Heartfall, p.10
Heartfall, page 10
She covers her mouth. “Of course. What am I thinking? Nerves. I’ll let Sebastian in.” She has her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, but a few pieces have fallen out, and she brushes them behind her ears as she unlocks and opens the door. She moves to the side and extends her arm, offering him entry. “Don’t you look handsome?”
These stupid bags. There’s nowhere to put them, and I feel stupid and very unbeautiful carrying them. Sebastian, however, is the most gorgeous person on the planet. I’ve never seen him in a tux before, but it fits him perfectly. He shakes his head, almost like he’s lost or confused. Then, he does his finger in a twirling motion. Does he not like my dress? Is he wondering how I’m going to get in his Jeep too?
Giving the stupid bags Mom handed me back to her, I slowly and carefully twirl in the dress, especially since it’s competing with the entryway for width.
Sebastian inhales sharply. “I don’t have a single word for it. For you.” He closes the distance, handing my corsage to my mom, his eyes never leaving mine, then giving me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He whispers, “Beautiful. So. Pretty. Perfect.”
My eyes close briefly until I hear Mom clear her throat. How easy it is to forget about everyone and everything existing when Sebastian Reyes touches me or speaks to me, and especially when he looks like this. “I’m glad you like it.”
We make our way into the living room where he places my corsage on my wrist, and I pin his boutonniere on the lapel of his jacket. Mom is sure to take lots of pictures, and then Sebastian helps me get my bags and my dress into his Jeep. Amazingly, we all fit. Barely.
Instead of having reservations at any of the obvious eateries for dinner, Sebastian starts driving toward his house. “Are we going to your place for dinner?”
“Nope.”
“Um…” Being that his house is literally oceanfront property, it’s not like it’s in a neighborhood, but it’s also not like it’s in the middle of town. Restaurants don’t abound. “You do know typically you’re supposed to take the girl out to dinner first, right?”
He glances at me with a half-smile. His green eyes dance with amusement, but before I can get lost in them too long, they’re gone. “I do know that.”
I nod once, slowly rubbing my lipstick together. “Okay.”
A few minutes later, as the sun begins to set, he parks the car. I’m not sure where we are, but I have an idea. I’ve never been here during the day, but based on the buildings and the landscape, I’ve been here at night. “What are you up to?”
“You’ll see.”
He makes his way to my side of the car and opens the door for me. My dress unfolds around me. “If you’re taking me to our spot, my dress is going to get so dirty.”
“Just trust me.” He extends his hand, a tiny smile pulling the corners of his lips. He glances down at my feet. “I just noticed those. They look like pointe shoes.”
“Yeah. Jessica Simpson may not know what tuna fish is, but she makes pretty cool shoes.”
He chuckles. “I’m sure someone helped her out with those, don’t ya think?”
“Probably.” I place my hand in his and he helps me down. Looping my arm in his, I grasp my dress as we walk toward the overgrown shrubs. The darker it gets, the more I start to notice the ambient glow coming from the other side and my heart starts to thump from the bass of music. “Sebastian, what have you done?”
When I glance up at him, he’s grinning. “Quit worrying.” He smoothes the lines of my forehead. “Dolin and I got permission.”
I furrow my brows. “I hardly believe that.”
“Seriously. We got busted trespassing and agreed to clean the place up if they wouldn’t press charges.” He turns and starts to walk backward like he did that night on the beach. “On the condition they allowed us to use it to host a dinner for our homecoming once we were done.”
Unbelievable. Not really, but still. “I told you this place was a bad idea. And I’m sorry you got caught, but man am I glad I wasn’t with you. My mom would be so mad at me.” I know my curfew is earlier than the rest of the group’s on Friday nights and they come here after they drop me off. I’m not sure when else he and Ben hang out by themselves to have gotten caught, but I’m really glad I wasn’t with them, and I trust him, so it doesn’t really matter.
