Summer: Day 42

Mack's POV:

Sometimes I think I'm hallucinating—which is ironic considering the fact that when you are hallucinating you don't know you are. You just can't. 

So when I see Zachariah's name flash across my phone, I have a mini panic attack. Because I know I'm not just seeing things.

With shaky hands, I slide my finger along his contact and hold the phone up to my ear to answer. "Hey," I say, my voice all too squeaky.

I hear him sigh in the background, it's almost surreal. "Kenz," he whispers, halfway forced and somewhat choked.

I squeeze my eyes shut and grip the phone tighter in my hand. "Do you hate me?"

He sort of chuckles, not answering.

"I need you to be serious, Zachariah. Do you hate me, can you seriously not stand being around me?" I sputter, looking at myself in the mirror of my bedroom. "Because I've felt pretty damn pathetic thinking that's how you feel about me right now."

"Kenz," he breathes, once I've finished.

But oh, he hasn't even gotten the best of me so far.

"Is that what you think about this? Is this a game to you?" I ask, my voice breaking. "Or is it all genuine like I want to believe? Because I have a lot of freaking faith in you when I shouldn't. So you—tell me what I'm supposed to believe, Zach."

Zachariah takes a deep breath, a long and dragged kind of inhale. "Yeah, Kenz. I hate you."

And it's then that my heart drops.

"I hate you so much to the point where it's hard to even look at myself in the mirror, because I see you—you shaking your head at me and being disappointed because I'm not who you want me to be. I hate you for the fact that I can't fucking see straight around you, because you make me feel things I've tried so hard to suppress."

"So you hate me for being human?" I say, a small tear falling down my cheek. "For just being here?"

"But that's the thing, Mackenzie. You were never just there. I hate you so much because of the things you do to me. I hate that you're always right, and how you make me seem so see-through. I hate that. I hate how you never gave up on me when I really didn't deserve it. I hate the fact that you love me and I can't stop it—because I'm not good for you."

I drop the phone when I realize his voice isn't coming through the other end. It's coming from behind me.

Turning around, my face falls and I wipe my eyes from its tears. "So you really can't stand being around me?"

He shakes his head, his eyes cold and jaw taut. "I can't, Kenz. You should've ran for the hills a long time ago."

"You and I both know that isn't possible," I say, sorta laughing. "But I get it, you hate me, after all. So of course you'd say that."

"You're right, I hate you for all those things," he says flatly, as if he was speaking what his cold heart believes. "But you wanna know what I hate the most about you?"

I clench my jaw, holding my head high as if to take whatever he had to say with confidence. "Tell me what you hate about me, what you hate the most—what made you so closed off towards me. Why you decided to be this way. Tell me, I dare you."

He steps forward from his place in the doorway and looks at me intensely, his blue eyes dark and clouded like they always are when he looks at me. "I hate that I don't hate you at all, even when I really fucking want to. I hate that I can't hate you, and when I say I hate you I mean otherwise, Kenz." 

Does he mean...

"I'm in deep fucking love with you, Mackenzie," he admits, his eyes searching mine with so much depth, so much of his love, and I hate myself for not seeing it before. "I love you, baby. I love you so damn much, I just could never get the words to come out of my mouth."

"You—you love me?" I ask, my voice breaking and tears starting to fall.

He nods and chuckles a bit, inching closer to me until he's right in front of me. "I do. I really really do."

I hate you, I love you. One very fine line.

"I love you," he whispers, pressing his hands on the small of my back. "Please, say something back."

I gulp, looking up at his expectant eyes. "Is this just another lie, bub?"

"I'd give you the world if I could, Mackenzie. I love you that much, and I've been so damn miserable without you," he says wholeheartedly, trying to win me over with his words. His voice is strained, as if I've sucked his last breath from him. "Please..."

And so when thinking about fight or flight, I've been fighting all my life for this one boy to fall in love with me. And now I had him—in love, so deep. And I loved him back, but I wasn't going to let my guard down as easily as I had before. I'll make him beg, fight, want me the way I want him—in the way I've always wanted him.

