CHAPTER 29 #2
Sebastian didn’t move a muscle. He stared at me, his eyes unreadable, the lines in his neck corded with tension.
“What I’m trying to say is…” My heart climbed into my throat.
It was my turn to lay all my cards on the table, and as petrifying as that was, I had to do it.
I would never forgive myself if I didn’t.
“I’ve found my answer. You asked whether I felt the same about you as you do me. The answer is yes.”
His composure finally cracked, and a ragged breath exploded out of him. “Don’t,” he said, the word tight with barely restrained emotion.
I took another step toward him, the ache in my chest so sharp it burned. “You wanted the truth. That’s mine.”
A flicker of anguish passed through his eyes before he tore his gaze away, his throat working with a hard swallow.
“I can’t do this again.” His voice was so low, I almost didn’t hear him.
“I’ve spent years waiting for you, hoping—” He cut himself off, his jaw clenching.
“I was done. You don’t get to walk in after everything and upend my world again. ”
Was done. Not am done.
Past tense.
A tiny spark of hope fluttered behind my rib cage.
“I know,” I whispered. I closed the remaining distance between us and pressed a soft, tentative kiss to his jaw. Another shudder ran through him, but he didn’t push me away. “I know you don’t have a good reason to believe me. But I have to try.”
My lips lingered on his skin. It was warm and rough with the faintest hint of stubble.
Sebastian closed his eyes, every muscle in his body coiling as if it hurt to have me this close. I slowly kissed my way across his jaw, one hand lightly braced against his chest. I could feel the rapid thump of his heart beneath my palm.
I’d said everything I wanted to say, and I wouldn’t blame him if he thought it wasn’t enough. If my late-night confession didn’t make up for the years of pain I’d put him through, knowingly or not.
But I hoped against hope that he tasted the depth of my honesty, and that he’d give us a chance even after all the lies and misunderstandings.
When I reached the corner of his mouth, I paused, my breath mingling with his. “Do you want me to leave?” I asked, my voice small with vulnerability.
It was a callback to our kiss in the garden a lifetime ago.
Tell me the truth. No more lies. Do you want me to leave?
I wished with everything in me that I could redo those forty-eight hours. Since that wasn’t possible, I had no choice but to wait, my stomach in knots.
Sebastian didn’t move for an agonizingly long moment. When he turned his head toward me again, his expression was tortured. I saw the war raging inside him, and for a brief, heart-stopping second, I thought he might say yes.
But his response came out rough and raw, as if he hated himself for his weakness. “No.”
I didn’t get a chance to react before he grabbed my face with his hands and crushed the word between our lips. His letter fluttered to the floor as I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back with equal fervor.
Smoke and whiskey filled my lungs. The kiss was hard and desperate, like we were trying to make up for weeks, months, years of distance and longing. It was a culmination of everything we’d wanted but held back on, and the last barriers between us crumbled as I surrendered myself completely.
I wanted to drink him in forever, but we eventually had to break for air. We pulled apart, our foreheads pressed together as we caught our breaths.
Sebastian traced the edge of my locket with his thumb, his face softening. “Nice outfit,” he said, a tinge of familiar amusement in his voice.
Relief bloomed, free and unencumbered by my earlier uncertainty. This was my Sebastian, not the cold, unfeeling stranger who’d greeted me at the door.
“I figured the time for subtlety was long past. Also…” My breath hitched when his fingers brushed against the bare skin of my throat. “This sweatshirt is really comfortable.”
His chuckle filled me with warmth.
I didn’t want to ruin the moment by bringing up the past again, but I had to know. We had to figure out what’d happened, if only so we could put it behind us.
“All these years, you thought I wrote that awful response,” I said. “Why didn’t you confront me about it? If I confessed my feelings to someone and that was their reaction, I would’ve lost it.” It was one thing to turn someone down; it was another to do it so heartlessly.
But Sebastian had never given any indication he was mad at me. Our banter and rivalry had continued, uninterrupted, through college and our twenties. It wasn’t until Radhika’s wedding that I had an inkling something was wrong.
“Because,” he said quietly, his gaze coming up to meet mine again. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
Emotion swelled in my throat. I thought about all the years we’d lost, and another ache ripped through me.
But strangely enough, part of me was also glad our relationship had unfolded the way it had.
I wasn’t sure our younger selves would’ve been mature enough to make it in the long run.
We were different people back then, still learning, still too stubborn and prideful to bend even when the situation called for it.
“You won’t lose me,” I said. “I’ll always be here.”
Sebastian smiled, but it didn’t fully reach his eyes. “Don’t break my heart, Sal.”
My chest fractured. How could I break his heart when he was already breaking mine?
I stood on tiptoes and kissed him again, letting my touch convey the emotions I didn’t have the words to articulate.
