One Moment More - S. J. Evans (books for men to read .TXT) 📗

I shrieked, as he reached his hand out to touch my face, and I slapped it away. “Don’t touch me.” The words were laced with venom I didn’t know I even had in me, and my entire body quivered with the aggression of my anger and disgust. How could he say that? How could he possibly think that one stupid, meaningless apology could substitute for six months of abandonment? Seems like I was wrong about him all those months I’d waited, thinking a golden guy like him— a guy who’d comforted me on our living room sofa when my great uncle passed away, whispering sweet words of encouragement in my ear as he rocked me in his arms; and told me I was beautiful even when I knew I looked like someone with a bad hangover that time I’d gotten food-poisoning from one of the sushi restaurants near our beach house while we visited last summer, smiling at me as if he had just won the lottery and I was his earnings; and always lent a helping hand to anyone in need of assistance, even if he got nothing in return for his generosity—wouldn’t let me down. Thinking he’d call me and tell me he had just gotten swamped with college prep and we’d talk for hours into the early morning, just like we’d often done that summer.

         Seems like I had been wrong to ever let him charm his way into my life in the first place. Because when it really mattered, he’d left me stranded. And now, now that I’d opened my heart to him and lost myself, he couldn’t even fix what he’d broken, what he’d stolen. There was no explanation, no excuse, no apology that could magically change what had happened, magically remove the wedge in between us.

          His one mistake cost me months of crying myself to sleep, wondering if I wasn’t good enough, wondering if I had done something wrong, secretly praying he’d someday come running back to me, even though I knew it’d only tear me apart more.

          Just like it was right now.

          “Reina, please,” he begged, his eyes peering deep into my soul, pleading with me to fall subject to his games again, “just give me a chance to explain myself. Just give me a chance to fix things. Please.” His voice cracked, and as I numbly hugged my arms around myself, I watched the expression on his face transition from that of hurt and surprise, to one of pure desperation and longing. “I swear I never meant to hurt you, Reina. I was just being an ass, like you said.” I nearly scoffed at that, but had to bite my lip, hard, to keep myself from bursting into tears. “But I came back because I just wanted a second chance to make things right. Like I should have done in the first place. And I still want that, desperately. So just give me a chance to explain. Please.”

           As I stood there, surrounded by strangers and loud music and bright, flashing lights, face-to-face with the only boy I had ever truly fallen hard for, the same boy I’d thought had given up on me completely but had now come back to ask for one more chance, one more moment to “explain himself”, the only thing I could think of was how much I’d give to go back to the days when my heart was being torn in one-hundred different directions all because of this boy, back to the days when everything was simple and all I had to worry about was getting my homework done on time and making sure I kept an eye on my younger siblings when my parents were at work. Back to the days before I’d met Gavin Monroe and had fallen so madly, hopelessly in love with him. 

          With my heartbeat pulsing in my ears, my blood boiling under my skin, my knees shaking so badly it was a wonder I was still standing, I closed my eyes and banished the situation at hand for a moment, going back to the day he first asked me to go out with him.

 

 

It was sophomore year. Gavin was a senior, and despite our age gap and opposing statuses on the social ladder—he had become one of the most popular guys in school, the star athlete, while I had always been the girl with her head in a book, hanging out with a small group of friends and generally staying invisible to the “popular crowd”—we had become close friends. He made a habit of walking me to and from classes, driving me to and from school (considering we lived next door to each other), and I often waited on the bleachers at his football practices, sneaking glances at him when he wasn’t paying attention to the coach and was instead communicating with me in our own special language.

          I had always wondered what it would be like to be his girlfriend, what it would be like to have him look at me in that way; but I hadn’t thought it would actually happen— until that fateful Friday game night.

         Our team had won the big football game—thanks to Gavin—and all the guys on the team were planning on going over to Veronica Webber’s house for a victory blow out. All of them, it turned out, except for Gavin.

         After hanging out at the school with Lila and Landon for a good fifteen minutes after the game, I was rounding the corner of our street when I saw him, sitting out on the front porch, dressed in dark-washed jeans and a white button down shirt with a navy vest, staring at his watch. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time; I often found him chilling out on my porch when he needed some space from his occasionally overbearing mother. But looking back, I didn’t understand how I’d never seen the signs—like the way he kept glancing up from his watch, as if looking for someone, nervously running his hands through his disheveled blond locks and bouncing his foot against the steps.

