Barely Holding On

Chapter 19

As the next couple of days went by my mom seemed to be doing really well. She was pretty much back to her old self, before all the drinking.

However, it seemed the better she was doing the worse I was doing.

I didn’t let her know that of course, I felt like there was some delicate balance and if I upset her she would immediately go back to drinking. How could I tell her that I felt practically dead inside?

Every morning I would wake up and check to see if Nash’s window was open, and every morning I would be disappointed to see that it wasn’t. 

Of course this morning was no different. After immediately checking out my window I numbly got dressed and headed to school.

I had no desire to do anything. I had no desire to make up with Maci, why should I when she ditched me when I needed her the most? And I had no desire to do anything school related.

I sat in English, next to Nash who was ignoring me, and listened to Mr. Roberts babble about some book. I felt like I was going to suffocate. Maci was in this class, Nash was in it… it was just too much. I grabbed my book bag and ran out of class. I didn’t stop there, I ran out of the building into the pouring rain.

The rain pelted against my skin. I stared walking with no particular destination in mind. I just needed to be out of that hell hole.

“V!” I turned around to see Nash running towards me.

“What?” I asked bitterly, trying to copy to tone he kept using with me.

“Are you ok?” His eyes kept darting around like he was nervous.

“I’m fine,” I lied. He glared at me, seeing right through my lie. “Ok fine I’m not fine, why the fuck are you ignoring me?” I was convinced that if I had an answer I could get over him. I just needed an answer.

“I’m not ignoring you,” he said quietly.

“Not ignoring me?!” I raised my voice so I was yelling, “Then what that hell do you call what you’ve been doing? You won’t talk to me, you won’t look at me, you shut your window which you never used to do, and I just want, NEED, to know why!”

“Why?” he shot back.

“Why do I need to know why?” he was really pissing my off. He nodded telling me to continue. “I asked you first, but whatever. I need to know why because I actually thought we were friends! Sorry if I was wrong!”

“You’re not wrong,” was all he said.

“Please elaborate.”

Nash groaned and rolled his head, “That was the problem!” he yelled over the sound of the pounding rain, “I wanted to be more than friends!”

“What?” I whispered, my heart nearly pounding out of my chest.

“It killed me to see you with Cameron!” he shouted. We were both completely drenched, and I’m pretty sure my top was see through but Nash didn’t seem to notice because he was staring me right in the eyes.

“But you kept ignoring me AFTER I broke up with him!” my voice was shaky, I was scared of his answer but I knew I needed to know.

“I had to get over you! And talking to you and seeing you really wasn’t the way to do it!” The fact that he was talking in the past tense caught my eye, but I ignored it for the moment.

“Why did you have to get over me?!” This just wasn’t making any sense.

“Because I loved you, and how could you ever want a guy like me.” He wasn’t yelling anymore. He still had to talk pretty loud to be heard over the rain though.

“Are you kidding me? You’re all I want! I LOVE YOU. Like in the present tense, like right now. I love you. I want you. But I guess you’ve already moved on so…” I started to back up; I was getting ready to bolt. I had just confessed to Nash that I loved him, even though he clearly didn’t love me anymore.

He roughly grabbed me and pulled me close to him, “V, you think I moved on? You can’t just move on from someone you’ve been in love with since you were 5.” A slight smile spread across his face. Water droplets were dripping off his hair and hitting me in the face, not that it made much of a difference since it was POURING out, but I thought it was cute.

“You’ve been in love with me since you were 5?” I asked skeptically.

He bit his lip and nodded, “Yeah what can I say you were cute in your pigtails.”

He leaned down and gently kissed me. And I definitely wasn’t kissing a wall, there were FIREWORKS.