Page 49 of Anchored to the Storm

I gasped in shame. “No!”

“Come ooooon. All our teeth ached. It must be a tale to tell.”

Not sure what the hell had our mouths aching at the same time, but it didn’t stop my mouth from opening now. In fact, as if I’d been holding on to a ticking bomb, it went off. Not an ounce of control. “I was mortified! I even threw Ethan to his back and crawled on top of him like an animal!”

“Tell. Me. More.” Finn changed gears on the Jeep as we picked up speed. “What did you do while on top of him?”

I thought about Ethan’s lips. How strong yet soft they were. “I kissed him.”

“Kissing a foster brother.” His brows danced. “I guess we both like a challenge.”

I knew he was speaking of Johnny, but I felt a long-shuttered door opening. “Your ex-roommate… did you love him?”

Finn gawked at me. “How do you know anything happened between us?”

“Finn, puzzle pieces are starting to fit together.”

He eyed me. “Damn, you’re even smarter than I already thought you were.” Then he stared out the windshield. I don’t think he saw the road we were driving on. I think he had gone back in time. “I thought I loved him… Now, I realize he was even more fucked up than me.”

I laid a hand on his arm. “You are not fucked up.” I kept slowly shaking my head as if daring him to argue with me.

He smirked. “Okay, I hear you.” He winked. “For real.”

Unexpectedly, I grabbed my chest and burst into tears. “I want him by our sides again.”

Finn grabbed my left hand. “Oh, girl, like rain needing its cloud.”

Those words were perfect for how I felt. Like nature searching for its counterpart. “Without a cloud, how is there even rain?”

He kissed my hand. “Ethan is lucky to have you.”

I jolted. It felt so good to hear, but it wasn’t true. “Caleb has me.”

Finn chuckled. “Caleb needed you, and you knew it.”

“What?” I couldn’t stop my face from wincing. It felt like disrespecting my dead boyfriend. I tried to pull my hand away but couldn’t.

Finn now pressed it against my own chest. “In here is so deep and precious.” He smiled, but the gesture was full of pain. “You give beyond your means.”

I kept blinking because my brain was confused, but something in my body was screaming, He’s right! Listen up, dumbass!

Finn gazed at me in between glances at the road. “Instead of being a normal teenager, you helped raise Blue.”

I started to shake as tears overflowed.

Finn didn’t stop. “Instead of having a healthy, normal high school boyfriend, you nurtured a boy who had been broken by his cruel past.”

Until that day, I had never sobbed with such truth. Every cry had been strangled before this day. Every cry had been ripped from my shattered heart. That’s why this cry was so different. It poured out of me like a river that had been begging for years to be freed.

Finn didn’t need an explanation for the tears flowing from me. He only squeezed my hand and said, “Girl, you and I are, indefinitely, anchored to our storms.”

Sobbing, and utterly relieved to be seen, I smiled. “You’re my new best friend.”

Finn fake-gasped. “This gay finally has a girlfriend?”

Now, I laughed through sobs. “And she’s never letting go.”

Our hands stayed joined on top of the center console, only moving when Finn had to change gears. We both kept sighing as if we needed that cry and union. Smiles were plastered to our faces. Even when Finn finally said, “Ethan is bad-boy hot.”