Love Lines

2: Death Comes To Call

Chapter Two

“Tally.” I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes. Yes, he may know what happened but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t blame me in some part. “Hey, look at me.”

He touched my chin to try and move my face but I winced as the nerve endings alone my skin lit up. On instinct, I flinched back and he quickly withdrew his hand.

“I’m…sorry,” I whispered, trying to ignore the pain it caused from speaking but it still brought tears to my eyes.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Yes I did. I’d somehow made a split second decision that I changed my mind about in the second after. If this wasn’t my fault then I didn’t know whose it was. I had plenty to be sorry for, even if he couldn’t see it. So in response, I nodded vigorously, glancing up at him. Hopefully he got the message and I was pretty sure he did since he was having a hard time trying to figure out what to do next.

“Kells didn’t say much just that you didn’t do this willingly. You don’t have to be sorry for a choice you were forced to make.”

That was just it. I wasn’t forced to do anything and it was wrong of me to let him think that. So I quickly walked over to an empty table and opened my clutch to find a pen. I knew I stashed one in there just in case I needed it. If I couldn’t talk to him, maybe I could write something down. He did that, at the Senior Cocktail party, and I always said if he could then I could. He’d written a short note, but a note none the less. I could reciprocate.

If he’d felt the same thing that I was now, I figured that was probably the only thing I could manage. I grabbed a napkin off the table and thought, what was the best way to tell him what happened in seven words or less?

When it popped into my head, I quickly wrote it down. I was right, though. My finger joints started to ache and my handwriting was worse than I’d ever seen it so I tried to write as clearly as possible as long as possible. Cecil was still standing next to me patiently, knowing full well what I was doing and what I was going through to do it.

But a feeling started to grow, a feeling I knew I couldn’t ignore for much longer. I held the napkin in my hand, staring down at it for a few more seconds before holding it out to him. He looked from me to the napkin, snatching it out of my hand and reading the few words I’d managed to write down before the pain became too much.

I stared at his face, waiting for his reaction and I wasn’t disappointed. He looked back up at me, some hurt back in his eyes.

“I don’t understand. That softball…” He cocked his head to the side, the hurt getting more prominent in his eyes. “Are you telling me you actually willingly…?” I shook my head vigorously. “Then what, Tally? Because…” That swirl popped back into his eye as he went over the event in his head, reliving it just like I lived the future. I was starting to think the place didn’t always matter, it was the thing behind it.

I took that second, knowing full well when he came out of it I would be gone and he wouldn’t hear anything I said in the meantime. And I had to say it, what I so long wanted to say.

No matter the pain.

“I love you,” I whispered and then ran away.

~ * ~

I woke up with crusty eyes. It’s safe to say that, yes, I’d cried myself to sleep that night. And as I played out what happened after I left Cecil standing there going over the past, I almost started crying again.

After being cleaned up by Allie, Schylar came to find me and by that time, I’d fixed my makeup and looked like nothing more had happened than a brief panic attack about the guy on the dance floor. He literally told me I was dancing with him whether I wanted to or not. I knew he wanted answers but he would remain silent until I was ready to talk. So he distracted me from what happened, not giving me a second to think as the night whirled by in a blur of strobe lights, loud music, non-alcoholic drinks, and fake laughter.