         With a smile spreading across my lips, I’d picked up my pace, butterflies infesting my stomach as that familiar warmth washed over my body at the sight of him. “Hey, stranger,” I said when I reached him, and watched as he snapped his head up, a lopsided grin lighting up his face. “Whatcha doin here?”

          Rubbing his hands on his jeans, he cleared his throat and said, in a faltering voice I hadn’t heard him speak in before, “Just waiting for you.”

          My stomach flipped, my heartbeat fluttering against my ribcage at the thought of him waiting for me. I sat down, nudged him playfully in the side, which he then returned with a laugh. “Waiting, huh? How come?” My heart soared again when he looked at me, blue eyes twinkling in the fading sunlight. “I thought you were going to Ronnie’s party with the guys.”

           He leaned in closer to me, his shoulder against mine, our sides practically touching, and reached over to push a lock of hair that had fallen in front of my eyes behind my ear, his cool fingers just the feather of a touch against my warm skin as he brushed them along my cheek afterwards. “I wanted to spend the night with you instead,” he explained, rather softly, and I couldn’t have looked away had I wanted to. “If that’s all right with you.”

         For a moment, as I stared at him, seeing for the first time that his feelings were a little more than just friendly, I forgot how to breathe. I licked my lips, trying to say something, but nothing more than a small, pitchy sound came out. So instead of telling him how much more than “all right” it was with me, I merely nodded my head.

         “Does that mean you’ll join me for dinner?” he asked, and ran his fingers through my pin-straight hair, which in turn provoked chills to run down my spine, “And maybe a movie afterwards? A little birdie told me the theater is showing The Notebook tonight.”

          I grinned, thrilled beyond belief that he had not only just asked me out but also remembered my all time favorite film and offered to see it with me. “You mean,” I said, a little breathlessly, still trying to believe that this was actually happening, “kind of like a date? Just the two of us?”

           Chuckling, he nodded his head and dropped his hand to pull mine into it, entwined our fingers together. “There’s no ‘kind of’ about it Reina,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I’m asking you out on a date, just the two of us. And I’d love if it you said yes.”

            His smile was enough to banish all other thoughts, reeling me in before I even had the chance to second guess anything. So, as he laced and unlaced our fingers together, his body so close that I could feel his warmth surround me, I leaned forward, ran my fingers through his hair, and whispered in his ear, “I’d love to go out with you, Gav.”

                     

Gavin was still watching me with wide eyes, his breath coming out in short but measured gasps, one hand still reaching out to me, offering to make things right, when I stepped out of the memory. But in that moment, I knew I couldn’t let him win. I had already lost so much already; I wasn’t about to let him weasel his way back into my life, just so that he could end up hurting me again when he got tired of us.

            And so, going against nearly every nerve in my body that was telling me to give him just one little explanation, one little chance, I looked straight into his eyes, holding back a waterfall of tears, and told him in a shaky, breathless voice, “I’m sorry, Gavin, but I-I can’t. I’m done.” My lip trembled, while my heart plummeted into my stomach, my resolve falling apart with each ragged breath I took. Gavin shook his head, stepping closer, but I matched his steps, my hand pressed against my stomach to keep myself from hurling its contents onto the floor. “Please just go back to your exhilarating life in the city, far away from here. I don’t want to ever see you again.” The words left me feeling empty and hollow as they tumbled from my lips, and I immediately wanted to take them back.

           “You don’t mean that,” Gavin said, trying to smile, to shrug it off as nothing.

           I can’t do this, I thought, swallowing the bile that had risen in my throat at the thought of what I was about to do. I can’t do this to him. Not without even giving him a chance to explain. But that was a lie. I could do it; and I would do it. Because if I didn’t, and instead granted him permission into my life again (which I could only imagine he’d take advantage of), I’d never forgive myself.   

           “I do,” I insisted. “I mean every word.” The defeated look in his eyes told me he actually was starting to believe me. And it cut deeper than any knife ever could, ripping me apart from the inside, out. “I may have once longed for you to return, longed to see you again . . . but now all I want is for you to leave. Me. Alone.”

     Then, without giving it another thought, ignoring the look of utter defeat and desperation on his face, I barreled past him, into the crowds of people that provided an obstacle to overcome. Wiping the tears that were now cascading down my cheeks, like a waterfall, I cupped my hand—the one that wasn’t holding my nauseous stomach—over my mouth to muffle the sobs that rattled my chest, shaking my entire body, and ran all the way out the doors of the club, desperate for fresh air and solitude.

     Once I made it outside, crisp, cold air bit at my exposed skin, but I hardly noticed, too blurry-eyed and sick to my stomach to take into account anything but the erratic beat of my