He smiles. “It was worth it for tonight.” He turns around and pushes the gate open. The place looks nothing like what I remember from the last time I was here. The old overgrown shrubs have all been trimmed. The lawn has been cut. Never in my wildest dreams would I have been able to imagine this place was once a garden of some sort. Flowers have been planted. There are lights lining brick paths. In the middle, there’s a little goldfish pond. But more than all of that, white lights have been strung all around the perimeter and over all the trees. The Civil Wars is playing in the background. Ben, Sierra, Felicia, and Erik are sitting at two tables, and there is another table waiting on us. I’m not sure how I feel about sharing The Civil Wars with them, but I absolutely love this place and I’ve grown to love these people.
Even though Tiffany and I were friends for twelve years, she was my only friend. Never have I known what it was like to have a group of friends like this. And I’ve learned over the last several months they aren’t just his friends. At least I don’t think.
I gaze in sea green eyes. “You did all this?”
“It was me and Dolin. Do you like it?”
I wrap my arms around his neck. “Are you kidding? But is tonight the last night we get to spend here?”
He stares down at the ground. “C’mon.” He takes my hand in his. Let’s eat.” This is it. And he doesn’t have the heart to tell me. I don’t want to hear him say it, either, for our last memory to be tainted by those words. In a way, I wish the question hadn’t even come out of my mouth. Right now, all I want to do is eat, laugh, and love. Stopping in my tracks, I pull his arm with my other hand. He turns around, glancing over his shoulder. “You okay?”
I lean up on my toes and kiss him under the twinkling of the lights and the stars, the roaring of the sea in the background, the breeze blowing my hair in our faces. I let all the memories wash over me like the tides rolling in, pressing my lips against his, and preserving it like a rose dried for all of eternity.
That’s how I feel about our love.
And this moment.
And this kiss.
“How come I didn’t know you got in trouble?” We’re back in the Jeep. Dinner was great. Miss Celeste made lasagna in a Crock-Pot so it would stay warm. There was salad, breadsticks, and lemonade. It wasn’t fancy, but it was homemade and romantic because it was all made with love. But in the back of my mind the entire time was that one question, and I couldn’t ask it until both of our doors closed and we were alone.
“Because you didn’t need to,” Sebastian says, staring straight ahead as he starts the Jeep.
“Do your parents know?”
“Of course. Do you think I convinced that Mr. Denaly dude to not press charges by myself?”
I shrug. “How am I supposed to know what you did or didn’t do? You didn’t tell me you even got in trouble, remember?”
“Because you didn’t need to know, Claire. And besides”—he shrugs, like it’s no big deal—“if I told you, I couldn’t have surprised you tonight.”
He’s right about that part, but for some reason him not telling me about something so major feels like a betrayal of trust. Maybe that’s not the right description. “You didn’t have to tell me about the condition you worked out with him, but you could have still told me you got in trouble.”
He grumbles. “I was ashamed, okay? Embarrassed. Still am. The only part of it I’m proud of is tonight. Can we drop it?”
The more he says the more irritated I get. Tonight was supposed to be the best night, the first school dance I’ve ever looked forward to, and I’m realizing what is bothering me so much about this more than anything. “It was a secret, Sebastian. You didn’t trust me with your secret. And not the romantic one, but the one that embarrassed you.” There’s nothing left to say, and even though I don’t want to be upset with him, I can’t help but be hurt.
The first time he took me to the very place that caused him to get in trouble—the place that caused him to keep a secret from me—was the night he made me tell him my secret. He made me promise not to shut him out, to promise we’d always be able to dance together because we’d always trust each other. It didn’t matter that my secret was embarrassing because it was about my period. About blood coming out of my most intimate part of my body, or in my case, not.
But now it’s okay because he’s embarrassed he got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. Big freaking whoop. Now we’re in this situation where I’m wondering what other secrets he has. Romantic or otherwise. I don’t like it.
Stupid dances.
Stupid boys.
Stupid high school.
Crossing my arms across my chest, I stare at the same stupid, beautiful flower on my seven-hundred-dollar dress and already regret my mom having spent so much money on it.
