19. Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Patrick
I wasn’t sure what was happening with Marcy. I’d only ever seen her this quiet when we’d taken an Advanced Placement exam senior year, where talking got you kicked out of the classroom.
I’d blurted my confession on a whim. Obviously, I’d been thinking, nearly constantly, about my feelings for Marcy and you know, wanting to actually marry her . But something about tonight brought back the memory of when we’d kissed after prom. How I’d been a coward, leaving her by the fire while I ran inside. To hide.
Of course, I’d wanted to kiss her. I couldn’t believe she was kissing me ! It had just sort of happened , and I couldn’t have been happier if I’d planned it myself.
That lasted a millisecond. Marcy would regret the kiss. I knew she would. She’d laugh it off, or call it a joke to save face. I was so sure she would that I made the decision for us. I walked away first.
When Monday morning came around at school, I took any potential embarrassment out of the equation. I pretended nothing had happened. I could tell she was freaked. She’d barely spoken a word to me and looked like she’d wanted to evaporate on sight. So I dug in further. I wouldn’t ignore her and I definitely would never bring up the kiss. I’d never let her have to explain what happened. She wouldn’t have to.
I never told anyone about the kiss. Nobody.
My closest friends were off-limits because they were all related to Marcy. By the time college rolled around, my roommates didn’t care about a girl I once kissed in high school. Then Marcy came with Matteo to visit me, and I couldn’t let on there had been anything more between us around my roommates. At least that’s what I’d told myself.
I erased our kiss from existence.
But I’d never forgotten. How could I?
I’d erased that moment for Marcy. It’s what I thought I had to do. But truth—I’d been scared. I didn’t know what being more than friends with Marcy looked like. I did know what being friends with her looked like. What could I say? I was a risk-averse kind of guy.
Kissing Marcy, and admitting I wanted more, had been risky. If we broke up, I didn’t have confidence in my ability to handle it. Breaking up with Marcy meant losing what we had and more. Her brothers would hate my guts for hurting her. And with my own parents acting more distant than ever, losing the Russos would have been a blow I couldn’t survive. Maybe that sounded dramatic, but they were my second family. I didn’t say that lightly. If I messed up with Marcy, and I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t, I would never forgive myself.
That was a pretty big thought process for a sixteen-year-old who lived in Gnarles Barkley T-shirts. Yeah, I had multiple, so what.
Flash forward to tonight. The confession fell from my mouth. It was somehow both rehearsed and spontaneous. The words had been written on my heart for years, yearning to be said, if only I could work up the nerve.
Hello, nerves .
Marcy still hadn’t spoken. But her shoulders softened. Finally, slowly, she turned to me.
She was so beautiful. Her make-up softer now than earlier at the fundraiser. Her lived-in dress, her loose curls, her light breaths, all spoke of the Marcy I’d always known, and this new Marcy, so driven toward her own dreams.
I wanted her more than I ever had.
“You…regretted walking away?” Marcy squeaked out. “Not the…other part?”
A nail speared my heart. She couldn’t even say out loud that we’d kissed. That’s what I’d done to her. I’d made sure of that. How did I ever expect Marcy would want to be with me after I’d forced our single kiss into oblivion?
I managed to shake my head yes. What an idiot I’d been all these years. A coward. Still a coward. All that time and—
“Patrick?” My name dropped from her lips like warm caramel.
“Yeah?”
“What if I told you I didn’t regret the kiss either.”
My heart frantically repaired itself, forcing the pain aside. “Yeah?”
She leaned closer. “And what if I told you I wanted to do it again? To kiss you again?”
This was…amazing. This couldn’t be happening. This— Shut up and kiss her!
My instincts took over. My hand found its way to the edge of her delicate face, and into her hair, caressing the back of her head. I closed the gap between us.
My mouth on hers. Her lips receiving me, welcoming me.
I pressed in like a man home from war. Marcy was home to me. She always had been. I’d waited too long for this.
A soft moan escaped her and my thoughts emptied out. Nothing existed except the two of us wherever we were. I was floating by now .
I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Just kissing. Neither of us stopping or questioning. We’d done that for years. For too long.
She slid a hand up my forearm to the back of my bicep and squeezed. She made another noise that urged me deeper into our kiss.
At some point, we came up for air. Neither of us took our eyes off each other. Twenty-four Hour Taco could have launched into orbit and I wouldn’t care.
I grabbed her hand and my finger grazed the ring. Our engagement ring. For a happy second, it felt real. I couldn’t imagine anything better.
A nervous sounding laugh escaped Marcy’s now-swollen lips. Her gaze went to the ring and her expression flattened. “This is going to get complicated, isn’t it?”