24 | FightFlight
Fight or Flight
Molly
LORRAINE WON’T STOP talking the whole way home. Seriously. I don’t even know how she’s breathing.
“And I think Penelope needs a collar—probably a purple one. And it needs to have sparkles, obviously.” She’s leaning forward as far as her seatbelt will allow, even though I’ve told her over five times to sit back in her seat.
“Do you think Penelope likes purple, Niall? Or is she more of a green girl?”
I see Niall’s eyes flick to the rearview mirror, a sweet smile on his face. “She’s definitely a purple girl, Ray.”
“Ray? I like that. Should I give you a special nickname?”
Niall laughs, pulling onto Strand Street. “Sure. Let me know what you come up with.”
Lorraine falls back into her seat, presumably to brainstorm on her own. I let my head rest against the cool window, feeling a chill down to my bones even with the heater blasting. It was the thought of going from Niall’s warm house to my quiet one.
It wasn't that Jamie or Mom haven’t been trying to get me to come out of my shell—as I heard Mom say to Dad on the phone the other night—because they were. I just wasn't being very receptive to their efforts.
And I’m not in a shell. For the record. Although it certainly felt like I’ve been put in a straightjacket, having to watch life as I knew warp in front of me.
It doesn’t seem fair. That Mom thinks we can be best-friend mother and daughter even after she decided five years ago she wanted to move out and travel the world.
Unfair, that Jamie can show up out of the blue with no explanation—not that I was letting her give me one.
Nope. Any effort she’d made to talk to me, I would brush her off and push it down.
Okay, maybe I was in a shell.
That was how I’d always dealt with things. Push things down so you don’t have to deal with your problems.
Where do all those feelings of sadness and anger go?
I haven’t figured it out yet.
“We’re here!” Lorraine cheers, pulling me out of my head. She unbuckles before Niall even cuts the engine. “Can I go tell them, Mol? Can I go tell Mommy and Jamie?”
“Go ahead, Rainey,” I say. “Just walk carefully, so you don’t trip.”
Without needing a second invitation, she scrambles out of the car, her ballet bag swinging over her shoulder as she bolts for the front door.
I watch her go, a tiny blur of pink tights and blonde hair.
She’s so untethered by the tension in our house, always has been.
I oftentimes found myself envying her for being young enough to be so innocent.
I haven't moved yet. My hand is on the door handle, but I can’t bring myself to pull it. I’m just not ready to go.
“Molly?”
I glance at Niall, seeing he’s shifted in his seat so his body is angled toward mine.
“I should go in,” I whisper.
“Just a minute,” he says, deep eyes searching mine. “Are you alright?”
I glance at the house, and then back to him, debating on lying to him. Then ultimately I let out a breath, deciding what the hell. “There’s just been... a lot going on.”
“I’ve noticed,” he says, the words bringing on more shock than they probably should.
But the thought of Niall Blue noticing things about me made my heart spike just a little.
“You can tell me, ya know. I’ve been waiting for you to come to me on your own, I just haven’t wanted to push you on it.
But just know that you can lay it on me whenever you’re ready—all of it. ”
All of it? No way. There were monsters bigger and beyond what’s inside that house. Nightmares that paled in comparison to a complicated family dynamic.
No one can ever know all of it.
But some of it. Some of it I could do.
I tried my best to sum up the stuff, with Jamie and my mom, in as few words as possible.
Though I threw in a few more “uhms” and “likes” than I probably should have, one of my worser habits.
Filler words, I could practically hear my English teacher shaking her head at me.
But Niall just keeps nodding along, listening.
“I just feel... a bit lonely there,” I conclude, feeling stupid as I say it. But then I remember what I told Claire last Friday, and try to tell myself to shut up and take my own advice. If it’s bothering you, it’s not stupid. “Even with Lorraine. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“I think I get it,” Niall finally says. “But you know, you don’t have to be lonely. You can call me anytime you want—or Claire, or some other friend, even JJ. Though I’d use the last one sparingly. You might want to be lonely.”
I let out a laugh, one that makes me realize I’ve become choked up. I try to steel my nerves instantly. If I cry in front of him, I might just die.
“And I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d come over in a heartbeat. I’ll be as loud and annoying as you want and make you forget you were ever lonely in the first place.”
I crack a smile and risk using my voice. “You’d do that?”
“I’d do a lot of things to keep that look off your face,” he murmurs. “Sadness doesn’t quite fit you, Molly Lockhart.”
