Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott

Author:Elizabeth Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

29

I see Caleb the next day, as I’m standing by Olivia’s locker before first period.

“So you were really quiet last night,” she’s saying and I nod because I was. Olivia came over and talked about Roger and asked about Mom, and then she painted her fingernails with magic markers I bought to do a project I know I signed up for but remember nothing about.

She’s still talking, and I see Caleb and I know he sees me and I like that I know that, that I see him seeing me, and then he is coming over.

I am watching him walk toward me and we have talked, I have told him things I haven’t even told Olivia, but we haven’t really talked at school.

We haven’t talked where everyone can see us.

“Hey,” he says and his hair is in his face again. I tilt my own head back so I can see him a little better and catch his grin, slight and embarrassed, and he pushes his hair back, those cheekbones a little red. “Thanks for...you know.”

I think he means yesterday but he could also mean the cotton candy or both, but I feel people looking at us and I know I have to say something. “Sure.”

His grin grows wider but his eyes get serious, and now I know what he means. He means yesterday. His house, his life. The truths he told.

How I stayed after I heard them.

He moves a little, his hair starting to fall forward, and I reach out and touch one side of it, the curls sliding over my fingers.

We both still and I feel the same jolt I did yesterday, only now it’s stronger.

It’s stronger and it’s confusing but I don’t want to turn away.

He stares at me and I am staring back and he leans in a little, leans in toward me, and I could touch his face, I could slide my hand so it would rest on the line of his jaw, like he touched me before. I could—

“Emma?” Olivia says, and she sounds beyond surprised.

Caleb shakes his head, like he’s surfacing from underwater, and his hair falls over his face as my hand slides away.

“See you later?” he says.

I nod.

“What was that?” Olivia says after he goes.

“Talking.”

“Uh-huh. You touched his hair! What’s going on? Are you and Caleb hanging out now?”

I think of him asking me if I wanted to go yesterday. Of how he shook when I held him. Of how he’d whispered my name.

“Yeah, we are.”

“You sure you want to?” Olivia says, and when I don’t say anything, she sighs. “I know everything with your mom is terrible, but Caleb? He steals cars!”

“There’s more to him that that. He gets everything that’s going on.”

“And I don’t.”

“You do, but not like he does. He gets how it feels. Everything with the baby, it’s—”

“He. You know that the baby is a boy, but you don’t say that. Why?”

I don’t say, because then it’s not just about what Dan did. How he never even asked me, just made his choice.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.