∞∞∞
“I win,” Hayley says, laughing, “I told you, you couldn’t finish it all.”
I lean back in my chair and let out a long, deep breath. “What can I say? I tried my best.”
“Stay there, I’ll get rid of all this.” She gestures to the leftover food which she begins shovelling back into the bag. She throws the dishes in the dishwasher and goes back to tidying the table, where I’m still sat.
“So, what’s your decision?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“You won the bet, you get to decide what happens next.” I stare at her, eagerly awaiting her decision.
“So you’re letting me go? If I choose to leave I can?”
“Yes, you can leave, and the money is yours.”
I don’t want her to leave.
I want her to stay right her with me.
“Why now?”
“I just don’t want you to feel forced or pressured into staying. The deal I made with you dad was a shitty move, one that I regret. After today, what you told me, I can’t force you to stay a second longer.” I take a breath. “In truth, I want you to want to stay here… with me.”
She takes a sharp intake of breath.
Did I surprise her by saying I want her to stay?
Does she think I'm lying? Because I'm not.
“I’m going to stay,” she replies, softly.
Did I hear that right?
“Really?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
For the rest of the evening, we play a few games of pool, she beats me by three games to one, before we end up sat on the sofa in front of the TV, flicking through music channels, only most of them center around trashy reality TV programmes.
When the fuck did music television stop playing music?
I want my MTV.
What music we do find is the top forty, some really bad rap channel, a countdown to the greatest song of seventies disco, God help me, and an entire hour dedicated to Fleetwood Mac.
“Nothing beats classic rock,” I say. “Guns 'N' Roses, AC/DC, Mötley Crüe...”
She smiles. “I like anything really, though I grew up with those bands, my dad would always play them when I was younger, after a while it kind of rubs off on you.”
“What’s your favourite song, if you had to choose only one to listen to for the rest of your life?”
“Is This Love by Whitesnake,” she replies confidently. “I used to go through old photo albums and would always tease my dad saying that he used to look like a young David Coverdale, back in the day.” She laughs at the memory. “What’s yours?”
“November Rain,” I reply without hesitation. Fuck I love that song.
She smiles fondly, taking her bottom lip between her teeth, casting her gaze down as if in thought.“What?” I ask curiously.
“That song. We played it at my mom’s funeral. That’s how my parents met actually. They met at a bar and November Rain was playing on the jukebox.”
“No shit.” Of all the songs...
“I know.”
Guilt tugs at me.
She misses her dad, whether she will admit it to herself or not, she does, and it’s all my fault.
Why did I have to do that to them?
Why did I have to be such a bastard and rip an already broken family even further apart?
I hate myself.
I exhale deeply. “You probably don’t want to hear it, especially not from me, but you should try to forgive him, he was desperate, grasping at straws, no thanks to me.”
“Yeah, desperate enough to sell me to you, to put money ahead of his daughter.”
I wince. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did, there’s absolutely no excuse. I baited him, I knew he would do anything to get the money and I used how desperate he was to get closer to you. You and your dad didn’t deserve that.” I hang my head low in shame.
“I forgive you Kyle.”
I look up at her.
She smiles and reaches for my hand. “I forgive you. You did go about everything the wrong way, but you’ve more than made up for that. It’s my dad I’m struggling to forgive, you didn’t force him into anything.”
“I still had a huge hand in it. I dangled the carrot.”
“But he chose to take it, willingly.”
“You should hate me.”
“I should,” she says. “But I don’t.”
We talk for what must be hours, well into the early hours of the morning before she retires to bed, leaving me on the sofa where I watch her disappear into my bedroom, clicking the door shut.
That itch works its way back into my fingers, an itch I can’t scratch. One in which I want to touch her, hold her, wrap myself around her.
I want to march into that room and drown in her warmth, her kindness, her softness.
I'm falling for this girl, I can feel it, right down to my bones, I should stop myself before I fall too far that I can’t climb back up, before I get in too deep.
But I’m at all not sure I can.
I'm not at all sure than I want to.
Chapter 15
Hayley
“No! Stop! Get away from her!” I’m ripped from my sleep from the sound of shouting again, “Stop!” I leap out of bed and hurry out of the room towards Kyle. He’s sat upright, his neck hung in an uncomfortable angle, his arms, and legs twitching.
I crouch down in front of him. “Kyle,” I say softly, touching his face lightly. “Kyle.”
His eyes fly open and he gasps. His face is covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
“Hayley.”
“Hey, you were having another nightmare.” I run a hand through his hair comfortingly.
He pulls my hand away from his head and gently squeezes it, holding it between both of his. “Sorry I woke you, again.”
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” I smile.
“I was dreaming about... him, again.”
It takes me by surprise that he wants to talk to me about it, confide in me. I get up and perch next to him on the couch, my knee gently brushing his.
“I’ve had this dream since I found out about him, about what he did.
