Take Me On

Chapter 18

West

I’m used to people talking, saying words aloud to prove they know more than me, that they’re better than me. But they’re just words. Syllables strung together between breaths to fill uncomfortable silences.

Meaningless words.

Haley, on the other hand, speaks volumes with a touch. The way her hand clutches mine, it rips out my heart and tosses it onto a platter.

This moment, it’s too raw. It’s too real. And the instinct is to snatch my hand back and slam the door shut on the sharing, but the other part of me—the part that feels as if my remaining sanity is a gift on the verge of being returned—it clings to her.

I knot my fingers with Haley’s and turn my head so I’m focusing out the driver’s-side window—away from her. If I look at Haley, I’m terrified of what I might say, what I might feel. And fuck me, I’ve already said too much.

If she understands this, being without a home, will she understand the rejection? Will she understand the devastation that everything you have ever loved doesn’t love you in return? And because I can’t face those fears, I’m unable to face Haley.

She squeezes once and it’s like her voice caresses my mind: I’m here. I get it.

I squeeze back.

Seconds pass into moments. Moments into minutes. No words. No meaningless conversation. No eye contact. Just our hands combined.

My throat swells. Haley’s the only string holding me together.

“West,” she says as if we’re lighting a candle for a loved one in a church.

“Yeah.” My voice is cracked, gritty. Don’t say it, Haley. Don’t say you have to go.

“I have a curfew I need to meet.” Yet her fingers wrap tighter around mine.

“Okay.” I should release my grip, but it’s hard. I never realized I could lose everything. Now I don’t want to lose anything, especially her. Not even for a short period of time.

Haley loosens her hold and I withdraw my hand, placing it in my lap. I thought I felt alone and isolated when I tried to sleep in the darkness of my car, but the cold exhaustion left behind when Haley removed her hand indicates I had no idea what lonely was.

The door cracks open and cold air rushes into the SUV.

“Tell me if you run out of places to stay,” she says and then the door shuts behind her.

With her pack slung over her shoulder, Haley shoves her hands in her pockets and slowly idles to the front door. I want to stay and see if she looks my way before she goes into the house, but I don’t because what if she doesn’t?