M E A N I N G F U L
M I S T A K E S
Chapter Forty Three
Most of the day has passed since I left Hunter's apartment, letting my anger and embarrassment smother me while I finish the homework I had for the weekend, and work further on the routine the girls and I have been planning for the cheer competition.
The competition isn't too far away, but it's not close either. We have a bit more than a month to perfect our dance. This meant that in the coming weeks we have to sacrifice our weekends and after school hours to practice.
Sadly the lunch breaks can only be used for practice for the game cheers otherwise we'll fall behind. It is a pile of choreographing that keeps growing bigger, but thankfully the girls reduce the stress by contributing ideas.
I sigh and close my book where I had jotted down notes for the next cheer practice, tossing it onto the mountain of completed school work.
I feel too drained and unmotivated to finish any more work. William has gone to spend the night at Chuck's place, but he was ready to cancel if I didn't reassure a thousand times that I am okay.
He wasn't worried I'd break down into a crying mess- he was worried that he'd need to be a room away if Hunter were to come over and we'd talk over the secrecy.
The both of us are overreacting. I need to learn that it's okay for him to have kept the portion of his life behind him, yet now with the hints I've received, I want to know more than ever.
But before I was going to ask or listen to him, I needed my own time to simmer down, and I did have to make a quick trip to the chemist to get a morning after pill.
Hunter has sent a few text messages, but I haven't reached for my phone to read them. I think he knocked at the apartment door a while ago, but I was nose deep in homework.
Like it was perfectly timed alongside my thoughts, there's a knock at the apartment door. Immediately, I recognise Hunter's distinct knock since it's the same one from earlier.
I'm not sure if I'm quite ready yet to answer. There's still small amounts of frustration bubbling under my skin that I need to force away first. I walk towards the kitchen to fetch a bottle of water in hopes it will fasten the process of calming.
"Lolita, I know you're in there." Hunter's soft voice sounds from the other side of the door. It's enough to make me freeze as I was twisting the cap off the bottle.
I felt guilty for avoiding him again. It's exactly what I had done last time. Though, now I'm only taking a few hours to ready myself.
"Please, just open the door." I thought this was going to be the opposite way around- that I was going to be knocking at his door to ask my questions.
Taking a deep breath, I leave my bottle on the kitchen island and go to the apartment door. "Lolita, I'm," he pauses and let's out a breath loud enough that I hear it through the wood. "Please, open the door before I have to pick the lock."
I wouldn't be surprised if he carry out his threat. Part of me wants to wait and watch his attempt to do so, but I don't want my door handle scratched up. I twist the lock and slowly pull the door ajar, looking through my lashes up at Hunter.
His hair is a mess again, and eyes sagged. He still has a fist raised as if he was about to knock again when I opened the door.
"You probably knew I wasn't going to stop this time." The brown haired boy nervously chuckles like he hoped it would defuse the tension.
"I figured that." I say quietly.
He slowly buries his hands into his sweatpants pockets and rocks back of forth on his feet, this time wearing a shirt. "Can I come in?" When he asks, I realise I have only opened the door a little bit.
I open it wider and he walks in, but when I turn around after closing the door, hands grab the loop holes of my jeans and push me against the wall.
"What are you-" Hunter presses his lips to mine, silencing the question I was trying to ask.
My body is wedged between the wall and himself, making it impossible to escape him. In that moment, all the remaining anger and frustration melts away somehow.
It's as if seeing him had reminded me that the boy he was in New York doesn't matter, because this is who I love.
Urgently, I kiss him back and secure my hands around the back of his neck. His grip is on my hip, and one of his other hands lifts my leg around him. It ables us to fit perfectly together, feeling his body press into mine.
My spine curves into him the moment my lips part and his tongue slips in my mouth. His shirt that I am still wearing becomes bunched in his grip, making it rise above the waist band of my jeans.
Then suddenly his face parts from me, leaving his forehead against mine. "I hate it when you're mad at me."
He's gotten me stuck in a daze with very swollen lips and restless lungs. I'm not necessary mad at him like he thinks- mostly hurt that he felt the need to conceal so much.
"Which is why we should probably talk." He adds and I nod, definitely agreeing that it is what we need to do. There's a lot I need to know about him.
I detach myself from him, though I immediately miss his warmth and body presses tightly to mine. I head towards the balcony, deciding that will be a nice place to speak. The view of Lacewood's surrounding lake will set a better mood than the kitchen or couches.
