When We Met

“When did that happen?” she asked, her face full of surprise as she pointed at the door.

I shrugged. “It’s kind of been happening since the middle of November, but Thanksgiving break is when it all changed, I guess.”

“Where have I been?”

I shot her a look. “Uh. Work?”

She glared at me for a few seconds before moving her hand so she was pointing in the direction of the guys’ house. “Don’t get me wrong, because he’s—damn—but don’t you find him . . . weird? He doesn’t ever talk to anyone.”

“He doesn’t talk to anyone else,” I said as I began walking toward the stairs, a sly grin now replacing the giddy smile. “I can’t get that boy to shut up. Have fun at work!” I called over my shoulder as I ran up the steps.

After taking a hot shower and bundling back up in multiple layers of sweats and jackets, I hopped on my bed and tried to study. Tried being the keyword there. If it weren’t for the fact that it was snowing outside, and our heater could only do so much with the drafts that came in through our house, I would have stripped back down and taken a cold shower because of the way my imagination was getting me so worked up.

I was lying back on my bed, books, study cards, and laptop forgotten as I thought about Kier’s muscled body. I wished I’d gotten more time to run my hands over the planes of his chest and the lean muscles in his arms before he put his shirt back on last week. Two days, Indy. Two. Days.

“Hey.”

I jolted at the sound of his deep voice, and looked over to find him in my doorway, a sad smirk playing on his lips.

“Looks like you’re getting a lot of studying in.”

Sitting upright, I glanced at everything scattered around my bed and tried to figure out an excuse before shrugging. “Yeah, not really. Are you okay? You can’t already be going to sleep, and you left just a couple hours ago.”

Kier shut the door behind him and walked over toward my bed, dragging the chair from my desk behind him and sitting down in it.

“I could’ve cleared off—”

“I need to talk to you.”

My body stilled and I straightened my spine when I saw the haunted look in his eyes, and realized that he wasn’t even sitting close enough to the bed for me to lean over and touch him. “Okay . . . ,” I said warily, drawing out the word. “Should I—should I be worried?”

His eyes had fallen into his lap, but at my question, they snapped back up to me. Hunching over, he clasped his hands, letting them hang between his knees as he shrugged and slowly shook his head back and forth. “Honestly, Indy, I’m the one who’s worried right now . . . because I don’t know how you’re going to react to this.”

That didn’t help relieve any type of worry at all. I scooted back so I was pressed against my wall, facing him, but didn’t say anything else as I stared at him—waiting for him to begin whatever it was he needed to talk to me about.

“I haven’t been fair to you, Indy. The last year and a half I couldn’t help noticing you. You’re beautiful, you have this smile that makes other people around you smile, and you always seemed happy. But even then I somehow knew it was an act, knew there was something you were trying to hide that was controlling your life. I wanted to save you even back then, but you were with Dean, and our paths just weren’t meant to cross then. Then this school year began, and this whole semester all I wanted to do was take care of you, help you, save you . . . be with you. Even before you finally started noticing me during times where you weren’t drunk, I was already falling for you so hard.”

There was a “but” coming; I knew there was. Because none of this sounded like a bad thing yet, and all of it I already knew. And by the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes, this was about to be bad.

“And then I kept putting everything on you, letting you make the decisions, waiting until you were ready, because—well, like I’ve said, I knew there was something you were hiding behind and needed to get out before I’d push you into any form of a relationship with me. But the thing is . . .”

There was that “but,” and now he wasn’t talking, and I had this feeling creeping through my body like ice and fire were flooding my veins at the same time. Kier swallowed roughly and sighed before looking back up at me.

“The thing is, I’ve been kind of hiding behind my own shit. Keeping things from you, things that have made me into the guy you know, and into the guy who wanted nothing more than to save you. And I knew I had to tell you, but after you told me everything about your life—I felt like I couldn’t. I was afraid if I did you wouldn’t be able to see me the same way.”

My eyebrows slammed down and my mouth popped open with a huff. “And you thought I didn’t feel the same? You thought I wasn’t terrified that you wouldn’t be like, ‘Yep, she’s not worth it,’ and just leave?”

His lips tilted up in the faintest of smiles, but he looked anything but happy. “No, I knew that was exactly how you felt. But I knew that nothing you could say would change my mind.”

“And nothing you—”

“Indy”—he cut me off—“you can say that, but you’ve barely known my name for a month. I’ve been waiting for you for a year and a half, knowing that whole time that you were going to have something in your past. It’s different. And as much as I want Thursday afternoon to be here, I’ve been dreading it,” he groaned. “Because I knew I couldn’t take you with you not knowing about me.”

When he didn’t continue for a while, I scoffed. “Well, what is it? Unless you somehow caused my brother’s death, I can’t imagine anything that would make me not want to be with you anymore. And seeing how they slid off the road, I’m positive you didn’t.”

“I didn’t kill your brother, Indy.”

“Then just tell me, Kier!”

“I killed someone else!” he shouted, and then grabbed at his hair, turning to look at the bedroom door before dropping his elbows to his knees—his hands still firmly gripping his thick black hair.

I was frozen. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink. That—that couldn’t be right. I must have misheard him. Because the Kier I’d come to know wasn’t a—I couldn’t even think it. Not because it was too terrifying a thought, but because it didn’t fit what I knew of him at all.

“What?” I finally choked out. “You—no.”

When Kier looked back up at me, his eyes were glassy and tortured. “I didn’t pull the trigger, but I made him do it.”

The fistlike vise that had been tightening on my chest slowly started letting up, and I blew out a deep breath. “What do you mean?”

“A guy from my school committed suicide because of me.”

My heart sank. “Kier, no. No, I don’t know what happened, but you can’t think that—”

“Indy, it was in his note. I was the reason he did it. Cops questioned me, they showed me the note, his parents—fuck, his dad put me in the hospital when I walked out of the police station that day.”

“But it was his decision—”

“Stop.” He raked his hands down his face and leaned forward, only to sit back in the chair again. “You know how you always told me that I was quiet? That I don’t talk?” When I nodded, he asked, “Did you think it was because I was shy, or . . .”

I shrugged. “No, you didn’t seem shy, just like you didn’t want to talk. Like what everyone was doing was bothering you in a way.”

He huffed and shook his head. “I was popular in high school. I was the quarterback of our football team. I was dating the hottest girl in school. My parents gave me anything I wanted and were never home anyway—so my house was always the party house. I don’t think anyone ever liked me. They liked what I was . . . if that makes sense. Rich, cocky, varsity QB . . . the whole bit. Everything back then was a label—it was dumb. But I was such a dick back then I wouldn’t even have liked me.”