These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

With that he leaves the kitchen and marches over to his bathroom to take a shower.

While I stand there jarred.

I stand there hearing his words over and over again. The determination in them. The absolute refusal to even consider a wonderful opportunity in his life.

And I realize that maybe he’ll never get it.

Maybe I’ll never be able to convince him.

Maybe there aren’t enough weekends in this world, in our world, to make him understand.

And there aren’t, are there?

Because I won’t be here next weekend.

I stare at myself in the mirror.

I’m wearing a rose pink ball gown type of dress with a slit on one side. It’s strapless and fits me like a glove. Especially over the chest area.

Which my mom particularly likes.

“Turn around,” she says and I do. She runs her eyes up and down my body and I have to smooth my hands over my thighs to hide their tremble. “Okay, I think this should work. We’ve finally found a color that doesn’t make you look like a corpse.” She squints her eyes. “Or maybe the lighting is good. In which case, I’m glad that we had to move the party to our house instead.”

It’s my dad’s birthday party and we usually have it at the country club, where my dad invites the whole town and everyone he knows. Everyone he’s ever known, actually. But a pipe burst at the last minute and my mom had to change the venue. She was extremely stressed about it all day yesterday but at least now she looks happy.

Which almost makes this whole dress worth it.

Because honestly, I don’t like it.

I don’t like how revealing it is.

How in order to wear it, I had to carefully and diligently scrub the exposed spots where I had written his name. I actually don’t like the fact that I have to expose my skin at all. Where people can see. Where they can run their eyes over my undecorated skin and I have no control over that.

And it’s not as if I haven’t worn such dresses before.

I have.

But now I only want to show him. Now I only like his eyes on my body, my thorn’s.

And I miss him.

I miss him so terribly.

The man who thinks I’m rosy skinned while the rest of the world thinks I’m ghostly.

I already knew that I wasn’t going to be able to spend this weekend with him — it’s my dad’s birthday and also because we’d already spent the previous weekend together — and so during the week, everything felt dismal.

Everything felt out of sync and upside down.

Something that happens every time I know I won’t be able to spend three glorious days with him. Or rather two and a half days.

Because it’s not as if we can be together at school.

The only time that we do get together is when he runs his morning laps. That’s when I get to see him unabashedly, sitting under the tree, wearing his hoodie — remember the hoodie he gave me that one time? Yeah, I’ve been wearing that a lot, trying to feel his arms around me. And he loves to see me in it because I know he stares at me back.

But the rest of the time we keep our distance.

I already pushed my luck back when I’d go to his office and read him those letters. I’m not going to do that anymore.

And since last weekend we had our sort of first fight — over the reps from New York City FC — and I realized how far away I am from my goal, I hated this week even more.

Not to mention, I found out something yesterday evening that I can’t wait to share with him.

So yeah.

I’m not in a party mood, but it’s my dad’s birthday and I’m going to try to be a good daughter.

To make up for the fact that I’m really not.

In my pink dress and strappy silver heels, I climb down the stairs of my house to go to the backyard where all the guests are gathered. Standing at the French doors that lead to the massively decorated area, I survey the crowded scene, trying to decide which way to go.

I should actually find my mom and see if she needs something done. This whole venue thing has thrown her for a loop, and…

All my thoughts vanish when during my survey I find something.

Someone.

Tall and broad and sporting long-ish hair.

He’s also sporting a suit.

Not the one he wore that night. This one’s different. This one’s probably new. And even though I’m super attached to his old suit because that was the first outfit I saw him in, I like this one too.

But that’s not the most noteworthy thing here.

The most noteworthy thing — apart from the fact that he is somehow here — is that he isn’t standing in a dark corner, away from everyone, staring at something with a heavy stillness.