Hold the Forevers

“Lila, I love you.”

My throat closed in shock. We’d been together almost six months. I was sure that I was in love with him, but I hadn’t wanted to say it since he’d never said it. “I love you too.”

He swiped my hair out of my face. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. I just … I was jaded. So cynical about relationships. You were everything I wanted, and I don’t know … I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. But I don’t want to feel that way anymore. I want us to be together.”

“I want that too.”

“Tell me everything,” he said, pulling me close again. “Tell me everything about you. All the barriers, all the walls, all the cynicism. And I’ll tell you everything too. I’ll do anything to make this work.”

I nodded, letting the words finally out. “It started with my dad. He left when I was a baby. He stayed around for my sisters, but it was like I was one too many kids.”

“Fuck.”

“I never met him. He left my mom the house so that she wouldn’t come after him.” I shrugged. “It’s hard to trust anyone after that. To not take it personal.”

“I understand,” he said, looking off into the distance. “I feel like I’ll always be in my dad’s shadow. How much of my talent is because my dad had talent? How much of it is his connections in football? How many more times do I have to hear that I’m the son of the great Hal Davis before that’s all I am?”

“I never thought about how upsetting that would be. I always envied your relationship with your dad.”

“I love him,” Cole said at once. “He’s a great dad, but I want to be great on my own. Without always following in my dad’s wake.”

“We’re both a little fucked up.”

He laced our fingers together. “I guess we are.”

“Maybe we can try to heal each other … be something besides what our dads made us.”

“I’d like that,” he said softly.

I could feel the fight leaving him. He’d played a four-hour game today. I was sure he was tired, and after our declarations and the shift in our relationship, he was ready to sleep.

And I could have let him.

I could have held back. I could have kept my secrets. But we’d agreed to heal. How could I heal without confessing everything? Giving him it all?

“Before you sleep, there’s more,” I whispered.

He patted my hand. “I’m awake. Tell me.”

So, I did.

I told him everything about me and Ash.

And how we’d burned to ashes.

14

Savannah

May 5, 2007

Prom on my birthday couldn’t have been more perfect. My mom had taken the day off from work, both jobs, to make sure she was here for the big moment. We’d gone shopping earlier in the month to find me the dress. Then Josie had come into town, and with Marley, the lot of us got mani-pedis. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing my hair and makeup.

Now, I stood in my bedroom with Marley and Josie impatiently waiting for Ash to show.

“I can’t believe your dad let you drive down here all by yourself,” I told Josie.

She grinned, leaning back in her midriff-baring shirt and tiny skirt. Clothes Marley and I could never get away with. “Yeah, he said if I wanted to be there for your birthday, then I should be. You only turn eighteen once!”

“Nothing about your mom?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t say that I had to stay with her. And thank God, right? That would suck. I’m crashing with Mars. We’re going to do the whole slumber-party thing.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do try not to corrupt our lovely Marley.”

Marley swatted at me. “You two need to cut it out. It’s not like I’m unaware of what happens in high school—parties and alcohol and boys and stuff.”

Josie shot her a wicked grin. “We’re going to find a party and get in trouble.”

“Your grandparents are never going to let you go.”

“They think we’re with you,” Josie said. “It’ll be fine.”

Marley shrugged. “It’s going to be a disaster.”

I laughed. “I wish I were going with.”

“We wish we could spend this night with you too!” Josie said.

“Your eighteenth birthday!”

“What do you think Ash is going to get you?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

But my eyes drifted to my bookshelf, where four different copies of Little Women rested in a place of prominence. One for every month we’d been dating. And this was month five and my birthday. I was hoping for another book. I wanted to fill a library with them.

The doorbell ringing sent all of us shrieking with excitement. I stuffed my phone into my dainty little purse and exited out of the bedroom after Marley and Josie. My mom was already at the door, pulling it open.