Chapter Thirty-Two
Eli
Yeah. I just said that. Out loud. It felt good.
“I love you,” I say it again like I’m trying the words on for size, and they fit. I need to be closer to her. I’m trying, but these goddamn crutches are not cooperating. I want to chuck them across the beach and walk over to her like a regular guy with two good knees. That’s not in the cards, though, so I just stand there looking like an idiot.
She laughs—it isn’t a good laugh. Great. I finally have the guts to say it, and she doesn’t believe me. I force the damn crutches to go and stab my way through the sand toward her. Get ready, Costas. Prepare for total rejection.
“Go ahead, Ari,” she says to my brother, who is still holding the pie. “You can have the whole thing.”
Her hands make fists and she plants them on her hips. Badass Nora Reid. Can’t tell her what to do or think.
She’s done talking, and my heart’s gonna fail it’s pumping so hard right now. I’m probably gonna break my knee for good trying to cross this beach. It takes forever, but finally, I get to her.
“You are a liar,” she says.
“I’m not lying.” It’s weird. I’m in sand, on crutches, in front of a girl in another dude’s hoodie. This doesn’t look good for me at all, I know that. So why have I never felt more confident in my life that I’m at the right place, at the right time? This is chance, and I’m lined up for the shot.
I take a deep breath. “I love you.”
She’s worried—biting the lip and scrunching her nose. “Fuck you,” she says.
Wow. I smile. “Nora. You hate that word.”
She crosses her arms. “So? Sometimes it’s the only word that works.”
Her hair blows in the breeze. Her wild hair. The brown eyes. Damn. They’re shining in the light of this giant-ass moon.
“You hurt me, Eli.”
I move closer, and she doesn’t back away. A good sign? “Yeah. I know. I was scared.” I have to tell her the truth—my only chance to make the goal is to give it 100 percent.
She gives me that I don’t believe you scowl. “Scared of what?”
I take a minute. I need to make sure the words are right. “The usual, I guess,” I finally say. “What if we suck? What if I lose you? All that bullshit.”
Her chin drops to her chest. “You made me fall in love with you.” Her voice breaks.
I move closer, forcing the crutches to do what I want. I’ll crawl to her if I have to. This is a story she needs to hear.
“Yeah, I admit, I tried,” I say. “But to be honest, you made me fall in love with you first.”
Her eyes lift, they’re doing the twinkling thing. God, she’s beautiful. “How do you know that?”
I feel the entire student body of EHS watching us. Hail Mary, baby.
“That first day, on Gigi’s porch,” I say. “Your hair that day looked exactly like it does now. Wild. Your teeth, all purple. Your giant eyes. You know your eyes are giant? Those things totally sucked me in. From that very first day—I loved you.”
Her gaze flutters to the sand, then jerks back up. “That’s not true.”
She still isn’t buying it, so I keep moving closer; I can’t stop now. She’s so stubborn, and sometimes to convince Nora Reid of something, you gotta get in her face.
“I wasn’t planning to ever tell you that,” I say. “Especially after that kiss. You wouldn’t have listened.” I drop one crutch, lean my weight on my good leg, hop the last little bit, and close the distance between us.
I use my free hand to reach out to her, now I’m close enough to smell her hair. I can’t describe that smell. It just smells like Nora, and it slays me. I move my arm around her waist, aware that she could take me down at any second.
She doesn’t. I reach her back, pull her close.
She just stands there, looking confused. I wonder if she’s about to topple me. I don’t care if she does.
“It wasn’t real,” she whispers. “The beach, the drives, the garage. You didn’t mean any of it.” Then she lifts her hand and touches the collar of my T-shirt. Her fingers brush my neck. I’m gonna die now.
Everything about her is attacking my senses, her smell, the sight of her, the sound of her breathing, the feel of her in my arms. “No,” I say. “I meant all of it. I thought you were trying to get your license so that you could go to Emory and start testing your hypothesis there. I thought you might find someone else. Someone who wasn’t me.”
She presses her lips together. I notice because I’m watching them now. “I wanted to drive because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I thought maybe you were affecting my results. That’s all it was. Because I hate driving. I really hate it.”
I laugh low. “I would have driven you around, for free, for the rest of time. That’s how much I love you.”
She studies me for what feels like an hour. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, the strange whoosh of blood rushing through my body. This is the moment. The ball is in the air. It might not be enough. It might crash to the earth. Game over. Please, Nora, catch the ball. Then she pulls away, and just when I think it’s all over—my heart, my life, the world—Nora reaches into the front pocket of her jeans and yanks out her keys. “Okay.” She winds up and tosses them out into the Gulf. There’s a distant splash, and she faces me again.
“I’m all yours,” she says.
My heart has stopped beating so I’m probably almost dead. The blood in my ears quiets.
What did she say?
“Yours?” I ask, in barely a whisper.
She nods once, puts her hands on my shoulders. “Yours.”
I pull her close, then closer, and she lets me. Now… Now I’m as close as I want to be. Almost.
Our noses touch. “Scientifically speaking, this will never work, you know,” she says.
Her lips, almost touching mine I swear are giving off an electric charge. I feel the buzz. “I don’t give a damn about science. I just want to kiss you.”
“Again?”
“Yeah. You up for it, Einstein?”
The corners of her mouth turn up and she scrunches her nose. “I don’t know. When did you last have a Coke?”
“Funny,” I say, and as I lean in toward her, her eyelids flutter shut. She’s ready for the kiss. I smile and pull up short. “You know… There’s a chance I’ve improved a little since eighth grade.”
She laughs. I love that laugh.
“Yeah, but I’ve had more field experience.”
Now I laugh. You have to, staring into those big brown eyes, knowing you’re about to get everything you’ve ever wanted. Get caught up in those eyes and you’re a dead man. I let go, and they pull me under. I’m a goner.