I unlatch the glass doors and sit down on one of the two seats. The last time I had been out here with Hunter, things also weren't the best. But we talked through it, and he became a better person.
He sits in the other, and stares out to the darkening sky. "I'm sorry." Hunter says through a breath. I hate hearing those two words, but I accept them this time.
"Why didn't you tell me about your mom being engaged? Gosh, why do I know nothing about who you were when you lived in New York?" I turn to face him. "There seems to be a large chunk of our lives missing from each other. Your mom didn't even know why I was in hospital when she visited for the first time, and I felt humiliated sitting there like we were strangers."
There was a much better or nicer way of putting my words, but they fall out the way they do. Perhaps it's rude of me to squeeze out the truth when it so clearly pains him- but I can't put it to rest any longer. Not after the hints his mother gave.
"I only ever talk to her about you, not what you've been through. That's why she didn't know why you were in hospital or anything else private that you've told me. I tell her about how your eyes light up when you're cheerleading, not how you had to deal with Mia and Noah." He spits both names and straightens his spine while reaching for my hand. "And the thought of telling you about the bad decisions and life choices I made in New York never crossed my mind because with you that guy is a dead memory. That person is not me anymore. He doesn't matter."
"But he does matter." I interrupt and slide closer to the edge of my seat so I am closer to him. "If that past life didn't matter then you wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be here with you, and you wouldn't be the Hunter I know today. Your past shapes your future."
"I know that." He sighs and rubs his chin on his shoulder. "I'd rather you not know who I was. I wish I didn't have to know."
His fingers fiddle with the bracelet he had gifted me that still clings to my wrist. I never take it off unless I'm showering. The same applies to Harper's necklace.
I've become so attached to both pieces that I panic if I don't have them on. Even when I'm showering I can feel the rising fear of not having them on. Like I was missing a limb.
"What are you so afraid of?" I quietly ask, and he looks at me questioningly.
"What do you mean?" Hunter's eyebrows crease, his face becoming unsettled. It is visible that the subject of who he was, is a topic he doesn't like to discuss.
He is itching to change the subject, but doing so would only either create problems, or force the topic to come up later. He's battling to stay on track.
"You were the one who taught me to speak about my past because it helps to move forward. You say that who you were in your past doesn't matter anymore, yet who won't say who he was. Something is stopping you from telling me." I don't like seeing him the way he is, but I still continue to pry.
People like Hunter are stereotyped to be tough and emotionally strong. They are supposed the be the strong ones in relationships. Society believes they are not suppose to be weak.
It's pain and weakness that reminds us who we are, and that we are living through. Every human needs to experience every emotion. It's a part of life.
Right now, the emotions swirling in his hazel eyes show the vulnerable side to Hunter. His lips are pointed downwards, his leg bounces, and his eyebrows pull together painfully.
"I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to think differently of me or lose trust." Hunter's grip on my hand only tightens, reassuring himself that I'm not going to leave. "The only thing stopping me is the thought of 'what if I didn't be better?' I would've destroyed someone like you. I can't sleep at night when I think of a situation where we meet earlier, or in New York, or here and I was just as terrible- I wouldn't have batted an eyelid for your safety. And I hate that. I struggle to live with myself picturing your face in New York with me."
My chest tightens painfully and a lump forms in my throat. Swallowing it down is difficult- and I nearly begin crying, but I hold it off. I take both his hands in mine. "You would never hurt me Hunter. You're not-"
"I already did." My mouth hangs open from him these words. Memories of the time I spent avoiding him flow to my head. He must be thinking the same, but from his perspective of leaving without more detail which convinced me that he no longer wanted to be with me. Hunter's eyes are watering. "I was scared of hurting when you first admitted you loved me. I was so worried that I'd run back to old crowds and it would be you alone in the house getting hurt, so I took time to try and speak to mom, but I was so scared that I hadn't reread the text I sent you. You thought I wanted to break up, and that's how I hurt you. I watched you crumble to p-"
"No, no." I stop his words and cup his face with both my hands. My thumbs swipe away the tears that begin to fall. In front of me is a broken boy. "That isn't something to blame yourself for. We're past that. We talked through it and we're better now."
He takes a shaky breath. "Your heart stopped."
"It's beating now." My eyes start to sting in response to him. I place a hand over his own heart. "It's stronger than ever because it has you, it wants you. Hunter, I trust you and love you. Nothing you say can change that."
