Awake (Book 3)

Twelve

“Ellie, just say it. You’ve got that wrinkle in your forehead.”

            “What?”

            “That wrinkle. Right here,” he said, pressing his thumb right between my brows. “It means you want to say something but you’re not sure if you should. So just spit it out.”

            I frowned up at him. He was seated on the couch, and I was sprawled out across it, my head in his lap. We were watching The Karate Kid. It was a couple nights since our blow-out confrontation, and though Blake and Jessica and the others were still tip-toeing around us when together, August and I were taking things slow. I did and said some unforgiveable things, and we’d both gone through the worst six months of our lives. But just like this, just like we were, watching August’s favorite movie, it seemed as if everything might be okay.

            “I still don’t understand it,” I muttered. August groaned, absentmindedly running his fingers through my hair.

            “You don’t have to understand it,” he said. “Just watch it. Live it. Be it.”

            “Be it?”

            “Shh. It’s almost over.”

            So I remained silent until the film finished and the credits rolled. And when the screen fizzled to black, August switched off the television and turned my head to see my face. “Better?” he asked. “Now that you’ve seen it a second time?”

            I shrugged, immeasurably happy to see the crooked smile on his face and know I could take part in it. “I still like Back to the Future better.”

            “Psh. Forget you.”

            “What? I’m sorry. It’s just fact.”

            “Oh, sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

            I shot him a dirty look, at which he laughed and bent over to kiss me, lips moving over mine in a languid, gentle caress. I drank him up, because I had missed him so much, and even though some damaged part inside of me was adamant on the wrongness of it all, I didn’t listen. I would see how this went, because not having August in my life anymore in every way I wanted him to be was nearly enough to kill me.

            “Everybody is mad at me,” I murmured, holding his gaze.

            He flashed me a cheeky smile. “I’m not mad at you.”

            “You don’t count.”

            “No?”

            I shook my head. “Because whatever is in my soul is the same in yours, and so I know you understand me in a way nobody else could.”

            “Wow,” he said, pulling me up so I sat sideways in his lap. “And here I thought you didn’t know how to be romantic.”

            “I was just stating a fact.”

            “I know.” August kissed my temple and drew my head down against his chest, his heartbeat pounding right by my ear. “I know.”

            After a moment of self-indulgence, stealing all his warmth and comfort, I said, “August.”

            “Mm.”

            “How do I make them unmad at me?”

            He didn’t answer right away, which could have been for a number of reasons, and I didn’t press him on the matter because I liked feeling his fingers comb through my hair. So I waited, and such a lengthy amount of time passed that I almost forgot what I asked.