This Girl: A Novel

shelf behind your mother’s patterns. I put them in chronological order according to pattern nu— Never mind,” she says quickly. She shakes her head and stands. “I’ll just show you.”
    Thank you.
    I quickly jump up, maybe a little too eagerly.
    “You put his patterns in chronological order?” Julia asks.
    “I was having a bad day,” Lake says over her shoulder.
    I hold the door for Lake, then close it behind us. She turns around and completely loses her calm demeanor. “What happened? God, I’ve been worried sick all day,” she says.
    “I got a slap on the wrist,” I say as we walk toward my house. “They told me since I was defending another student, they couldn’t really hold it against me.”
    I jog a few steps and open my front door for her, stepping aside to let her in.
    “That’s good. What about your internship?” she asks.
    “Well, it’s a little tricky. The only available ones they had in Ypsilanti were all primary. My major is secondary, so I’ve been placed at a school in Detroit.”
    She looks up at me, her eyes full of concern. “What’s that mean? Are y’all moving?”
    I love the fact that the thought of our moving scares her so bad. I laugh. “No, Lake, we’re not moving. It’s just for eight weeks. I’ll be doing a lot of driving, though. I was actually going to talk to you and your mom about it later. I’m not going to be able to take the boys to school, or pick them up either. I’ll be gone a lot. I know this isn’t a good time to ask for your help—”
    “Stop it. You know we’ll help.” She grabs the tape measure and shuts the box, then walks the kit back to the laundry room. I follow her, but I’m not sure why I feel compelled to. I’m afraid she’s about to head straight back to her house and I still have so much left I need to say to her. I walk into the laundry room behind her and pause in the doorway. She’s staring quietly in front of her, running her fingers across my mother’s patterns. She’s got that distant look in her eyes again. I lean against the doorframe and watch her.
    I still can’t believe I thought she would willingly allow Javi to kiss her, especially after seeing my performance last night. I know her better than that, and she knows she deserves so much better than Javi.
    Hell, she deserves so much better than me.
    She reaches to the wall and flicks off the light, then turns toward me. She comes to a halt when she sees that I’m blocking the doorway. She quietly gasps and looks up at me, her beautiful green eyes full of hope again. She scrolls her eyes over my features, searching my face, waiting for me to either speak or move out of her way. I don’t want to do either. All I want to do is take her in my arms and show her how I feel about her, but I can’t. She stares up at me, slowly dropping her gaze to my mouth. She tugs on her bottom lip with her teeth and nervously darts her eyes to the floor.
    I’ve never wanted to be teeth so bad in my entire life.
    I take a deep breath and prepare to get out what I need to say, despite knowing I shouldn’t say it. I just need her to know why I did what I did last night, and why I acted the way I acted. I fold my arms across my chest and prop my foot against the doorway, looking down at it. Avoiding eye contact with her is probably best right now, considering my lack of resolve at the moment. It’s been a while since we’ve been alone in a situation like this. The way things have been going the past few weeks, I had myself convinced that I was stronger than I am, and that I’ve overcome the weakness I feel when I’m around her.
    I was completely wrong.
    My heart slams against my chest at record speed and I’m consumed by an insatiable desire to grab her by the waist and pull her to me. I hug myself tighter in an attempt to keep my hands to myself. I work my jaw back and forth, hell bent on finding a way to bury my urge to confess to her, but I can’t. The words spill out of me before I can stop them.
    “Last night,” I say, my voice cracking the tension like a sledgehammer. “When I saw Javi kissing you . . . I thought you were kissing him back.”
    I swing my eyes to her, searching for a reaction. Any reaction. I know how she tries to hide what she’s feeling more than any other person I’ve ever met.
    Her eyes widen at the realization that I wasn’t defending her at all last night. I was reacting like a possessive boyfriend, not her knight in shining armor.
    “Oh,”