Page 71 of From Square One

“But liking me was.” It’s fully raining now, but I don’t feel the drops hitting my forehead.

“I wasn’t a good person. I didn’t want you to know…how cruel I used to be.”

I hear myself laugh dryly. “But sitting on this information isn’t cruel?” I demand. “You planned to whisk me off one day to a fixer-upper in the countryside without me ever knowing that the only reason I didn’t get my heart broken is because you started pitying me? Do you even actually love me? Or do you just feel so guilty that you’ve been treating me well to make up for it?”

“It wasn’t pity, Riley,” Aaron says sharply, his voice strained. “I love you. In every way. Please…can we talk about this inside?”

“I’m good,” I say, seizing my suitcase handle and dragging it down the driveway, my body one tingling ball of numbness. I should probably feel a lot right now, but it’s mostly nothing. My thoughts should be racing, but my head is empty.

“Let me drive you home,” Logan pleads, reaching for me, but I evade his grip.

“You’re worse,” I tell him. “Don’t talk to me.”

“I know, but please don’t walk home in the—”

“You didn’t care to save me from getting hurt, so don’t pretend you care about my clothes getting wet,” I say flatly, muscling past him.

I drag my suitcase home in the pouring rain.

24

My memories are choosing a very inconvenient time to come back.

They hit me like numerous punches to my head back-to-back, a new one surfacing whenever I stride past another driveway. I’m reading a book for the history club, leaned against Aaron’s legs and occasionally offering unnecessary two cents while he plays video games. We’re slow dancing in the kitchen, covered in flour, our faces flushed from laughter, the smell of brownies wafting through the air. I’m squeezing his waist and shrieking with terror on the back of his dad’s motorcycle at midnight while he races down open roads.

I’m touring that campus with him, hand in hand, led by Amy Choi while he points out the quaint little pockets I could study in. I’m yelling at him for being reckless after he fell off his roof and sprained his wrist. I’m letting him do unholy things to me in the bed of his pickup truck atop layers of blankets. I’m flipping pancakes in the Beckham kitchen, listening to his dads bicker about an upcoming project. I’m pinning a flower to the lapel of Aaron’s prom suit and thwacking his shoulders every time he playfully tries to grind with me.

I don’t want to remember.

I’m kissing him in a bathroom stall at an arcade after winning five games of air hockey against him. I’m enjoying the view while he paints my room sunset-orange in his overalls, his brows pressed in concentration. I’m lying draped around him, sick and dizzy and tired, while he watches a woodworking video. I’m making s’mores over a firepit and crying because Greg is thanking me for taking care of his boy. I’m watching 1917 with Aaron in bed and rattling off historical knowledge.

I’m trying to top Aaron Beckham, but I give up because I’m laughing too hard. I’m crying in his arms because I couldn’t have the cookies at the family function since they had butterscotch chips, and it was the final straw after a hard week. I’m at an outlet mall, enjoying the sun under a floppy sun hat while we wander in and out of stores.

I don’t want to remember.

I’m drunk and singing an ear-numbing rendition of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” into Aaron’s old karaoke set while he tries yanking my Santa hat down over my mouth. I’m kissing him sweetly in the dark corner of a corn maze and enjoying the taste of warm cider. I’m curled up on the bathroom floor, nausea raking me while he rubs my back. I’m giving him the silent treatment after he called Logan a bitch, then letting my frustrations melt when he apologizes and tickles my neck.

“Why now?” I breathe, the rain dripping from my hair, lashes, and chin.

I’m hiding in Aaron’s closet because he’s grounded and I’m not supposed to be over, and he joins me with a shit-eating grin that tells me he’s up to something.

“Stop,” I whisper, massaging my forehead.

I’m jumping off the lowest tree branches outside my window and falling into his arms. Got you, he breathes in my ear.

“I don’t want to remember anymore…”

I’m telling Aaron Beckham that I love him for the first time.

I stagger to a stop on the sidewalk, my breaths shortening. I choke on a sob but bite frantically on my finger to keep anything else from surfacing. I don’t need to cry, so I won’t.

I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.

Logan drives beside me, begging me to get in the car, but I ignore him until he gives up and heads home. Mom and Dad leap up from the couch when I push through the front door, my skin purplish and soggy. I give them some haphazard excuse I don’t hear and drag my suitcase upstairs to my room, then peel out of my soaked clothes and stand there blankly.

They won’t stop.

I’m apologizing for laughing at Aaron’s first attempt to whittle a horse. I’m at a beach in late summer, massaging copious amounts of SPF 50 into his paper-white skin. I’m pounding on the wall between our rooms because it’s one o’clock in the morning and he’s still clattering around with his tools. I’m standing in line at the pharmacy for my prescription and glaring at him down the aisle, where he’s winking sexily at me while getting his flu vaccine. I’m dozing off on his thigh while he listens to an online summer course lecture. I’m giving him doe eyes and fluttering my lashes so he’ll do what I want. I’m telling him I love him. Again. And again.