I'll Be Here

might as well have been in another language. 
    I moved quickly, my shoes slapping against the stones.  I didn’t want to talk to him.  I didn’t want to hear Alex explain to me in slow, painful detail the reasons that he didn’t think of me that way.  I didn’t want to hear him say the words that I knew were coming.  That I was a just a little girl to him.  A family friend.  Like a sister . 
    “ Please,” he pleaded again.
    “I don’t want to talk about it Alex.”
    “Willow, you have to let me explain.”  Alex’s voice was taking on a note of panic.  He was trying to place himself between me and the house.  He walked backwards, his shoes crunching in the gravel and I had to step to the right to avoid squashing his toes. 
    “There’s nothing to explain.  I get it.” 
    Despite myself, this time I looked up.  Alex wobbled as his foot found the path and I worried that he would trip.  I stopped walking.
    “Are you crying?”  He sounded shocked.  His fingers came forward but I pushed them away.  “Willow…”
    My eyes were wet.  Ugh.  I hated those tears.  I hated that I’d been betrayed by my own stupidity.  I hated my cracking voice and the way that my throat was caving in on me and that I felt so, so unbelievably stupid. 
    And his concern for me only made the whole thing worse. 
    Maybe it would have been easier if he’d laughed or said some chickenshit thing to make me angry.  Maybe then I could have gotten pissed and thought “good riddance.”  But he didn’t do either of those things.  He stood there with his forehead creased into three distinct lines looking very Alex-like and I still wanted to reach up and touch him.  I still wanted to kiss him. 
    I took a shaky breath. 
    “Let’s just forget it,” I said finally.  “I was an idiot and you don’t need to explain to me the million and one reasons why this was a terrible idea.  I get—”
    Alex interrupted.  “You’re not an idiot Willow.”  The tone of his voice begged me to look up into those saltwater eyes but I couldn’t bear it.
    I sighed.  “I feel like one.”
    He moved close enough that I could feel his breath.  “You shouldn’t.  If you’d let me explain then you’d understand—”
    But he never completed the thought because Pete appeared on the back porch and announced loudly that they were going home.  He’d had a little too much to drink and he was laughing.  I could hear Brooke behind him on the porch shushing him. 
    “We have to finish this ,” Alex insisted but I was looking elsewhere—anywhere but at him.
    I said nothing as he took the other darkened path and met up with his parents in the driveway.  I thought that he might look back but he didn’t.  He didn’t even remember his coat.
    We found out about mom’s cancer nine days later.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
    For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
    it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.
    ~E.E. Cummings

 
    CHAPTER TEN
     
    “Wait.  Did he tell you why he was in town?”  Macy is twirling a leaf between her fingers.  The sounds of traffic hum in the background.  We are outside at the picnic tables that edge the park.  A gathering of scraggly oak branches form a shade roof over us.  Colleen leans forward expectantly, waiting for me to answer.  She’s sucking on a lollipop and it’s turned her tongue a deep shade of purple. 
    I shrug.  “I would assume he was in town for a long weekend and stayed for his dad’s birthday like he said.” 
    “Interesting.”  Colleen chirps.  I don’t know why Laney told Macy and Colleen about Alex because now the whole group wants to know the story even though I’ve been swearing up and down that the only story is that there is no story. 
    Macy vaguely remembers Alex from our middle school. “Do you think he knows about you and Dustin breaking up?”
    Okay.  This is what I keep coming back to.  I didn’t let myself dwell on Alex most of last week, but once I started thinking about him, I couldn’t stop.  And thinking too much about Alex Faber is not something that is historically good for me. 
    I won’t even go into how erratic my pulse gets, or the way my fingers curl tightly into my palms when I think about him.  God.  It’s so embarrassing. 
    I’ve already asked myself a dozen times if Alex knew that he’d see me at Patty’s office.  I couldn’t tell from his demeanor. 
    Did he know about my breakup with Dustin?