heath crossed his arms over his chest. He was wearing a Marines t-shirt actually and jeans with a tear in the knee. He was definitely more muscular than he’d been at eighteen.

“And who would there have been to give a shit if I’d been killed?”

Anger surged through me. “You know I would care if you died! How could you say that?” The emotion of the last two days boiled up and over and I threw my gloves at him. They bounced off his chest and fell to the floor.

He raised his eyebrows. “Well, you haven’t changed, despite your sorority makeover.”

I was breathing hard and I knew he was right. Feisty Cat, who ran across the island barefoot, still simmered under the surface. It didn’t surprise me that it had taken him sixty seconds to draw her back out. “Don’t put this on me. You left. We were together…” My voice cracked. “And you just fucking left, without a word. Do you know how many nights I spent wondering and worrying about you? I was sure you were dead and I would never know what had happened to you. So don’t stand there all fucking casual and act like it wouldn’t matter if you lived or died.”

“So what you’re saying is that you would have cared if I died?” He came towards me, his stride slow, determined. His eyes had darkened.

Oh, shit. My anger evaporated. I knew that look. That was a look that couldn’t happen. I fought the urge to take a step back. “You know I would. I won’t say it again.”

He had reached me and he stood so close, his chest brushed my folded arms at the elbows, his hips bumped mine. He tilted his head, and his eyes were the stormy blue I remembered so well, just as intense and compelling as they had ever been. He had a tattoo on his bicep now, flames with something in the middle that I couldn’t see because he was right on top of me. “That’s my girl,” he murmured. “Just the way I remember. You look beautiful, by the way.” The back of his knuckles drew down the length of my cheek. “I like you without makeup.”

Oh, God. I felt the tears sooner than I had ever imagined they would appear. They filled my eyes, blurring my vision of his gorgeous face. The ache of missing him was overwhelming. It made me shudder, giving up. I couldn’t fight it. He had been my everything for a time, and my body, my heart craved him just for a brief fleeting second.

“I missed you,” he said, pulling me into his arms.

Saying that I missed him in return was the understatement of the century, a weak inadequacy of how it had been the last four years. “I missed you” could never describe the pain I had been through, the desperate need to wake up and see his smile again, hear his laughter, have him tease me and chase me down over the rocks.

So I kept my arms folded, between us, but I let my forehead rest on his chest, let myself breathe him in. “Why did you leave?” I whispered.

“I didn’t want to. Believe me, I didn’t want to.” His breath was warm on my temple, his arms strong and solid around me. “But social services was planning to look into statutory rape allegations against me. They heard I was having an inappropriate relationship with you.”

I froze. “What? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. So I left and they let it go. I didn’t want to put you through the questioning, the physical exam, all of that. I figured you deserved better and it seems I was right.” He pulled back and unfolded my arms, lacing his fingers through mine. He held up my left hand, studied the engagement ring from Ethan. “I’m happy for you. I really am. But I’m sorry for me. And a little angry, even if you don’t want to hear that.”

My throat was tight and I felt his sadness as profoundly as my own. We could have been together. We should have been together. “I wanted
you
,” I told him. “And fuck anyone who thought they had the right to interfere.”

He lowered my hands, still entwined with his. “Want and need are two different things.”

Heath stepped away and I felt the loss of his presence immediately. I didn’t want him to release me quite that quickly. “You found Mr. Perfect,” he said, and his tone wasn’t nice.

It was a conversation we never needed to be having. “I’m not going to talk about him.”

“Sometimes in my bunk I would imagine that you had waited for me. That we had something special enough to last through a separation.” He gave me a smirk. “Hey, at least it was good for jacking off, if nothing else.”

My mouth dropped. “Charming. Really charming. Don’t put this on me. You’re the one who left. You could have taken three minutes to tell me what was up. You could have contacted me at some point in four years. You know, like a text or an IM or something. Anything. And you were with a girl the other night, so it looks like you moved right along with your life yourself.”

“She doesn’t mean anything to me. I barely know her.”

“And that’s supposed to make it okay?”

“Yes.” He shrugged. “I didn’t betray you by falling in love with someone else.”

Oh, no he didn’t. He had a lot of fucking nerve. “I didn’t betray you. You chose not to exist in my life! What was I supposed to do? Stay celibate for the rest of my life? Become a nun who prayed at the shrine to Heath?” I bent over and grabbed my gloves off the floor. “I’m leaving. I don’t need this shit.”

My hair was slipping out of my bun and irritated with the tug of its weight falling, I reached out and yanked the tie out so it all fell loose over my shoulders. It was a mistake. He gave me that look. The one that made me weak in the knees and wet between my thighs. It was a smoldering, intense, all consuming look of desire, lust, and even love.