24. Chapter 23
Chapter 23
James
I ’m not sure what I’m more nervous about.
If it’s seeing my mum for the first time in so long, or having to spend the whole day with Katherine.
It must be the former.
Because I think if it’s the latter, I might be in trouble. I spend the day with her all the time at the shop, this shouldn’t be any different.
It shouldn’t. But it is, because this time, we’ve chosen to spend time together. There's no obligation on either side. Neither of us have to be here but we are.
I’ve spent most of the morning thinking over when it all changed, when I changed because I have. More than I think I realised, none of that would have happened if she hadn’t been here in the first place.
But the more I think about it, I take notice that no one has ever pushed me back when I push the way she does. Someone making me look at things and myself a little different, I’ve never had to question the beliefs I had about the world. The beliefs I had about certain people. But Katherine she’s not what I thought, not what I’d told myself people like her were like. Kinda made me start thinking I’d had some of this all wrong. It scares me and also kinda excites me. She makes me think I don’t have to play life with the cards I was dealt, I can make new rules .
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. I'm not her soulmate but maybe I can show her why she might not need that anymore. I’m almost determined to show her a bit more of myself today, show her the pieces I’ve had in the shadows for so long. Because I think she has some beliefs about who I am too, about the kind of person I am. But I don’t think that is the picture I want her to have anymore.
As I knock on the front door for Ella’s house, I find my hands sweating. I'm thinking about what we’ll talk about, and if we’ll be able to keep up with this non-friendship friendship we have going on at the moment. Because I want to push it, I want to see how far I can push her until we fall off the cliff completely. I want to see how far I can take this until she sees it could be more. Because I can’t and won’t do anything until I know, until I see it in her eyes that she wants more from me.
I’m thinking about whether we’ll dance together if the day goes well and if we’ll laugh about things once she’s had a drink, god I’d pay to hear her laugh at something I’ve said.
Yeah, I’m in trouble.
Then she opens the door and I think I forget to breathe.
Come on. Keep it together.
She’s beautiful.
She’s always beautiful, but right now in this doorway, she looks even more breathtaking. I’m not sure I’ll even be able to take it all in, I need to be able to stop time completely just so I can look at her and memorise the way she’s looking at me. As much as I want her to want this, I can’t be sure she will, so I make note to remember everything from today, so I can pretend that I am the only guy she’ll ever want.
Her hair is pulled up off her shoulders and neck, with some strands that fall around her face. The gold dress she’s wearing makes her skin glow under the sunlight. And I can’t help but notice she’s still wearing the whale necklace .
That warms up my heart more than anything, the fact she’s wearing something I got her. Sure, she doesn’t know I got it but I like it all the same. It’s like a little secret I’m carrying around with me. One I’m dying to tell her, maybe she’d hate me a little less if I did.
Maybe she’d believe me when I tell her I don’t hate her. But we’re in a good rhythm right now. I can't deny that. I don’t think she’d be doing this for me, coming to the wedding, if she didn’t like me just a little.
“You look…” I’m blank, there aren’t enough words in the English language to try and explain how she looks. She looks surprised and almost shocked, does she think I’m having trouble thinking because she looks bad? Surely she knows how amazing she looks?
She plays with the hem of the dress as she looks me over too, and then her face finally snaps back to a small smile. “I’m going to come up with my own complaint in my head if you can’t string a sentence together.” She teases me and it actually makes me feel more normal when she does, like this is the thing that’s totally normal to us.
“Make it a good one. Something about the sun not shining as bright as you.” Her cheeks go red and I think that might be my favourite thing. No matter how much of our back and forth we have and everything we say, every now and then I’ll say something that manages to embarrass her.
“Got it, sun, me better. Thank you.”
I like catching her off guard, making her cheeks flush and her eyes twinkle in a way only the stars could try and compete with.
“Should we go?” she finally says, tipping her head towards my truck parked behind her car, popping the bubble around us.
I put my hand out for her, wondering how well she’ll walk in those heels and honestly because I just want to hold it again. I could have let go of her a million times at that Halloween party, but I didn’t want to. She looks at it for a second, chewing at her bottom lip before taking my hand in hers.
The spark from feeling her touch runs up my arm and goes right to my head. Making me feel light, a bit like I’ve had my oxygen restricted.
I watch her face from the side as we walk to my truck, she’s concentrating far too much on walking over the uneven surface to notice. I have to mentally slap myself a little. I’m being an idiot, I’m letting myself think like there’s anyway, any chance in this world, that in any universe we exist in, she would look at me the way I’m looking at her.
I have to be imagining it.
Because there isn’t a universe where a guy like me deserves a girl like her and definitely not when her heart is set on her soulmate. I can’t blame her, I’m not even sure I can be mad about it anymore, I just wish she didn’t. I wish I could put into words the way I feel, the way I can feel literal electricity when I touch her, the way I would protect her from all the evil, all the pain she’s ever felt.
Christ.
Yeah, you and me both, brain.
I like her a lot, and there’s not a single thing I can do about it.