Chapter 52
For our first date, Nolan takes me axe throwing and afterward we go to Wild Scoops, the ice cream parlor up the street.
I feel a bug crawling up my arm and go to swat it away when I realize that it’s not a bug.
It’s Nolan’s hand, stroking me with a timidity that gives me goosebumps, the bad kind, the nails-on-a-chalkboard kind.
The kind that come from being touched by someone who isn’t Korgy.
“Do you want me to move my hand?” he asks.
Yes, I think.
“No,” I say.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
I grab his face and shove my tongue down his throat, attempting to transfer all my passion into his mouth, hoping it can work that way.
Hoping that I can take all of my pulsing feelings for another person and pour them into this one.
That I can like him the way I want to if I just pretend he’s someone else.
Isn’t wanting to like someone the same as liking them? Or at least close enough?
After a minute, Nolan pulls away, disheveled and awakened.
I didn’t feel anything, but he seems to have.
And maybe that’s enough. One for two. Maybe it doesn’t matter that my body feels cold and limp against his.
That my mind races, detached. Maybe it’s good that I don’t feel passion for him.
Maybe passion is bad for me. Unhelpful. Makes me crazy and unstable. Maybe it’s better this way.