Chapter 9 #4
I stopped there. I did not tell him how my mind had turned into something I barely recognized.
How everything had become numbers and rules and control.
How my parents had finally noticed, finally said the words out loud, finally taken me somewhere I could not argue my way out of.
I had heard them. I just had not believed them yet.
When we drove toward the mountains in that small car, my mind was still fighting itself, and I was losing more battles than I was winning.
“So,” I continued, aware of the silence I had left behind, aware that Austin had not interrupted it. “We got there. And I swear, there’s no feeling quite like standing in front of something that big. You can’t imagine it until you’re actually there.”
“I know what you mean,” Austin said quietly.
“I was looking up at them,” I said, “and for the first time in a long time, I realized how small I was. I was nothing compared to them. Compared to these worlds that just kept stretching higher and higher.”
“And that helped you?” Austin asked. He looked at me the same way he had when I talked about fate. Like I was speaking in a language he wanted to understand but hadn’t learned yet.
“It did,” I said, surprising myself with how sure I felt.
“Because when I realized how small I was, I realized how small my problems might be too. Not unimportant. Just… not all-consuming.” I took a breath.
“And if my problems were smaller than I thought, then maybe I could fight them. Maybe I didn’t have to be crushed by them.
Maybe I could be stronger than them.” I looked back toward the waterfall, then added softly, “Maybe I could be the mountain.”
“Wow,” Austin said, shaking his head, something unreadable passing through his expression. I didn’t know what he meant by it. So I kept going.
“So I started to remember all the things my mom had told me before,” I said. “All the hope she had given me growing up. I’d forgotten it for a while, but standing there, I remembered it again.”
“Your mom sounds amazing,” Austin said. There was something in his voice I couldn’t quite name. Not jealousy. Not bitterness. Something quieter. “She sounds nothing like mine.”
A pang hit my chest, something close to pity, something I didn’t want to assume but couldn’t ignore. “No?” I asked gently. “What’s she like?”
“Uninvolved,” he said. Just the one word. But it carried weight, like an entire story pressed flat into a single sentence.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t try to pull more from him, but I meant it.
“Don’t be,” Austin replied quickly. He smiled, but it felt practiced, like he’d said those words more times than he could count. “We all get what we get.”
“It’s what you do with it that matters,” I said, offering the words back to him. “And you seem to be doing pretty well.”
He didn’t respond right away. Instead, I noticed the sky for the first time.
The sun had slipped beneath the horizon, leaving behind that lingering summer glow, the kind that made everything look softer than it really was.
Not dark yet. Just changing. I opened my mouth, already knowing what I was going to say.
“I’m not taking you home yet,” Austin said firmly, beating me to it.
I laughed, the sound surprising even me. “I didn’t realize I was being held captive.”
“Not captive,” he said, standing quickly. “Just… temporarily detained.”
“I’m kidding,” I smiled. And I meant it. I didn’t want to leave yet.
“I have one more thing to show you,” he added, offering me his hand. “Then I’ll take you home. I don’t want to jeopardize my good standing with Sean and Jane.”
I took his hand without thinking. “I have a feeling you don’t need to worry about that,” I muttered, remembering the amusement in my father’s eyes.
“Stay here,” Austin ordered, already turning away from me.
“You’re going to leave me alone in a dark forest?” I called after him, pulling my legs closer to my body. Though I was joking… maybe I wasn’t.
Austin glanced back, a flicker of glee dancing in his eyes. “Do you think it’s fate for you to be eaten by a bear tonight, Yellow?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
“Then you’re fine.”
My laughter followed him as he disappeared, and to my surprise, I realized I wasn’t nervous at all.
Not about the darkness closing in around me.
Not about being alone. I was too focused on the joy lifting me from the inside out.
I felt like I was floating, suspended somewhere far above the ground, and I didn’t want to come back down.
Something about being around Austin felt effortless.
Natural. Like this was exactly where I was meant to be.
I heard it before I saw it. At first, it sounded like the sharp crackle of a fire. Then came the rush, the whoosh of air slicing through the night. It only took a second before understanding bloomed in my chest.
I pushed myself to my feet just as golden sparks exploded above me.
Brilliant. Glittering. Like the same electricity that had been racing across my skin all night, only magnified and thrown into the sky.
They didn’t fade. They kept coming. Fireworks.
Round after round burst overhead, lighting up the darkness in brilliant color. A show meant for no one but me.
I stepped off the rocks, a squeal escaping my lips as I tipped my head back toward the sky, lifting my hands as if I could reach up and touch the flashing lights.
I heard Austin running back toward me just as I spun in a slow circle, laughter spilling out before I even realized I was laughing.
Time blurred. Minutes felt like seconds.
Or maybe seconds stretched into minutes.
I wasn’t sure. I was too caught up in the colors, the sound, the way my chest felt like it might burst from happiness alone.
When I finally turned toward him, Austin was standing right beside me.
He wasn’t laughing. He was watching me. Watching like I was something rare.
Something worth memorizing. Watching like my reaction mattered more to him than the fireworks themselves.
