Her wet clothes clung to every taut line of her body and he wondered how her bare feet could be so much sexier than those thin spiky heels.
Behind her, through the glass, he could see lightning shoot across the sky, bathing the city in a strange luminous glow.
It mirrored Paige’s temper and the electric atmosphere in the apartment.
“I’ve spent my whole life being protected. At school during sports the teachers were always asking me how I was feeling, if I was breathless, if I was doing okay—” She paced again, her feet soundless on his wooden floor. “They had meetings about me, and if there was a new teacher, they were briefed. This is Paige—she has a heart condition. You have to watch her. Be careful. Don’t let her overdo it. If there’s a problem, call this number. It was all rules and protocols and watching, always watching, when all I wanted was to be normal. I wanted to do all the things the other kids did. I wanted to get into trouble and mess up, but I couldn’t. My parents were worried about me all the time, and I spent so much time protecting them, pretending I was fine. And then there were the weeks in hospital, when everyone else was getting a prom dress and I was getting a scar on my chest. I didn’t feel like a person. I was a medical condition. And the worst thing was having no control over any of it.”
Jake watched her in silence.
It twisted him up inside to think of her scared. He wanted to smother her in bubble wrap, as her family did.
“Now I’m an adult, and my parents still worry about me.” She eyed him. “I choose to protect them as much as I can because I know that no matter how old I am I’ll always be their little girl. I call and I tell them I’m fine. I hide things that would worry them because they’ve had enough worry for a lifetime and now they deserve to enjoy time together without me being the dampener on their happiness. I don’t need them to protect me. I want to live my life.” The way she was looking at him told him that last statement was aimed at him.
“Paige—”
“You were the one who told me to embrace risk. You don’t get to decide what risks I embrace, Jake. I do. I decide.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not? Because I might get hurt? Being hurt is part of being alive. It isn’t possible to live a full life and not be hurt at some point. You have to live bravely. You taught me that. It was that night you walked into my room pretending to be a doctor, carrying that gift for me. Or maybe you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” He hadn’t forgotten a single thing.
“You made me feel normal. You were the first person who didn’t treat me like I might break at any moment. You made me laugh. You made me feel good. You were all I could think about, which was a refreshing change after a lifetime of thinking only about hospitals, doctors and my stupid heart. You made me feel like a person again.” She made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “You made me see the importance of living life today, not keeping myself safe for tomorrow. I decided I didn’t want to protect myself like china that is brought out once a year on special occasions.”
Jake kept silent and watched while she paced and spilled it all out, her emotions flowing like floodwater.
“I decided right then to live life bravely. I knew I loved you, and I was sure you loved me, too. Why else would you have spent all that time in my hospital room talking, listening, bringing me gifts and making me laugh? After I was discharged I spent a few nights in Matt’s apartment because the hospital wanted me close for a while in case there were problems. You visited me there—do you remember?”
“Yes.” There were a thousand things he could have said, but that was the only word that came.
“My first act of courage, my first leap into my new life, was to tell you how I felt. I told you I loved you and I was so sure of myself I was naked when I did it. I offered myself and you rejected me—” Her voice cracked and he ran his hand over his forehead, torn between going to her and keeping his distance.
“Paige, please—”
“You weren’t cruel—you were kind, but somehow that made it a thousand times worse. If humiliation could kill, I would have died that day. I couldn’t believe I’d got it so wrong. I couldn’t believe I could have made such a mistake and embarrassed both of us. And after that our relationship changed, of course. We lost something. Something special. And I wished so many times that I hadn’t taken that risk because I lost more than my dignity and my dreams, I lost my friend.” Her gaze locked on his and the sheen in her eyes tortured him as much as her words.
“I didn’t—”
“We started arguing, something we’d never done. There were days when it seemed to me that you were trying to drive me crazy, and I didn’t understand it. Maybe it would have been easier if you hadn’t been my brother’s closest friend because then you would have been out of my life, but you were always there, a constant reminder of what happens when you take a risk in love and get it wrong. The only good thing was that at least you didn’t protect me. Or so I thought. You say I’m the bravest person you know, but then you insist on protecting me.” She paused, her breathing shallow. “I want to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest. Back then in the hospital when we spent night after night talking—you did feel something, didn’t you? I’ve spent years thinking it was my stupid teenage brain spinning things, but you did have feelings. I wasn’t wrong.”
“I don’t see the point of—”
“Tell me!”
He’d thought the evening couldn’t get worse but he was watching it get a whole lot worse.
“You should leave now, Paige. You shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“I decide where I go and what I say, and we should have had this conversation a long time ago. We would have if you hadn’t been protecting me. Because that’s what you were doing, wasn’t it?”
“You were a teenager.”
“But I’m not a teenager now. We’ve wasted a lot of time, Jake.” She walked toward him, purpose in her eyes and her fingers on the buttons of her shirt.
Oh holy shit.
“So what is this? Fuck-a-friend day?” He was trying to shock her into backing off but she didn’t miss a stride.