Sebastian reaches across the seat and tries to grab my hand, but I pull away. “Hey, hey. What’s that all about?” I eventually let him hold it. He smirks. I’m not in the mood for the hey jokes. Scooting toward the door, I stare out the window. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was wrong to expect you to tell me about your doctor’s appointment and me not tell you I got in trouble.” Stupid makeup. Stupid tears. Stupid emotions. And that stupid beautiful flower on this stupid expensive dress. Sebastian releases my hand. Great. He’s probably had enough of me like the time when we were at the beach and he decided to withdraw from the conversation and plunge backward in the ocean. Except it’s not like he can escape so easily here, so I guess the easiest way to send the message is to cut contact with me. He places an old white handkerchief embroidered with the letter R on my lap. “It was my grandfather’s.”
“Thanks.” The tightness in my chest isn’t from the squeezing caused by the bodice of this taffeta. It’s from the erratic contractions of my heart not understanding what it’s supposed to do. Because despite the lump forming in my throat, tears welling in my eyes, and the heaviness to breathe, the love still consumes me more than all of that.
“Please don’t cry, Claire. Please don’t cry because of me.” I swallow, dabbing my eyes with the pads of my fingers before pulling the visor down to make sure I don’t have black streaks going down my face. “You’re that mad at me? That you won’t even use it?”
“No.” I hold it in my hand, running my fingers across the silky cream threads of the R. “I don’t want to stain it with my mascara. I love that you have your grandfather’s old hanky, and I love even more that you offered it to me to potentially wipe my snot.”
He chuckles. “I gave it to you to wipe your tears, not your snot.”
“Oh.” I bring it to my nose. “So, if I were to blow right now, that’d be uncool?”
He cringes. “Totally unattractive.”
“You know what’s totally unattractive?”
He smiles. “What?”
“Secrets.”
“Noted.”
I nod. “You know what’s really attractive?”
He nods. “Yep.”
“You do?”
“Of course, I do. That one’s a piece of cake. It’s you, silly. The most attractive person, place, or thing on the planet. All of the above. You’re all I see.” He glances over with a grin so sexy it should be a sin. “It’s like I have blinders on.”
I don’t know about the blinders, but he’s clearly blind.
We’ve not even been here ten minutes, and it only took that long for me to realize why ballet is my dance of choice. Fast songs aren’t really my thing. Let’s just say my grooving doesn’t jive. I make my way back to the table while Sebastian tosses his jacket on the back of a chair and starts to roll his sleeves halfway up his forearms.
I guess this is why I never ended up in tap or jazz. Pulling a chair out, I sit down. My dress pools around me, and there’s no way anyone can sit in the seats on either side of me. Sebastian shakes his head. “What?” I ask.
He does his finger in a come-hither motion. “We didn’t come here to sit in uncomfortable chairs.” He smirks while he shakes his hips in perfect rhythm to the loud thumping of the bass.
“But I’m not good at this kind of dancing.” I guess I should have been careful what I wished for because at least when I went with Tiffany all those times there was no one forcing me to act like a fool or make me look like an idiot. Let me rephrase. Make me look like an even bigger idiot than I already am. And after getting here and seeing all the girls with short dresses or long, fitted ones with lots of bling, I definitely feel like the odd ball. The only one in the big ball gown. It’s like everyone’s already looking at me. Especially Audrina.
“Is anybody?” he asked.
“What?” I scream.
He leans down and puts his mouth closer to my ear. “This isn’t a competition. No one is here to judge your skills.” He picks my hand up. “I don’t even care how fast or slow we go, just as long as we’re out there moving. Now.” He stands back and pulls me into his arms. “Let’s. Go.”
I don’t want to be obsessed with her, with Audrina, but it’s hard not to worry about her. She’s everywhere I look. Instead of Sebastian’s smile, it’s hers I see. Instead of his laugh, it’s her mocking one as she stares at me. Everyone’s staring at me. She giggles, making her comments no secret, loud enough for the entire school to hear, never one to hide her insults. They drown out the music, like they’re magnified and mic’ed. “I bet you couldn’t pay Robins to put her in a jazz class. Can you imagine if her shoes had taps? And that dress. You could sleep at least five people under there.”