“I can’t believe I get to exist at the same time as you,” he said, his voice so low I felt the words settle in my stomach.
And just like that, I forgot about the fireworks.
The waterfall. Everything. All I could think about were his words from the other week.
Our first kiss will be the kind they write songs about.
If there was ever a moment meant for a first kiss, it was now.
But Austin didn’t close the distance. His lips didn’t touch mine.
He only stood there, staring at me, as the last remnants of the fireworks drifted down around us like ash after a volcano’s eruption.
“Now I can take you home,” he said quietly.
Something in his eyes told me he had gotten exactly what he wanted from tonight.
I nodded, even as I pushed the disappointment down, tucking it somewhere I wouldn’t have to look at it just yet.
His hand found my back in a way that was becoming gorgeously predictable, grounding me as he guided me toward the car.
He didn’t speak as he walked me there. Neither did I.
He held the door open while I climbed into the passenger seat.
He didn’t speak as he drove me home. Neither did I.
The fireworks were gone, but my body was still lit up like they’d branded the inside of me.
The adrenaline was still coursing through me, leaving my body light and buzzing, like I hadn’t fully landed back inside myself yet.
The ride felt impossibly short, and before I was ready, my house was already coming into view.
Austin put the car in park and stepped out immediately.
I barely had time to process it before he was at my door, opening it for me.
Something charged filled the air as he walked me to my front step.
Anticipation, maybe. Expectation. And while a kiss at my doorstep wasn’t as cinematic as one beneath man-made shooting stars, it still felt like something that could change me.
“You won’t have to wait a week to hear from me again, Yellow,” Austin said once we stopped in front of my door.
“Thank you for tonight,” I told him, meaning it with everything in me. “It was pretty perfect.”
“Was it?” he asked softly. “You know, this is all pretty new to me.”
“Dates?” I asked, the word slipping out before I could stop it. I wasn’t sure why I assumed that. Austin seemed like the kind of boy who had lived through hundreds of them.
“Dates that matter,” he said. He lifted his hand, and it landed on my shoulder before tracing a slow path down my arm, like the waterfall he’d shown me earlier.
Deliberate. Unhurried. His fingers found mine, curling gently around my hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
He turned it palm-up and pressed a kiss there, soft and reverent, like it was something he’d been wanting to do all night.
“I’ll call you,” he murmured once his lips left my skin.
Then he let go. He turned and walked away, leaving me standing there, stunned, my body still buzzing with the echo of his touch.
By the time I managed to open my front door, my thoughts were already spiraling, tripping over themselves as I tried to make sense of him. Of tonight. Of everything.
He should have kissed me. The thought was loud. Insistent. It drowned out every other one. He should have kissed me. My heart was racing now, my mind moving faster than I could keep up with. Before I’d fully decided to, my body acted on its own.
I threw the front door open. I was ready to call after him.
Ready to demand an explanation. Ready to ask the question burning on my tongue.
Why didn’t you kiss me? But I didn’t have to search for him.
Austin was already there. He was crouched on my doorstep, frozen mid-motion, his hand hovering just above the wood like he’d been caught stealing something sacred.
His head snapped up when the door opened, eyes widening before he slowly stood.
My gaze dropped instantly. A single yellow rose lay at my feet.
“You were supposed to find that tomorrow,” he said quietly, uncertainty threading through the words.
I looked back up at him, and the same feeling that had overtaken me beneath the fireworks surged again, full and overwhelming.
My heart didn’t wait for permission this time.
Neither did I. I stepped forward and closed the space between us.
My lips met Austin’s like a car crash, skin against skin, metal against metal.
He didn’t hesitate once the kiss began, his hands rising immediately to frame my face.
I poured every feeling he’d given me back into the kiss, pressing it into him, hoping I could make him feel what he’d made me feel.
My blood rushed loud in my ears, and I couldn’t think about anything except the way we were finally colliding, the way we had been meant to collide for what felt like an eternity.
My lips moved with more urgency, and his answered without question.
But only for a second. A single second that stole all the air from my lungs.
Austin pulled away. His hands stayed on my face.
I exhaled hard, our eyes pouring into each other like I’d just run too many flights of stairs. He shook his head slowly, a breathless laugh slipping out of him, and I couldn’t tell if he was overwhelmed or amused or something dangerously close to undone.
“You ruin all my plans, Yellow,” he breathed. He sounded just as wrecked as I felt.
“I’m sorry,” I said simply. We both knew I wasn’t.
Austin laughed again, softer this time. His fingers slid from my jaw to my lips, tracing them so lightly I might not have felt it at all if not for the sparks he left behind. “Goodnight, Yellow,” he said at last.
His hand finally fell away. He bent down, picked up the rose he’d left on my doorstep, and pressed it into my hands before turning away. This time, I didn’t follow him. I watched. He was nearly at his car when he turned back toward me, like he couldn’t quite leave without saying one more thing.
“You know,” he said, his voice easy but honest, “that rose doesn’t even come close to your beauty. But it was the closest thing I could find that reminded me of you.”
I looked down at the flower in my hands. “A yellow rose?”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “A yellow rose.”