Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
I shake my head, unable to believe what the hell I’m hearing. “Zoey,” I breathe, my hands sliding back down to her calves and gently squeezing. “Where the hell is this coming from?”
She shrugs her shoulders, wiping away more tears. “I just—”
“No,” I say, cutting her off. “Have I ever given you the impression that I give a shit about that kind of stuff?”
“No, but—”
“Have I ever led you to believe that I want to be with anyone but you?”
She swallows hard, her throat bobbing. “No.”
“Then stop working yourself up over this,” I beg, giving her a tug until she’s falling off the edge of the swing and down into my lap. I wrap her in my arms, and she buries her face into my chest, wiping her tears on my shirt. “I don’t want to spend these last few hours with you hurting.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs into my chest. “I’m just . . . I’m so terrified of watching you leave again. It hurts so much, but I know deep down that we’re going to be perfectly fine. You’re going to come home as much as you can, and I’ll come visit. But no matter how much either of us tries to convince ourselves that nothing is going to change, we both know that the second you get in your car, everything changes.”
“Fuck, Zo,” I murmur, my voice breaking as something grabs ahold of my heart and squeezes. “I don’t know what I can say to you to make this better or how to make the hurt go away, but just know that with every single beat of your heart, I’ll love you even more.”
My hand runs over her hair, feeling her finally start to calm against me. “We’re not going into this blind, Zo. We know this next year is going to be hard, and you’re right, we can pretend all we want and try to convince ourselves that everything is going to stay exactly the same, but it’s not. You’re not going to be right there when I need you, and I’m not going to be there to hold you when you’ve had a shitty day, but I promise you that every chance I get, I will be there for you. All you need to do is call, and I will drop everything to get to you. Whether we’re in the middle of a tornado or you just want someone to hold you because life is shit. I will come. Do you hear me, Zo? I. Will. Come.”
She nods against my chest before finally lifting her head, her red, swollen eyes lingering on mine. A moment of silence passes between us when she drops her forehead against mine, closing her eyes and simply breathing me in. “I’m terrified of how much it’s going to hurt to miss you, and Noah,” she whispers, “I’m going to miss you every second of every day.”
My heart shatters, and I crush her to me, holding on as though I’ll never let her go. “I love you so fucking much, Zoey,” I murmur into her hair. “The thought of leaving you behind, of not getting to touch you every day, to see the way your eyes light up when you smile at me or feel that pull between us when you walk into a room. It’s killing me. I don’t want you to learn how to not need me.”
“I will never not need you,” she vows.
We remain in each other’s arms, and I lay back against the sandy ground of the park, refusing to let go. She silently cries into my chest, her tears soaking my shirt as she sniffles, and each time she does, I tighten my hold around her, my fingers slowly brushing back and forth over her skin.
Almost an hour passes before she lets out a shaky breath. “When do you have to leave?” she asks. “Ten,” I tell her. “But I can push it out to eleven.”
“What’s the time now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe eight-thirty. Nine.”
“Shit,” she mutters, pulling herself up off my chest and hastily wiping her eyes on the back of her arms.
“Do you want to get breakfast?” I ask, determined to make every minute of this time count. “I can take you back to my place to get my stuff. Then drop you home and say goodbye to Hazel and your parents.”
I specifically don’t mention saying goodbye to her, knowing what those words will do to her. Instead, I just watch her, waiting to see what she wants to do. “I don’t think I could eat,” she tells me. “But I don’t want you to go without me.”
“Okay,” I tell her, getting to my feet and offering my hand to help her up beside me. “Then it’s back to my place.”
Zoey steps right into my side, and I take her hand before looping my arm right over her shoulder. “We’re going to be okay,” I promise her. “We haven’t come this far and fought this hard just for something like a year of college to screw it up for us. I stand by what I said, Zo. You’re gonna be so fucking sick of me blowing up your phone, you’re gonna be begging me to leave you alone.”