And then the door slams open.
And he’s here.
He’s worried, and scared and desperate.
He’s absolutely perfect.
He looks at me and in a heartbeat all the pieces come back together and I can breathe again, as if he were the air passing through my lungs.
“I … I’m sorry,” he yells, trying to drown out the sound of the hail.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I yell back.
He takes a step forward.
“It is. I allowed all of this to happen. I established a reputation that meant that trashy girls like that would come here looking for me. I made it so that everyone believed that I am the dickhead that I really am. That you would think it too.”
“And you are,” I say, moving my wet hair from my eyes.
“I am.” He smiles bitterly. “But I don’t want to be like that any more.”
“No?” I ask with a pained voice and a bit of hope brushing up against my heart.
“No I don’t. But I’ll need your help,” he says, taking another step closer to me. “I need you to help me to be a better person.”
“M-me? Why me?”
Another step closer and his forehead is touching mine. It caresses my face and I close my eyes to let his touch imprint itself in my mind.
“Because with you, Erin, I feel I can be … different. I can be myself. I feel that I can finally be a man.”
