Chapter 19 #2
My mouth goes dry, every thought whooshing from my head as I process what he’s saying. “How … how would that happen?”
Harry looks at me—stares—those glacier-blue eyes sharp and honest. “Maybe it’s already happening for me.”
I shake my head, tripping backward. My ankle twists in a hole in the pavement, and I start to go down. But Harry’s there, he’s always there, reaching out, arm snaking around my waist, catching me before I fall. Gathering me snugly against his chest.
“Have I upset you?” he whispers into my hair.
I shake my head against his sternum. Nod. Shake my head again. “I’m not sure I know what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying I feel things for you, Cubby. Real things that we’ve been calling fake.”
“But … why?”
He laughs at that, pulling back to look at me. Not sure how anything could be funny right now when he’s turning my world upside down. Both of his hands trace up my back and around my shoulders, landing to cup my face.
“Because I like you? Because you’re brilliant? Because I want to be with you as more than a friend?” His face scrunches up in a forlorn smile. “But I need to know if any part of you feels the same.”
In this moment, I can see it, alternate universe me looking up into those electric eyes that she knows better than her own, that face she adores, the guy she trusts.
She’d slowly drag her hands from where they squeeze his forearms, up his biceps, across his chest. Loop them around his neck.
She’d push up on her toes, their gazes still locked, the tip of her nose brushing his.
She’d suck in a deep breath, the familiar, comforting smell of her friend whirling through her system, mixing with her blood in an alchemy that switches from friendship to lover.
And alternate me would smile, then press her lips to Harry’s.
But real me can’t. My heart clangs in my chest in a way that doesn’t feel exhilarating or right. A way that doesn’t feel like it does with …
It doesn’t feel right.
I wish it did. Everything would be so much easier if it did.
“I’m not sure I can stop pretending,” I whisper.
Harry’s smile wobbles then steadies, equal parts sad and self-deprecating. “What if I told you I’m willing to wait around for you to decide?”
My hands feel shaky, like they’re trying to hold on at the edge of a cliff, the only thing saving me from a free fall. I make a conscious effort to release my grip on him and step away, pressing my palms to my burning cheeks.
But what if? What if I loved Harry like that?
What if I said yes to someone who actually wanted me?
Someone who would kiss me and make love to me and not pretend it didn’t happen the next morning?
Someone who adored me and wrote songs about it being amazing, not a disappointment?
Because that person is right here, right now, making me that offer.
We could be good together, I know we could. We could make each other laugh. Make each other happy. That’s all a relationship really needs … right?
I shove away the voice in my head that screams no.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay?” Harry’s smile is so wide and eager, I almost giggle.
“I can’t stop you from waiting,” I say with a shrug, trying and failing to hide my own wobbly smile. I don’t know why I feel like I’m about to cry. “This is a free country, so they tell me.”
Harry laughs, bumping my shoulder with his. “Always so romantic. You sure it’s still a no to that love song?”
I snort. “I’m sure. I’ll never make the mistake of writing one of those again.”
“Should we practice?” he asks suddenly.
“Practice what?”
“Well, uh, the kissing bit.”
“Novice, are you?” I tease, stomach clenching at the idea. Do I want to kiss him again?
No.
Yes.
No.
… Kind of?
It’s so hard to be unwanted by the person I desperately need. I’d do anything for Darcy to offer me what Harry just did. I want the attention, I want the validation that I’m here and worth chasing after.
“Okay,” I whisper again. I hear Harry’s intake of breath.
“Okay,” he murmurs, leaning toward me. I mirror the movement. We stare at each other for a long time, his eyes still shockingly bright even in the midnight darkness.
With excruciating tenderness, he places a hand to my cheek, then drags it along the angle of my jaw, down until it curves around the nape of my neck. His thumb traces the spot of my thrumming pulse before he gently applies pressure, my lips parting on the barest hint of a gasp.
It’s so strange, Harry touching me like this, like I’m something precious, like he’s played this moment out a million times in his head and he’s savoring reality.
It’s made all the stranger by how natural it feels, like his touch belongs on my skin, these threads of intimacy as simple as our friendship’s history.
He jerks forward like he can’t hold his muscles back a second longer, closing the distance between us, lips pressing against mine in a way that’s both gentle and consuming. Harry kisses me like he needs me, and it makes my blood burn in my veins.
I kiss him back like if I kiss him hard enough, I can convince myself I need him too.
Something inside me slices in half from the pressure of it all—the desperate want to be wanted, to throw everything I have into this kiss, to surrender to the promise Harry’s offering, the lashing jolt that none of this is right.
I push the latter away, wrapping my arms around his neck, kissing Harry harder like that will force the protesting parts out of me.
Harry matches my passion with equivalent passion, a hungry sound coming from his throat, vibrating against my lips. A few tears slip down my cheeks as I register how deeply present he is in the moment, how with each passing second, each closer press of my body against his, I float further away.
The sound of the bus door opening cracks through our haze, and we jump apart, swaying in opposite directions as a sharp gasp echoes in the night.
I shoot a guilty look over my shoulder and instantly wish more than anything that I had kept my eyes fixed on the ground. Darcy stares back at me, lips parted, face crestfallen, as the light from inside illuminates her like a vision.
I step toward her, mouth opening and closing on air as I try to speak, to say something, any desperate explanation, a ridiculous cry that she’s the one I want to be kissing. But she doesn’t hang around long enough to hear it.
“Sorry,” she rushes out, voice cracking a bit. “So sorry.” She disappears back inside and slams the door closed.
My heart shatters with the noise.