A finger tugs my chin. “Are you okay? Is it the secret thing still?”
Exhaling, I nod. “Let’s do this.” But as I’ve mustered the courage to tackle Gwen Stefani’s new song Make Me Like You, it ends. Charlie Puth’s One Call Away comes on, and it’s semi-slow, and I’m so relieved even though I really like that song of Gwen’s and think it perfectly describes how I feel about Sebastian.
His lids become hooded, and he’s still kind of dancing to the old beat. I’m not sure how to dance to this one. He starts to sing the lyrics to me and when he gets to the chorus, he does cute little hand motions. Sebastian. Reyes. Is. Freakin’. Serenading. Me. And everyone really is staring at me now. My body starts to sway to the music, a smile breaks on my face, and I can’t help but scoot closer to him.
He loops his arm around my waist and spins me, then does a lift on the last chorus when it breaks down and the music cuts away. He’s showing off. Everyone in the room cheers. When he lowers me, I wrap my arms around Sebastian’s neck, and it’s like it’s just us for a second as the song finishes.
Hypothetically, if this were a competition, and people were judging, I think it’s safe to say we just won.
He gives me a quick kiss. “You were a huge hit.”
“They were clapping for you, Ballet Man.”
My mind is racing. I’m running late because of the doctor appointment. Mom is taking me to class today, not Sebastian. It’s the second time that’s happened since we started dating. It’s the second time I’ve had junk food as my snack instead of Sebastian’s extras he packs. Pulling my leg up in the seat, I tie the ribbons around my ankles of my pointe shoes, then slip on my booties. How am I going to dance? How am I going to tell Sebastian? My mother? Thankfully she hasn’t asked about the appointment. She’s been on the phone trying to do her job remotely the entire time, ignoring me, which I’ve never welcomed so much in my life. When she pulls up to the corner, I lean over and give her a quick kiss on the cheek as I grab my duffle from the back. She moves the phone to the other ear. “Hold on a sec,” she says.
“See ya later.” Reaching for the snack she just got me, I try not to cringe as I pull the door handle. Maybe Sebastian still brought me something healthy, and I won’t have to eat this. Although, I’m so hungry I could probably eat both of them.
“Love you, Claire Bear.”
I smile. “You too, Mama.” After exiting the car, I walk into the studio and Robins stops what he’s doing and glares at me. Like stares daggers at me. “What?” I ask, shrugging.
“I thought you were going to grow your bangs out, Claire,” Robins drills into me.
My fingers immediately reach for my freshly cut bangs. The stylist trimmed them Saturday before I could get the words out to not touch them when she was doing my hair for homecoming. “I—”
“Where do you get off telling these girls who to be and how to act? Who woke up one day and said you get to be God?” Sebastian comes out of nowhere, seething. His fists are in balls at his side.
Robins eyes my afternoon snack, and my stomach rumbles, but my saliva increases in my mouth and warms the way it does before I’m about to throw up. My stomach churns. Sebastian follows Robins’ eyes to my hands, to my food. Since we’ve been dating and carpooling, I eat his snacks, but today’s different. Everything is off. I already want to start over, rewind, go back to bed and try again, but it doesn’t work that way. If only he had a clue. I try to tell him what the doctor told me, to plea with him with my eyes, but I think he misreads my message.
“Yeah, ballerinas are easier to lift if they’re lighter. But you know what? I’d rather do more work on myself to be able to lift a girl than to see her starve herself and think horrible things about her body for the rest of her life. I never wanna be you when I grow up, man.” Sebastian looks away and guffaws. “Look at yourself.” He glances back at Robins and nods at him. “Are you happy? You’re this little old man with no family who belittles girls all day into feeling guilty over having a soda and wearing bangs. Really?”
“Sebastian,” I say.
Tiffany rushes through the door. “Sebastian. Audrina said to give you this. She said to tell you sorry and open it right now.”
