The Ivy League

The Ivy League - Part 43

Yeah... so, sorry for not uploading for such a long time :$ Maybe go back and reread chapter 42 to remember where we left off? Let me know what you think about this chapter!

{The Ivy League: Part 43} 

My chest dry-heaved and I fought the flow of hurt inside as I stared out the window. Talking to Nate, hearing him plead with me, and being unable to let go of the hurt had torn me up even more on the inside. Larry’s presence was a reassuring one; even if I didn’t know where to go, he did. He was solid and loyal and caring. Like Jake.

Nate was not. What was Nate? I asked myself as the greenery blurred by. My forehead felt hot against the cool glass, and I absently drew a design in the fog of the car window. I blinked in surprise when I saw that what I’d drawn was a heart.

Ruefully, I took my finger and cut the heart in two.

Nate had been... special. Different from all the other guys I’d dated and known. Which was exactly why I hadn’t seen this coming. It wasn’t so much his breath-takingly good looks or his piercing eyes. It was the shyness of his manner as he ducked his lips to mine; the strength of his arms as they wrapped around me from behind; the roughness of his hand as he traced my tears; the fire which ignited my skin from his caresses – it was all these things and so much more that had captured me, heart and soul. And it was all those things that broke me.

It still hurt, but the tide of it was ebbing away, leaving a dull ache. I still wanted to be with him – oh, how I wanted to be with Nate. I’d thought I hated him, but that was before I felt his arms around me again. There are some things that are too precious to let go, and as loud and unobservant as I sometimes may be, I knew that what Nate and I had shared had been something special.

Call it love; call it chemistry, passion or friendship. I think it’s a mix of all of those, and I missed it. Maybe... maybe I was able to let go of what had happened.

When he told me while I watched the panic in his eyes, when I’d beaten at his chest, while I cried over him, when I’d passed him in the halls – during all that time, I never considered the possibility that I might someday come back to him. That I might forgive him, let him heal me. But now, wanting Nate as much as I did, I was considering it.

Sure, it terrified me. Opening myself up to the same person who’d hurt me so deeply in the first place, it went against all that was within me. But sometimes you’ve got to think with your heart and not your head. Sometimes.

“Miss? We’re here, Miss,” Larry’s gentle voice told me.

My eyes had been open, but I hadn’t been seeing anything. Coming back to earth, I stepped out of the car as Larry held the door, and then escorted me inside. I heard the cheerful murmur of voices somewhere within the house – the games room, I guessed – and it sounded like quite a crowd. Well of course it would be, with my uncle and Julie, my parents, and three brothers.

Curiously, I headed towards the hum and found them. They were sitting around two Scrabble boards that they’d put together to accommodate such a mass of players. They held wooden blocks with letters on them, piecing together words. Timmy was the first to notice me.

“Courtney!” he cried. I distinctly saw Jared take the opportunity while everyone was distracted by my arrival to sneak a peek at my uncle’s letters.

“Hey, honeycake,” my mom greeted me cheerfully. Too cheerfully.

“Sugar,” my dad nodded. Yep, something was off. I couldn’t guess what, though.

There was a moment of awkward silence until David broke it. “Hey Courtney. Could you help me? How do you spell “skipper”?”

“Um,” was all I had a chance to say before my dad interrupted.