Chapter 21 - Lily #2
He took my hand carefully, and I let him. When he was sure I wasn't going to react negatively, he added, "But in that case, please let's use the bed. I think even if I have an eighteen-year-old body, this floor will never be comfortable enough for me to spend the night."
I laughed, and we slowly got up. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, we lay down on my bed.
Even though it was a queen-size bed, we both lay right in the middle, me resting my head on his chest and him holding me with one arm underneath.
This was a mistake. I knew it was a mistake even as I melted into his embrace because this felt too much like home, too much like the future I'd once imagined for us.
We both closed our eyes, but I knew I wasn't going to sleep. Or at least not now, with my heart racing like that, with every nerve ending hyperaware of where our bodies touched, with the scent of him filling my senses.
After a few minutes of feeling his heartbeat, I slowly opened my eyes and moved my head slightly to look up at him. He was staring at the ceiling, his jaw tense, and I wondered if he was as affected by our proximity as I was.
"Tell me something I don't know about your current life," I told him, sensing he wasn’t in the mood to sleep wither.
"I don't know, I surf now."
“I want to know something that isn't on your social media."
"You've been stalking me?"
"My friends have been stalking you. I just happened to be there."
He smiled, and I couldn't tear my gaze away from his face.
He was beautiful. Even in the dim light filtering through my window, I could make out every detail—the sharp line of his jaw, the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks, the slight upturn of his lips that had always driven me crazy.
I'd forgotten how much I used to love just watching him like this, memorizing the contours of his face when he wasn't looking back at me with those intense eyes that seemed to see straight through to my soul.
I tried to imagine his adult self, the man I'd seen in the office kitchen. How he still had all these features, but refined and sharpened by time and experience. And I knew I was in danger. I didn't want to think about him like that again. Not right now. It wasn't right.
But lying here, feeling the solid warmth of his body against mine, hearing the steady rhythm of his heart, it was getting harder and harder to remember why I was supposed to keep my distance.
"Remember when you forced me to go to the beach for that volunteer trash-picking project to save the planet?" He asked me.
"How could I forget? You complained for hours about me making you get up early on a Sunday."
"I still do."
"Complaining if people wake you up early?"
"Volunteer for beach-picking projects. I've gone further over the years; I plant trees, I hardly use plastic products, and I even divide my trash whenever I can. I'm obsessed with recycling."
"No way. Not even I've done one of those volunteer missions again; that experience wasn't that impactful in my life." I laughed louder than I should have. "Why do you do it?"
"Because I like feeling like I'm doing something good for the world, contributing to making it a little better."
"You know that big corporations are the first ones that should stop harming the planet so that what you do actually works, right?"
"Not necessarily. And now that we're in this situation, I'm realizing that even more.
Sometimes, we feel like we're doing minimal things, but the impact on someone else can be greater than we imagine.
I think if Jeremy, Leo, and Oliver himself had had someone to talk to, even minimally, we could have avoided a lot. "
"You're a hopeless romantic, Kyle, you know that, right?"
"And I thought I was a man without a heart."
He kissed my forehead, and I tried to pretend the gesture didn't affect me at all, that my breath hadn't caught, that my heart wasn't hammering against my ribs.
Because admitting how much it affected me meant admitting how much power he still had over me.
"Technically, you're not fully a man yet. You'll be fine."
"Thank goodness, I think I still have time to redeem myself and become someone worse. Now that we're in this situation, I have plenty of time to be a scumbag in society."
"Can't wait to see you trying," I answered with a smile on my face.
"Is there anything you miss about your present life right now?" He asked.
I didn't have to think twice before answering. "My friends, Claudette and Marlin." I felt so alone right now without them.
Teenage Lily didn't have any friends; she felt like she didn't need them. She was too independent, sure that once she left school, she would go, and she wanted nothing more than Kyle by her side. I knew better.
"The stalkers?"
I gently punched him in the arm. "Hey! Don't call them that, they're amazing once you get to know them. But yes, I'm talking about them. They're very intense, but they're the only people who understand me in the present. I don't know what I'll do without them if we don't return."
"I know you'll find a way to reconnect with them. Anyone would be lucky to have you in their life." He responded.
"It doesn't count if it's you who says it."
I didn't know what he replied. My exhaustion finally caught up with me, and I fell asleep in his arms, feeling safer than I had in ten years.