Since You've Been Gone

chapter 36- safe

nobody knows - the lumineers

When we were younger, Toby and I used to run around the house and hide Raeanna's barbie dolls. It was a dumb game that we had made up, but it would entertain us for hours. Not to mention it absolutely pissed Raeanna off.

But once she had turned over couch cushions and destroyed the house looking for her dolls, Raeanna would give up. She would walk up to us and have this look of desperation and hopelessness as if she thought we would never tell her where we hid her toys.

That expression of desperation and hopelessness was not one I had seen in years. Well, not until today.

As Connor stood in front of me, I could see the desperation in his ocean blue eyes. They were communicative and open, yet at the same time, they were cloudy. It was like they were trying to say too much at one time.

"We need to talk." His hand grasped my lower forearm, bringing me closer to his chest. "Please, Hope."

"Connor, I need to go to class." I shook my head.

I knew that if I sat here and let him apologize when he did nothing wrong, I would crumble. I would let him kiss me and break down all of the barriers I had spent the past week building.

"Hope," his voice cracked. "Please just fucking come with me."

Students around us were rushing to try and get to their class before the bell rang. The hallways were crowded, but it felt like I was in a bubble. Just me and Connor in our own world.

Focusing back on the boy standing in front of me, my heart shattered a little bit.

The anxiousness radiating off of him was nauseating. The way his chest rose and fell at an increased speed, and his heart thumped wildly under the thin t-shirt he wore.

He was pleading with me. And similar to how I always cracked and told Raeanna where her stupid dolls were, I cracked under Connor's gaze.

"Okay." I nodded.

Quickly, Connor slipped his calloused hand into mine and started pulling me to the stairwell. I had no clue where he was taking me, but I wasn't going to stop him.

We walked out of the back doors near the gym, unnoticed, and kept going until we made it to the football field.

It was deserted, and aside from the spray of the sprinklers, it was silent.

"What did I do Hope?"

"What?"

"Did I read this wrong? Is it too much?" Connor was pacing up and down bleachers, the metal creaking underneath him.

"Connor..." I whispered. I didn't know what to say. He hadn't done anything wrong. That was the issue.

I was pushing him away for no good reason, other than being selfish.

"No H. I need to know how to fix this... please." His voice cracked as he stopped pacing and stood in front of my seated position.

"Connor, you didn't.... I... we can't be together." My chest tightened as I spoke those eight words. If I hadn't already been sitting, I thought I might have collapsed to the floor.

Connor clenched his jaw and looked out to the bright green grass in front of us. "Why not?"

At that moment, everything came rushing back.

All the sleepovers where Connor ended up stealing all of the blankets and I was left with nothing. The nights we slow danced in the kitchen to random music as I cooked us dinner. The hours we spent watching the horses in the pasture, talking about running away from our small town.