The taste of whisky wasn’t as strong this time around, but it was still enough to make me dizzy. “How much did you drink tonight?” I asked, half amused and half worried.
“Enough that I thought it might make me forget a certain person who haunted my every waking moment.” His tone was sardonic.
His reply shouldn’t have made me as happy as it did. At least I wasn’t the only one consumed by our separation these past few weeks. “Did it?”
“Not even close.”
Sebastian pulled me close again, and any stray thoughts vanished as I lost myself in his embrace. He made me feel like the rest of the world didn’t exist when we were together, and I couldn’t believe there’d been a time when I thought I could survive without him. Without this.
My hands roamed over his shoulders and down his arms. Our kiss grew hotter, more urgent, but when I tried to tug his shirt over his head, he stopped me with a shake of his head.
“Not tonight,” he said.
I blinked. “You’re turning down sex?”
“For the time being.” Sebastian’s mouth quirked at my sputter of disbelief. “I want to do this the proper way. Courtship first, then sex.”
“But…” I was flabbergasted. “We’ve already had sex.”
“That was before we started dating.”
A wave of flutters swept away my indignation. Dating. For once, the word didn’t send dread crashing through me.
“Is that what we’re doing?” I teased, unable to stay upset when I was this close to floating off the ground. “I don’t remember you asking me to be your girlfriend.”
“That’s because you asked me to be your boyfriend first.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Really?” Sebastian drawled. “Because you’re the one who showed up at my house, wearing my sweatshirt and…”
“Fine, fine.” I laughed. “We’ll call it a tie. We asked each other to be official.”
“I should’ve known you’d fight me even on semantics, but that’s what I signed up for.” He brushed my hair out of my eye, his touch tender. “I’m glad you came tonight,” he said softly.
I smiled, something inside me melting. “Me too.”
I was the type of person who lived in the future. I was always thinking three steps ahead, my brain hard-wired to plan for future contingencies.
But for once, I let those instincts rest and simply… existed in the moment.
It was one of the best I’d had in years.
Dear Maya,
It feels weird to write to you when our last written correspondence was in fifth grade.
I won our school spelling bee after you got tripped up by “chiaroscurist,” and you left me a note filled with quite a few choice words of your own.
I have to say, I’ve never seen someone use “truncheon” and “rectum” in such a creative sentence before.
I wasn’t the most gracious winner, so I suppose I deserved it.
The note I wrote back wasn’t very nice, either.
But fifth grade was a long time ago, and some things can only be expressed through ink on paper.
I’m sitting alone in the library, where we’ve spent countless nights arguing about the most mundane of topics, and the illusion of anonymity is what gives me the courage to write this letter.
That… and the memory of you, sitting right across from me.
I think you’d laugh if you saw how nervous I am right now.
I debated for months over whether I should tell you at all. It’s terrifying to imagine how you might react, but we’re about to graduate, and even though we’ll be attending the same university, I have a feeling that if I don’t say this now, I never will.
So here’s the truth: I love you. Fully, inexplicably, and painfully. I’ve loved you in silence, through the turbulence of the years, and in the margins of our rivalry. You’re all I think about when I’m awake, and you’re all I dream about when I’m not. It is… agonizing.
I tried to deny it because I’m supposed to hate you.
You were the thorn in my side, the obstacle on my way to success.
You’re the only person who’s ever challenged me, and I didn’t know how to handle it.
I wasn’t used to being bested, especially not by someone who was so happy to rub it in my face. Honestly, it pissed me off.
But somewhere along the way, my feelings changed.
I don’t know when, or how, or why. I’m sure it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that the very things I hated about you in the beginning are the things that I love about you now…
your drive, your intelligence, your wit (which you’ve used against me many times), your sense of humor and your audacity to be openly proud of your accomplishments.
You don’t shrink yourself to fit into the boxes other people built for you, and sometimes, the sting from your thorns is the only thing reminding me that I’m still alive.
Without you, my life would be an empty canvas, pristine in its perfection but yearning for color to fill it.
You see me as your rival, and part of me will always be that. I think we’re both too proud to ever stop competing in one way or another. It’s a core part of our relationship, and I wouldn’t want it to change.
But I hope that when you read this, you’ll also see me as something more.
It’s possible I may have imagined the significance of our shared moments or read too much into the glances between us.
This type of love isn’t something I have experience with, so like I said, it’s terrifying to think about how you might react.
However, I once read a quote that stuck with me: “Risk must be taken because the greatest hazard of life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.” Leo Buscaglia.
So here I am, taking the biggest risk of my life to tell you that I love you, part of me has always loved you, and part of me will always love you, no matter how you respond. If there’s even the slightest chance that you feel the same, then every risk I took would’ve been well worth it.
Love,
Sebastian