While I still felt horrible that all of this was happening because he chose to befriend me and stick up for me when his other friends still thought I had the plague, it was nice to have someone else to talk to. I could talk to Christina, and she’d do her best to understand and comfort me, but it was ten times different with Evan. Christina had never had to worry about being accepted or trying to fit in—it was just something that had come naturally to her. She was the girl that fit in everywhere with everyone, and while she was my best friend and I loved her dearly, I envied her that. He had changed and for once, it was nice to be proven wrong.
On Thursday, we were sitting on the floor in my living room, taking a break from our project and working on our English homework when he looked up and stared at me. I sat at one end of the coffee table, and he was at the other, shifting and grumbling things I couldn’t understand for the most part.
“Yes?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the weathered copy of The Tell-Tale Heart opened in my lap.
“Are you ever going to let me kiss you?” he blurted.
I stopped reading, shocked. “I wasn’t aware that you wanted to.”
My voice shook a little, and it felt as if my heart had just leapt into my throat. That was not at all what I’d been expecting to hear from him.
Okay. Play it cool, Anna. Keep it together.
“Seriously?”
“Your mom’s been watching Grey’s reruns again, hasn’t she?”
“Anna,” he snapped.
I dog-eared the page I was reading and noticed that my hands were shaking. I closed the book and looked up at him.
“Yes?”
“I’m being serious.”
“And I seriously wasn’t aware that you wanted to, Evan.”
“Well . . . I do.”
“I didn’t, uh . . . I wasn’t . . .”
I felt like I was going to explode—but in an extremely good way. Trying to keep my wits about me while I was jumping up and down on the inside as a little girl that had just got her first bike was not easy.
“You never . . . I just . . . ugh.” He groaned, fidgeting. “You always just . . . I never know what you’re thinking.”
“About what?”
“About me!” he exclaimed, looking up at me again. “Do you want more with me, or do you just want to be friends? I never know what to do with you.”
“What do you want with me, Evan?” My heart was once again beating through my chest.
I’d done my best not to hope for anything more with him. I’d seen the side of him that I thought could still exist. While I may have wanted more, may have wanted him to look at me in a different light, I wasn’t going to push the little bit of luck that I’d had so far.
One date, a week’s worth of working on a project for school and getting to know him, had only left me with the hope that we were friends. I’d already ruined his reputation, and the majority of his friends weren’t talking to him; I wasn’t hoping for a miracle.
“I want . . . more,” he finally admitted.
My heart fluttered.
“You do?”
“I thought you got that.”
“You’ve understandably been all over the place this week, Evan. I didn’t know what to think about anything.”
“Sorry.” He shifted uneasily on the floor. “I just . . . this is hard.” He chuckled and looked down at the coffee table. “I’m not used to this.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and set the book on the table before standing. I stretched briefly before walking over to him and sitting down next to him. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.” He sighed. “I wish you’d stop.”
“It’s because of me that you’re in this predicament.”
“If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be like this, either. I’d take this over them any day.”
I barely contained the grin that wanted to crack my face, and he laughed, grabbing my hand. He pulled it into his lap, twisting our fingers together and looking down at them. He trailed his hand over the back of mine, slowly dragging his fingers down over my wrist and gently over the area where my bruises were almost non-existent at this point.
“I can’t apologize enough for this,” he whispered.
“Hey, come on,” I said, trying to pull my hand away from him. “It’s over and done with; you’ve been forgiven.”
“I still did it, Anna. To you. For no other reason than because I was having a bad day and you were . . . nothing to me at that point.”
I involuntarily flinched, and he looked over at me quickly. His right eye was still bruised, and while the bandage from his chin was gone, there was still a mark that stood out against his skin.
“You know everything’s different now, don’t you?” he asked, his voice almost frantic as he tightened his grip on my hand. “You’re so much more than that now. You know that, right?”
“Okay, my hand?” I tried to pull away from him. “Not made of steel.”
He let go of my hand, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the coffee table.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked, pulling my hand back into my lap and looking down as I fidgeted.
“Mm-hm.”
“Am I worth all of this to you? Losing your friends, ruining your reputation?”
“Do you really have to ask me that?” he asked.
“I just want to make sure, Evan. You still have time to make it right with everyone. You can go back to school tomorrow, and everything can go back to the way it used to be.”
“No, it can’t.” He sat back and turned to face me, his hands resting on my thigh.
I
