“Is there someone else?” I don’t know what I expected when I asked. Maybe that she’d deny it immediately. She was silent for too long on the other end. I could feel her deliberating. “Shit, Zoe,” I whispered, my voice breaking due to the overnight crying bender.
“I’m sorry, Graham. But I don’t want to talk about this with you anymore. I can’t help how I feel… or don’t feel. I never meant to hurt you, but you and me are over now. You’re gonna have to accept it.”
I didn’t talk to her for a couple of weeks after that, though I saw her around at school. While our breakup was out-of-left-field and excruciating for me, it was liberating but awkward for her. I only knew the awkward part because her friends Mia and Taylor told me that the reason she changed her routes between classes and started going off campus for lunch every day was because watching me mope was such a downer.
“I’m not moping. I mean sure, I’m kind of depressed—I wasn’t expecting this. I can’t just become resigned to it overnight.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “It’s been like two weeks.”
Taylor shrugged one bony shoulder, screwing her mouth up in the no-big-deal smirk she was fond of making. “You really need to move past it already, Graham. Zoe has.”
I stared at them, bewildered. “She did the breaking up. She was probably moving past it when she did it. I haven’t had time to acclimate to being so expendable. I can’t just snap out of it like the past year meant nothing.”
Even though that’s exactly what Zoe had done.
“Graham and his I’m-a-genius vocab,” Mia mumbled, just loud enough for me to hear as they walked away.
“Seriously,” Taylor agreed.
***
When Emma kissed me last night, right before I bolted from her hotel room, I recognized a resurgence of the yearning I’d felt for her the whole time we were in Austin. I thought I’d conquered it, because she wasn’t possible—for so many reasons.
For one, she’s young—eighteen now, seventeen when I met her. She carries herself with a maturity that belies her age, though, and once I knew her better, I knew why that was. With a deceased mother and an emotionally absent father, she’d been parenting herself for years. But I couldn’t forget that behind that mask of maturity was a girl who’d fallen for Reid Alexander, king of the Hollywood douchebags. I had pushed her into the friend box in my head and held her there forcibly. I couldn’t fall for a girl who’d fall for Reid—reason number two.
Reason number three—she lives on the opposite coast, though my subconscious mind (okay, fine, my completely conscious mind) did everything imaginable to change that fact. Once we started talking about college and her desire to act on the stage instead of in front of a camera, it made sense to suggest universities and conservatories in New York. That’s what I told myself, while thoughts of her being that near, all the time, buzzed feverishly through my head.
Finally, reason number four—I don’t share Cara with anyone but family and a couple of very close friends. Her existence is unknown to the world at large, though that won’t be true for long. When Emma ran into us at the coffee shop yesterday and interacted with Cara, that part of my wall began to fall.
Our kiss last night all but detonated the rest of it.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say now, glancing at my watch before tossing bills onto the table and taking her hand. “What time is your flight?”
Her eyes don’t waver from mine as I pull her from the booth. “Noon.” Holding her hand as tightly as she’s holding mine, I lead her through the café to the exit, a riot of thoughts whirlpooling in my brain. Soon, she and her dad have to leave for the airport, where they’ll board a plane for Sacramento. Suddenly, the end of August is intolerably far away.
The first time I saw Emma was almost eight months ago. Leaving my hotel room to talk Brooke down from a freak-out over seeing Reid for the first time in years, I noticed Emma, slipping a key card into her hotel room door. Small and slim, surrounded by luggage, she glanced up as my gaze scanned over her, blinking her beautiful green eyes. I smiled, instantly curious who she was. I was on a Brooke-support mission, though, with no time to stop and chat with beautiful strangers.
“Hey,” I said, feeling like a dork. What kind of guy comes out of his hotel room wearing pajamas and says hey to some random girl in the hall right before entering another girl’s room?
Two nights later, we finally met after the first cast outing. I recognized her in the club, talking with MiShaun and dancing with some of our costars, but Brooke kept me close until it became clear that Reid intended to ignore her completely. On a smoking break outside, I spotted Emma waiting for a taxi back to the hotel, and on a whim, I asked to share her cab. Brooke was ticked that I just left her there, but I couldn’t be sorry.
I lay in my bed that night tasting the sound of her name on my tongue—Emma.
We began running in the mornings and we hung out alone a couple of times, talking, while I weighed her involvement with Reid. I was patient and cautious until the morning I sat next to her on a covered picnic table, soaking wet, waiting for the rain to lighten up so we could finish our run. As we sat there small-talking, another conversation was taking place under the surface.
Her ponytail dripped down her back, her thin t-shirt clinging like a second skin, and she smelled incredible. One loose strand of hair snaked across her cheek and clung to the corner of her lip, and I think I almost stopped breathing, staring at it. I reached to move it behind her ear, thinking don’t, don’t, don’t kiss her. Followed by kiss her, kiss her, you idiot.