Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 90

Charlotte

Blake moves some things around so I can slide my bag in beside his things, and the simple ease of it almost catches me off guard. No big deal made of it. No fuss. Just Blake making room for me, like it’s obvious there should be space for me there. Charlie is only a few locker spaces down, laughing with two guys from the team while Theo leans against the row beside him and talks far too loudly for the hour of the morning. Now and then, Charlie glances over, checking to make sure I’m okay. It’s pure habit, a twin thing, a ‘I give a damn about you’ thing. Blake shuts the locker door and looks down at me. “You good?”

“Yeah, totally.” I smile back up at him as I adjust my bag.

The first class comes and goes more easily than I expected. The teacher greets me by name and doesn’t make me stand at the front of the class and introduce myself, which is nice. I sit beside Blake, and while the lesson rolls on in front of us, my eyes drift to the window once or twice. Out to the moving trees and the sky beyond them, but I don’t disappear into myself the way I normally would. You are safe, Shanti reminds me.

Between classes, the halls fill and empty and fill again, and every time the crowd thickens, and the sound rises, I find myself drifting closer to Blake. By lunch, I’ve stopped startling at the fact that I’m happy. That might be the strangest part of all of this. That absolutely nothing is going wrong. We head outside because Theo says the cafeteria smells like wet socks and disappointment. I move with Blake toward the picnic tables near the edge of the field. The winter sun hangs pale overhead, bright enough to make everyone squint, and the grass is cold but dry where we settle. I open my lunch and stare at it for a second. Mara packed enough for an army. Sandwiches wrapped neatly, cut fruit in a container, little homemade biscuits tucked into a side pocket, and a note, folded once, slipped under the lid that says: Eat all of it. No arguments. I can’t help the laugh that escapes me. Blake looks, and I pass him the note. He laughs and shakes his head, but then passes me a note from his lunch box that says: Make sure Charlotte eats her lunch. Theo leans across the table then. “What’s that? Is it blackmail? Is it embarrassing? Read it aloud.” Blake quickly covers my hand and the notes in his and holds them to his chest like it is some big secret that Theo can’t know. I’m still smiling when two voices cut across the table from behind us. “Well, well.”

“Would you look at this.”

I turn and find Jessica and Annabelle standing there with their lunches in their hands. Jessica’s eyes drop straight to our hands. Annabelle gasps dramatically. “I knew it.” Blake doesn’t let go of my hand as Jessica drops onto the bench opposite us, all long limbs and easy confidence. Annabelle slides in beside, grinning wildly. “Are you two together?” Jessica asks, “Or can I start a rumour that you are? Because this is too cute!” Heat rushes straight into my face as I glance at Blake. He’s looking at me, not pushing, not answering for me, just there, waiting with a wicked smirk and an eyebrow cocked. The old version of me would have ducked my head and hoped that the ground would swallow me whole. Shanti stirs. Say it. My fingers tighten slightly in Blake’s hand. He is yours. Screw it. I lift my chin. “Yeah. Blake’s my boyfriend.” Annabelle slaps a hand over her mouth so fast I think she might actually choke on her own excitement. Meanwhile, Jessica points at us both like she’s just won something. “I knew it! I freaking knew it!” Then I realise that Blake has gone completely still beside me. So still that it makes me turn to him because I need to see what’s going on in his head. His hand tightens around mine once. Then again. And before I can ask what’s wrong, he’s already standing. My breath catches as he looks down at me with something in his face I can’t quite read because it’s too much all at once. He tugs gently on my hand. “Come on.”

“What?”

“Come here.” He says, already pulling me up, and my stomach drops as I move with him. Did I say the wrong thing? Should I not have said that? The heat in my face turns colder now, and all the old instincts surge up at once, every one of them telling me I pushed too far, wanted too much, said the wrong thing. Stupid Charlotte. Stupid. I barely hear Annabelle make some strangled little noise behind us, or Theo say, “Well, this is interesting,” as Blake drags me away from the table and into the building.

Blake doesn’t stop until we’re halfway down the corridor near the empty science rooms, and then he turns so quickly I nearly walk straight into him. My hand is still in his. He hasn’t let it go. I look up at him, my chest already tightening. “I’m sorry,” I say immediately. “I shouldn’t have said that if you didn’t want me to, I just thought—” His brows pull together. “What?”

“At lunch.” The words tumble out too fast now. “I didn’t mean to make it weird, I just... Annabelle asked, and Shanti was all over me about it, and I thought it was true, but if you didn’t want me saying it like that, then I—”

Lotty.” He says, and I stop my verbal vomit. Blake drags one hand through his hair, then he’s backing me up until my back hits the wall. “I’m not angry.” He whispers, and I blink. “You’re not?” I whisper back. He stares down at me, breathing a little harder than he was before. Then he steps closer, all of the space between us gone as he tilts my chin with two fingers and lowers his face to mine. So close I forget to breathe. “I dragged you out here because if I stayed in there another second, I was going to kiss you in front of everyone.” His voice drops lower, rougher, and every inch of me stills when he says, “Can I kiss you, Lotty? I really want to kiss you.”