He leans in closer, the air in the car feeling like it’s suddenly charged with electricity.
Like if this were a storm, lighting could strike any second with all the heat crackling between us.
But I’m so caught up I can’t even brace myself for impact; I’m too busy mapping down every detail of his face.
His eyes. His cheekbones. His nose, which looks like it’s been broken at some point in his past. His long eyelashes. Why do boys always have such long and pretty eyelashes?
“Niall,” I breathe, my map leading me to his lips, looking incredibly soft right now. Like they’ve got a big, neon sign lit up, beckoning me closer.
This could be bad.
“Molly,” he says, sounding just as out of breath as me. A quick flick of my eyes tells me his have mapped their own path to my own lips.
Or it could be good?
Is this happening? Is this really happening? I thought it might have been about to happen in the kitchen the other night—and then it didn’t after all. Maybe I’m crazy, maybe this is—
My train of thought malfunctions, as he leans across the center console, his hand coming up to cup my jaw, his thumb stroking the line of my cheekbone. His movements are feather-light and hesitant, like he’s checking if I’m going to pull away.
I don’t. I lean into him, my eyes fluttering shut.
On first contact, it’s nothing but a simple peck. A soft, (as I’d suspected they would be, and I love being right) fleeting brush of his lips against mine. It’s sweet and has almost a timid feeling to it, a picture perfect, story-book first kiss.
He pulls away first, taking all my oxygen with him. At least that’s what it feels like, when I’m suddenly robbed of the ability to use my lungs. I open my eyes, finding him still only an inch away. He looks terrified and exhilarated all at once, his emotions written in the depth of his blue eyes.
“Was that okay?” he whispers.
I decide words won’t suffice as an answer, even if I could form them. Instead I decide to reach out, my fingers finding purchase in the soft hair at the nape of his neck and pull him back to me.
It feels like a dam breaking, weeks of suppressed feelings and unspoken words finally finding an outlet in this one kiss. Niall’s hand is cupping my face still, the other finding the small of my back, pulling me as close as the car’s interior would allow.
I would like to have a very stern word with the man who invented the center console.
It’s a real, heated, steamy, romantic kiss that’s made the world outside the car disappear.
All I know is the taste of him, the heat of his skin, and the way his heart is thumping just as fast as mine.
It’s like an out of body experience, only instead of feeling numb I feel twice as alive.
Like I very well might explode; every nerve ending I have is on fire, sparking and popping with this beautiful energy.
I’ve never felt anything like this—this pull, this gravity defying ache.
It seems almost impossible. Should anyone be allowed to feel this good?
When I part my lips, Niall’s tongue brushes against mine. The contact causes a soft, needy sound to escape from the back of my throat. I can’t even be embarrassed. He responds by deepening the kiss, his hand sliding from my jaw into my hair.
It felt like we both knew some unspoken truth. Like if we let go, we’d drift too far away to ever come together again.
For now, we were in our own little world, a bubble of heat and friction on a cold October evening.
And like he knew this was a means to an end, Niall pulls away first.
Actually, scratch that. I wouldn’t call it pulling away.
No, pulling away would have been preferable.
Niall scrambles back into his seat, his chest heaving and his hands going to grip the steering wheel, white-knuckled, as if they hadn’t just been tangled in my hair.
As if they hadn’t lightly caressed my jaw.
As if he hadn’t felt that very same electric, exploding, emotion driven feeling during that kiss as I had.
What if the best thing I’ve ever felt was just another feeling to him?
I stay frozen, wondering if I had just hallucinated the whole thing. But no. His hair is messy, and he looks like he’s just been hit by a truck.
My lips are still tingling. “Niall?”
He won’t look at me. Instead he’s staring out the windshield, looking like he’s trying to regain control of his breathing.
“You should go in now,” he says finally.
Rejection washes over me like a bucket of ice water, numbing all the heat that had just been radiating through my body.
“What?” I stammer. “Niall, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he says quickly. “It’s late. Your mom is gonna be waiting inside. Just... go in, Molly.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
He shakes his head quickly. “No. It’s not you.” His eyes are shadowed with something unreadable. Is it guilt? Fear? Regret? “I just... I can’t do this right now. Please. Just go.”
He looks wrong. Different. Like in a split second something had snapped inside of him. It almost hurt to look at him, to see the wall he’d just slammed up between us, higher and thicker than ever before.
“Okay,” I whisper, forcing the words out. Because I knew about walls. All too well.
So I carefully put my own back up and get out of his car.