“I felt so peaceful… and safe… because I knew that no matter what happened, from that day on, nothing can ever be that bad… because I had you.”
—17 Again
Wes
Time alone to think?
“Why, though?” I asked, stepping closer. “I mean, we’ve had two years of thinking alone. Don’t you think it might be nice to think about this together?”
She rubbed her forehead with two 1ngers, looking somewhere just past me, like she’d rather do anything than meet my gaze. Her voice was quiet when she said, “I just, I don’t know, I just can’t right now.”
“I don’t want to pressure you,” I said, trying my best to sound calm when I was freaking out. I’d been freaking out since the minute the cop showed up last night and Liz stopped responding to me, because it was impossible to accept that we’d come this close and now we were going backward again. I touched her chin, watching my 1nger settle on the delicate dimple, desperate for her to stay with me and talk. “But I think we should, Lib—I think we need to so we can 1nally move forward. So much time and circumstance has happened, but when we’re together, just the two of us, everything is the same, right? I know you feel it too, so let’s talk through the bullshit so we can 1nally be there, at that.”
“But I don’t know if I want to be at that,” she said, gnawing on her lower lip
and blinking fast.
It felt like somebody cracked me across the chest with a board. I might’ve Ainched as I searched her face for the lie. “You don’t know if you want to?”
Her voice was even quieter when she angled her face so I was no longer touching her and said, “I mean, it’s all just happening really fast. A month ago, I thought you were living on the other side of the country and—”
“And none of that matters, Lib,” I interrupted, taking a deep breath, so
frustrated I wanted to bang my head against a wall. I’d walked away because I thought it was best for her, and then when I 1nally made it back, I’d committed myself to being patient. To going slow, making her my friend 1rst, taking whatever I could get until she eventually came back to me.
But patient wasn’t working. At all.
I cleared my throat and tried again. “We can reexamine everything that’s happened, and we can debate whether or not we really know each other anymore and if we can get past the past, but if we’re being honest, when you and I are alone in the same room, we are the same together. I am the same, for you and with you, as I always have been.”
She was looking up at me, listening with her eyebrows scrunched together like I’d completely lost it.
“You’re looking at me like I’m nuts, honey, and you’re right. I am. I am out of my mind when it comes to you,” I said, shrugging because it was a fact. “When I’m near you, the way I feel steals the breath from my body. It’s like I breathe for you, like I exist to exist alongside of you. I know those feelings are probably too big and too scary and put way too much pressure on you, and I’m sorry for that. Truly. But it’s the way I feel. The way I’ve always felt.”
I needed to change her face, to 1nd the perfect words to clear away the doubt in her eyes, but all my mind was giving me was I love you, which I knew she didn’t want to hear, and random lovesick lines from songs.
How can I convince her?
I dragged my desperate hands through my hair and barked out a laugh, even though nothing was funny. My voice cracked when I said, “And you’ve screwed me up, Lib, because now I’m thinking in lyrics instead of original thoughts. I’m looking at you and trying to 1nd the words to convince you to be with me, and
do you know what comes into my head? You showed me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else. They aren’t my words, I don’t even know what song or album they’re from, for God’s sake, but it’s exactly how I feel. And you taught me a secret language I can’t speak with anyone else—like, I can’t remember who wrote that, but I feel it down to the marrow in my bones. Being with you has changed the threads of my existence, I swear to God, so now being without you makes everything quieter, dimmer, and duller. So. Much. Smaller. And I fucking hate it.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but I couldn’t bear to have her cut me oP with closure, so I cut her oP 1rst.
“You can take time alone to think, Lib, and you can put space between us and decide I’m not worth the risk,” I said, lowering my forehead to hers for the briefest of seconds before stepping back. “There’s nothing I can do to stop you from that. But just know that no matter what you decide, and no matter what happens, I will feel this way about you for the rest of my life.”
“I got you one even though—” Clark walked into the office with two coPees in his hands, nearly mowing me down. “Oh. Hey, Wes.”
I looked into her eyes, ignoring Clark, my chest burning as I said, “There will never be anyone else for me. Hard stop. So go have your think and do what you need to do. But Lizzie—we are worth the risk. We always will be.”
I’m not sure how I forced myself to step away from her, but I did. I pushed past Clark and left the production office without looking back, mostly because I wasn’t sure I could handle whatever came next.
The rest of the morning was a blur. I went through the motions with the guys, getting breakfast and riding over to Jackie and putting on my uniform, but I felt numb. Like the world was spinning around me but I was frozen in place. Because I was losing her—if I ever came remotely close to having her at all—and it felt like there was nothing I could do to change that fact.
I stood in front of my locker before the scrimmage, trying my hardest to shut down the noise in my brain and focus on baseball.
But on top of everything else, my dad’s voice was back in my head.
If you’re thinking about the redhead on game day, Wesley, you’re gonna screw up. Guaranteed.
Wonderful. That’s very helpful—thank you, Dad.
But I couldn’t stop. Liz was on my mind as we took the 1eld, and she stayed there during warm-ups. My ability to tune out the world was failing because all I could think about was her and us and if we were 1nished before we ever had a chance to get started.
I glanced toward the stands as I played catch with Mick, and almost as if my brain had conjured her up, there she was.
Instead of being on the 1eld or working just outside the dugout, Liz was sitting behind home plate, a few rows back, with a long-lensed camera in her lap.
And she was watching me.
Our eyes met—please, Libby—and I tried reading her face. I searched for any sign that might give me hope. The tilt of her head, the curve of her lips, the squint of her eyes; I sifted through it all but came away with nothing.
And then she lowered her eyes to the camera, as if she didn’t want me to see her at all.
“What the heck, Bennett?”
I looked away from her, only to see Mick with his hand raised like he was waiting to throw me the ball. He shook his head and grinned like I was hilarious. “Maybe pay attention, you lovesick piece of shit.”
“Shut up and throw,” I muttered, embarrassed now on top of everything else.
Wesley, you’re gonna screw up. Guaranteed.
