Twenty days of friendship. That's all that high school senior, Quinn Reid's ex boyfriend wants and then he promises to leave her alone forever. After some initial hesitation, she agrees to be his friend in exchange for her solitude when the twenty...
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A year is a long time, but I felt time fall away with Jessie's words and it was like we were back at his locker, my phone shoved in his face. Anger and hurt etched on mine and disbelief on his.
Bringing my hands to my face, I try to wipe away all the bad parts. Swipe for the silence. Swipe for the mean words. Swipe for being a bitch to everyone I loved. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.
"Can I see it?" I ask Jessie, risking a glance at his face.
Without hesitation, he says, "No."
I reel back. "No?"
"You gave me twenty days and I intend to have them all."
It takes restraint not to say something snide. "Jessie," I begin in a calm voice. "You'll still have your days, I just want to see the picture." I needed to see for myself that I'd ruined our good love on a whim.
He shakes his head. "And I want you to love me again."
Those words make my heart speed up. Clutching a hand to my chest, I meet his eyes. "Jessie, please..." my words are stunted there. Please what? Please don't make this harder. Please take care of your heart first before trying for mine.
There's so much that I need to address within my own head before we even got to the point of talking about love.
I need to do some soul searching that includes major damage control and seeking a lot of forgiveness that I'm not sure I even deserve.
"I know you, Quinn." He takes my hand and gently kisses it, an act that saddens me more than it fills me with gratitude. "You'll see the picture and spend the rest of our senior year beating yourself up for letting us go and you'll shut everyone out again, without even meaning to. You'll get comfortable with being alone and I won't be able to get through to you. And no matter how many times I tell you that I've forgiven you a million times over, you won't want to hear it and in a few months you'll be on the other side of the country and our relationship will be well and truly dead."
He wipes a tear that slips out and cradles my face. "I can't lose you like that, babe. And I'm sorry, but I won't let you let us go."
I let out a shaky breath. "I won't. I just want to see it."
"And you will at the end of the month." He releases my face. "I promise."
Frustration makes me want to lash out at him, but I know that it's not fair. "Why won't you let me go?" If the roles were reversed, I'd have been long gone. I doubt I would've been able to put up with the dose of Hell that I'd dished out over the last year.
"Because I've got way more patience than you'll ever have." He smiles at my frown. "And because I love you, Quinn."
I can't say it back. Not because I don't love him, but because it won't be fair given everything that I've put him through.