"You're leaving tomorrow," I say, averting my eyes from his. "How do I know you'll stick around and wait for me?" I try to swallow the lump in my throat, not being able to get it down.

Zachariah grabs my hands in the earnest of all efforts and says, "Don't run away from me, run away with me."

I shake my head, not understanding.

"There's nothing for you here, Kenz. Your dad's in jail, your mom's a bitch, and you're eighteen now. You have a whole life in front of you," he says, his features lighting up with so much conviction it warms my heart. Still, though, I don't understand.

"I have a life here, Zachariah," I reply, looking at the ground, the wood floors dull even if they're shiny. "I don't know what you're trying to say."

"Come to LA with me," he says, more in a question. "I can't live without you and this last week fucking proved it. I'm nothing without you—and as much as it's weak, it's powerful."

"I can't just leave," I say, now searching his eyes again, trying to find answers. "I have Kylar and my job and my freaking high school here."

His hands tangle into the roots of my hair and pull my face up towards his, the angle one so he can look at me clearly and vice versa. "We'll figure that all out, but we can be so happy together, Kenz. Live a little, take the risk."

"I've taken too many with you," I reply, trying to pull away. Make him beg. "If I go with you and we don't work out, then what? The answer would be that I threw my whole entire life away for a boy? That's a pathetic way to live my life, more pathetic than you hating me."

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "You don't know until you try."

"But then it's too late to pick up the pieces."

"It's already too late, can't you see?" he asks, and I notice his own eyes going a bit glossy. "We're both so deep into this already, there's no going back now."

"I could still go and run for the hills before you break me for the second time around."

"Don't try to break the bridges we rebuilt," he says, his intense stare almost a little too much. "I always thought I'd be the one pushing you away, but you're the one doing it to me."

"Well I'm sorry if I was met face-to-face with an asshole like yourself," I argue back, instantly regretting it. "Sorry, I didn't mean that."

"You're right though," he says, "I am an asshole to you. But you know what? I'm your asshole, and I am proud to say so." Zachariah finds my face again and cups my jaw, kissing my cheek but not so much my lips. "Only you, Mackenzie. I only want you."

Inhale. Exhale. We stare at each other for what feels like years of eternity.

But I finally find the courage to speak. "This is a lot right now."

He nods in understanding, dropping his hands to reach into the back pocket of his jeans. "I didn't know what to expect when I came here, but it was worth a shot. Whether or not you'd come running into my arms or scream at me to leave, but out of everything, this was worth it. You are worth it, Kenz." Handing me an envelope, he says, "If you love me like I think you do, I'll see you next to me on the plane tomorrow. And if not, if you don't think we're worth the risk, we'll always have the summer—this one in particular to look back on."

I take the plane ticket in my hands, hugging it to my chest as if it'd protect me.

"I love you, Mackenzie. I have from the very beginning."

"I love you, Zach," I whisper, looking up at him innocently through my lashes. He smiles, his eyes watery like my own and then I realize he's started crying. "But this is a lot right now."

He blinks, the smallest of tears escaping his waterline and I reach my trembling finger up to wipe it away. "I just want you to think about coming home with me, Kenz. You're my everything. Nothing was ever a lie."

A boy who cries is a boy to keep.

I wrap my arms around him, nodding against his chest. And I could feel it then, the way his heart was hammering against his ribcage as if he was running a marathon, that we would always have more than this summer. We'd always find our way back to each other, even if I didn't go to the West Coast with him.

"Let me think," I whisper, pulling myself away from his muscular arms.

He backs up a few steps, pinching his eyes with this thumb and index finger. "I'll hold onto the small hope of someday," Zachariah says, a small smile playing on his lips. "Someday we won't have to fight so hard for each other, someday we'll just be together."

"Someday," I respond, letting 'someday' mean something else now.

When he leaves, I don't let go of the plane ticket. I keep it hugged to my chest the whole night.

Author's Note:

crying is for losers, and so... i guess i'm a loser.

HEHE if y'all enjoyed, please give this a vote and comment! Let me know your thoughts <3 SOOOOO glad they sorta worked everything out. One more chapter to this book and it can go two different ways... let me know which way you want it to go!