Once I finish speaking, I move that hand back to his face again. Those hazel eyes disappeared when they shut, then reopen moments later.
"Do you really want to know what I was like?" He speaks so quietly that I hardly hear the question.
I nod. "Only if you're up to it. If you need time, that's okay too." I don't want to pressure him more than I already have.
A long pause of silence passes between us. "You've heard bits and pieces from mom. When high school rolled around, I thought it was best if everyone feared me, then life would always be handed to me on a silver platter and I didn't have to follow so many rules. I liked the adrenaline or the bad parts of Brooklyn. I found a group of guys who walked around like they owned the streets. They let me join them, and it felt amazing having power over people. I did everything they told me, which was what started to get me into a lot of trouble. I'd run away from home for days to weeks sometimes for some stupid thing that they wanted me to do."
I retract my hands from his face to hold his shaking hands again.
"It started slow. Mostly stealing, then it turned into bigger stuff like stealing cars and dealing drugs. I never once took them though, but I did help sell them to the kids my age. There was an incident where they fucked some deal up, and one of the guys wanted me to go after the guy since he would suspect someone my age- considering the other guys were in their twenties and thirties. I was expected to shoot him- kill him. I- I couldn't do it. It woke me up instantly and I told them I wanted no involvement with them. That's when they got angry and broke into mom's house to beat her up. It get to me. A warning for if I opened my mouth about them- but thankfully they did get arrested. I look back, and I never realised how many people I actually hurt. I hurt everyone." He finishes.
I hadn't expected most of this to come from him. Part of me hoped for something a little easier- like harmless violence or graffiti. Not drugs and murder.
"You're a good person now Hunter, if all of them are in prison and you've moved on, let it be. Let that version of Hunter stay in the past, because now you are the good in your life. Don't let him haunt you."
Although what I've learnt is difficult, I don't hold it over him. It's a shock, but it's in the past just like I told him.
"I honestly thought when I came over here that we'd just fix the conflict, I should've figured we would dive into an emotional exchange." He tries to laugh- the water clears from his eyes.
I nod in agreement, letting my lips pull up into a smile despite the emotional blanket that is still wrapped around us. "Yeah, it always happens."
Recognition flares through his features, as he shakes his head to remember something. "I forgot to ask you something." Now, everything sad vanishes and brings back his cheerful smile. "Do you want to be my date to my mom's wedding at the end of the year?"
I can't stop the laugh that escapes me. "You know I do, you dork." I reach forward and ruffle his already messy brown locks.
I prefer this version of him. The happy and joyful one that is always laughing. "Do I have to say your dork again, or have we covered that?"
"I'm pretty sure we covered that at the basketball game at Kingscross." That trip was memorable. Both from it being my first routine again with the team, and Mia wanting to claw off my face.
Hunter squeezes my hands. "I love you."
My smile widens. "I love you." We don't take those words for advantage. It's not something we remind each other about every second of the day, but only when it matters.
The three words and eight letters are meaningful.
Hunter stands with my hands in his, pulling me up with him. "Let's go inside. It's freezing out here and I don't want you getting sick."
I notice that he only speaks about my well-being, despite us both in long pants and a short sleeved shirt that are defenceless against the cold.
We leave the conversation to die outside on the balcony as I close the doors once we're back inside the comfort of the apartment.
"How long is your mom in Lacewood for?" I ask and walk towards the kitchen with Hunter following closely. It's late enough that I'll need to start preparing something for dinner.
"A few days. She leaves on Wednesday." He leans against the island while I search the fridge. "She's staying in that new motel that's near the school. She said it's really posh giving Lacewood's rustic style."
I laugh, knowing it's true. Lacewood's small town is old, or vintage for better words, and it definitely isn't futuristic.
Knowing Rose will be here until Wednesday allows the embarrassment that roams within me settle. That way I will have an opportunity to speak with her again and explain my antics from earlier today. I feel terrible for leaving abruptly.
"She also said she wants to take us both out for dinner tomorrow night- her treat. Only if you're free."
I stop scanning the fridge to glance back at Hunter, my lips pulling up reassuringly to myself that Rose's opinion on me hasn't changed. "Yeah, that sounds good."
He lets out a relieving breath. "Okay, good, cause mom thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread." I raise my eyebrows at the words. "She also told me that I have to keep you. She loves you nearly as much as I do. So, I guess you're stuck with me, Lollipops."
I am more than happy to be stuck with Hunter Kings.
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