Definitely, Maybe in Love

room. My backpack was sitting by the coffee table, the textbook and highlighter I’d dropped lying neatly on top.

Still standing on the last stair, I remembered there was also a bottle of aspirin in my bag, but I couldn’t seem to get my feet to move me in that direction. Instead, I stepped forward to the wall by the front door, leaned against it, and slid to the floor, my knees bending in front of my chest.

I shut my eyes, but my brain inside spun so fast I couldn’t focus, so I stayed curled in a ball. Less than a minute later, a noise startled me conscious.

I lifted my chin in time to see the front door next to me creak open.

Chapter 26

“Spring?”

I toyed with the idea of saying nothing, hoping he’d give up and back out the way he came.

“Spring? Are you awake?”

“I’m right here.” Dumb ass.

Knightly jerked around. “Oh.” He exhaled a startled laugh, then cleared his throat. “You’re all right?”

“What are you doing here?” I pulled myself to my feet, gazed longingly toward the top of the stairs, but didn’t think my legs could carry me all the way up there. So, robot-like, I moved toward the couch.

He was right behind me. “I wanted to check on you. Tyler said—”

“I’m fine.”

He stepped in front of me, blocking my way. “You don’t seem fine.”

My temples throbbed, and while the rest of my body was clammy and cold, it felt like my head was on fire.

The dimness of the room cast a shadow over his frame. I scanned him quickly.

Nothing in his appearance had altered in the last five hours, causing images to flood my mind—images of a certain campfire, a certain gas station, and a face that had been so near to me for so many hours that I could see nothing else every time I closed my eyes.

It was an honest struggle to throw up a mental brick wall before any more memories and feelings could break through. A fresh jolt of anguish struck as I looked into his face now. Longing mingled with antipathy…I didn’t have the emotional experience to handle that; my feelings for him were too mixed up, too raw.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. Stepping around him, I grabbed my backpack and hooked it over one shoulder. The simple gesture of moving made my body twinge in pain. That must’ve shown on my face.

“What’s…?” Henry asked, sounding alarmed.

When I tried to step around him again, he reached for my hand. The touch of his skin made me flinch. He didn’t let go.

I almost said something…but didn’t.

Midway through last semester, I’d grown a distaste for arguing with him—not our innocuous debates that often ended with a clearer understanding of each other’s views, but the real fights, the rows that left us both in bad moods, worse off.

As I stood before him now, trying my hardest to not look into those chocolaty eyes with the golden flecks, even as the quarrel was building on my tongue…I made a decision to let it pass. I would rather say nothing of it, think nothing of it, than fight. I didn’t have the strength. Or the heart.

Once I convinced him that I was fine, he would leave and I would never have to deal with him again.

Yes, it was a cowardly response, but the last thing I wanted to do was feel worse.

“Will you please sit down?” He took my arm and gently persuaded me to the couch. I didn’t bother protesting, because it truly felt like my knees were about to buckle. He sat on the next cushion, not too close. Maybe he thought I was carrying something contagious. At least that would keep him at a distance.

“Can I get you something?”

“I told you I’m fine,” I said coldly, trying to not breathe. The heady scent of him still registered in the back of my throat, making my mouth water.

“I don’t think you are.”

I made myself look his way. He was smiling, only slightly. Mostly though, I could tell he was concerned, anxious even, at what he was observing in me. A fist squeezed around my heart, knowing that a very big part of me longed to ease his anxiety. But then my stomach rolled, reminding me why I couldn’t.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“Of course I’m…” But I made myself stop, not allowing my mouth to remind me aloud why it was that I was tired, why we’d been up all night. I sat forward, ramrod straight and pinched my eyelids together, concentrating on mentally folding an origami swan, blocking out the reasons for my anger.

Numb. Nothing. Blank.

“Ah, I see,” he said, and I felt my backpack leaving my shoulder, sliding off my arm. “Why don’t you relax and put your feet up.” His hands were on my shoulders, pushing me back against the cushions. I didn’t fight this, either.

I was aware that Henry had left the couch only when he returned. When I peeled my eyelids apart, there was a napkin and an open can of ginger ale on the coffee table before me. I closed my eyes again. A few seconds later, I felt the cold can between my hands. Mechanically, I lifted it to my lips and took a sip.

“Feeling better?”

“I said I’m—”

“Fine,” he finished for me. “I heard you the first three times.” He was studying me, wearing that anxious/concerned expression again, but when he met my eyes, he lifted an encouraging smile. “I was going to bring this up later,” he said, “but since you’re feeling fine and all…”

“What?” I asked, setting the can on the coffee table.

“I have news. A surprise.”

Oh, goodie, the angry side of my brain jabbed. Are you leaving now? Is that the surprise? Bon voyage, buddy. Don’t trip on your way out. The very next moment, my chest and throat burned with anguish. I didn’t want him to go anywhere.

“A surprise for you.”

I pinched my dry, burning lids together in a long blink, then glanced across the room, trying to focus on anything else while he continued talking.

“Of course, there are two floors, like I was telling you yesterday,” he was saying. “Plenty of space—too much, really, but it’s a perfect getaway. Well-deserved, I think.” He laughed, but it had a bite of something else to it. “I don’t know what my family will say. Camille will be in favor; my parents, though, I don’t know. My father will freak out, but I think my mother will understand, maybe…”

I continued to sit still, my head throbbing, my stomach knotting up, not having a clue what he was going on about.

“But I don’t care. I haven’t for months, obviously. It’s a wonder I haven’t been thrown out of the program.” Another bitter laugh. “Law school, my family…none of it means much right now. I tried to put off any decision, thought moving would help, but nothing did any good, because here we are. At this point, the thought of living any other way is impossible.”

When he lifted my hand off my lap, I glanced at him, straining from the pressure writhing behind my eyes.

“We can go tomorrow,” he said. “Or tonight. Right now, if you want.”

When my eyebrows pulled together, it caused a new pain in my head. “Go?” I said, realizing I hadn’t been listening. “Where?”

He pressed his hands together, mine between them. “Tahiti.”

Even though I was physically immovable, my brain was working now, catching up to what he’d been saying.

“What?” I pulled my hand free.