Here Without You Read Online Free PDF

worldwide reputation for womanizing!’ Mom says, her blurted words finding a too-easy target.
    My answer is subdued, because of course it hurts to think of all of the girls he’s been with, and all he has access to. ‘Reid didn’t love those girls. He loves me.’
    ‘You’re darn right he didn’t love them. Or respect them.’ My father shades pink, but doesn’t stop there. ‘How do you know what lies he may have told them to get them into bed?’
    ‘I only know what he’s told me.’
    ‘Exactly,’ he huffs.
    ‘He wouldn’t have to lie, or say an untrue thing, to get girls into his bed.’
    Mom eyes me. ‘And that doesn’t worry you just as much? If not more?’
    Esther’s muzzle sits lightly on my thigh, her eyes staring up at me, anxious. I reassure my dog with careful strokes, but I can’t convince my parents that their fears are misguided. The atmosphere is unbearably tense, and their protectiveness – a shield behind which I’ve always moved freely – has become a thick bridle. Even as I try to relax within it, I’m pulling against the restraint.
    ‘I believe what he’s told me. I believe what he says he feels. And when it comes down to it … what he says he does or feels is mine to believe or not. No one else’s.’ My voice strengthens with these declarations, and I see that this is how rebellions of all kinds gain strength – inside the avowals.
    My mother narrows her eyes, and I know her question before she articulates it fully. ‘Dori. Are you and he –’
    ‘
Mom
. Please don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, because I won’t lie to you. Not any more.’
    Her face is a picture of defeat, individual features downturned in surrender. ‘So you expect us to sit by while you begin a sordid relationship with a … a celebrity.’ Her voice cracks, but wobbles on. ‘A young man who’ll use you and cast you aside when he tires of you –’
    ‘If that’s what you want to believe. If that’s what you think I’m capable of.’
    ‘I don’t know what you’re capable of any more, Dori,’ she snaps.
    I sigh. ‘I see that. But maybe you never did.’
    Those are perhaps the truest words any of us have just spoken.
    When I open the door, he pulls off his sunglasses and steps inside, as beautiful as always. He’s toned-down – as regular-boy as possible, for him: beneath his favourite Lakers cap, brim pulled low, wisps of blond hair fall across his forehead and curl around his ears and temples. He’s wearing his button-fly jeans. His navy T-shirt isn’t too closely fitted, but even still, it can’t hide the solid curve of his wide shoulders and sculpted torso.
    I press my face to his chest. Pulling me close, he wraps his arms around me and takes a deep, easy breath as I curl into him. I know that nothing is static. Nothing remains the same forever, no matter how much I wish it would. But in this moment, I love this boy, and I know he loves me, and I don’t care if at some point that will no longer be true.
    But my parents? I recall the words we exchanged and all the ones we held back, and I can’t picture them ever coming around to accepting him – accepting
us
.
    ‘Hey.’ He turns the brim of the cap backwards and tips my chin to examine my eyes. ‘What’s this?’
    I duck my worried face back to his chest, muffling my words. ‘I can’t believe I thought this would work.’
    He cups my shoulders in his palms, angling me away fromhis chest and peering into my eyes. ‘So little confidence in my charm, Dori? I won
you
over, didn’t I? Although I suppose we’d fare better if we don’t reveal a few of my more appealing attributes to your parents … Your obsession with my button-fly jeans, for example, might lose something in translation.’
    I choke an incredulous laugh.
This is never going to work
. Without loosening my grip on him, I chew my lip and he quirks an eyebrow, waiting. ‘Can we just run away from home?’
    His mouth breaks into a grin, eyes