The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned in, closing the space between us until his icy breath was warm against my lips. “That's what you get to decide. If not tell me to stop,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “do it.”
“Wyn….” I sighed as he backed me up against my desk, his hands pinned on either side.
“I need you to tell me to stop, tell me you don’t want this, tell me your firsts aren’t mine to have.” He pleaded, with a tone of desperation I’d never heard from him before.
I didn’t. Obviously.
And so then he did what I’d been dreaming of since I was only thirteen.
Hekissedme, his lips brushing mine in a way that was both tentative and devastatingly certain. My chest tightened as my hands found their way to his damp shirt, clutching the fabric as if it could anchor me. He deepened the kiss slowly, his hand sliding to the back of my neck, pulling me closer. It wasn’t just a kiss; it was a claiming, a slow unravelling of something I didn’t fully understand but couldn’t resist.
He kissed me like a dam breaking, the force of it stealing the air from my lungs. His lips were warm and insistent, pressing against mine with a hunger that felt barely contained. I gasped against his mouth, the sound swallowed between us as his handslid to the back of my neck, pulling me impossibly closer. Every sensation was amplified—the softness of his lips, the faint taste of coffee lingering on his tongue, the heat radiating off his skin. My fingers clutched at his damp shirt, desperate to hold onto something as the world tilted on its axis.
His shirt clung to his chest, the fabric slick against my palms as I fisted it, pulling him closer like I couldn't bear even the smallest distance. It wasn't a kiss meant to seduce or coax; it was a collision, a desperate, aching thing. Like he'd been holding back for too long and now couldn't stop himself. His other hand found my waist, firm but trembling slightly as if even he wasn't sure what came next. I made a soft, involuntary sound against his lips, and it seemed to undo him entirely.
So much so that he pulled back. Almost as if we’d been underwater and needed to come up for air. “You didn’t say no.” He breathed.
“I didn’twantto.” I assured him. He placed his hand on my cheek and suddenly his eyes filled with emotion as if he’d just realized what he had done. And that there was no going back from it, he realised the magnitude of his feelings and what they meant.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s something I have to do, something very important.” He grabbed ahold of both my hands, then planted a kiss me on the palm of my right hand.
“What do you mean?” I wondered in confusion as he threw on a hoodie from my rack.
Let’s ignore the fact that he was wearing my bright purple Gracie Abrams US tour hoodie, and that he could fit it.
“I mean that before this can happen, and I meanreallyhappen I need to make things right.” He insisted. “I’ll come back to you Yesoh, I’llalwayscome back.”
And then, he was out the door.
27
Glass Houses
WYNTER’S POV
I was nine the night the glass shattered, but some nights, it feels like something deep inside of me never stopped breaking.
That chilling crystalline crash—still echoes in the back of my mind, catching on memories I wish I could forget.
Mum and appa were arguing again. Their harsh bitter words swirled and ricocheted off the walls, filling the house with a tension so thick I felt suffocated. They were like that all the time lately, didn’t see eye to eye.
My mother Galaine Thomas was a certain kind of person who crumbled in what she perceived as captivity. She wasn’t the kind of woman you could ever tie down, at the end of the day she would do as she pleased damn the consequences. She was an overachiever, graduated with honours and was in search of someone as intelligent as she was to settle down with. And then she met my father and according to her it was love at first convenience. He was there, he was sharp, and witty and kept her on her toes. He was everything she was told she should want for herself.
And so she had a white wedding, the home magazine cover-worthy marriage and the four kids she’d intended. According to her it was the perfect number forone to look after the other.
She wore motherhood like a pair of boots she knew would never fit but attempted to break into nevertheless because she’d paid a lot for them, shoes crafted with expectations she never agreed to. The four of us were not so much her children as we were her anchors, heavy and unrelenting, dragging her into waters she never wanted to tread. Freedom was the horizon she could never reach, no matter how many trips she took or how far she ran. We could see it in her eyes—a bird pacing the confines of a gilded cage, her wings itching for the skies, her songs too distant for us to understand. To her, true love or at least love of oneself was not in the staying but in the leaving, a bolter to her core. She never lingered.
Motherhood was her curse never her blessing.
Her voice was angry, always angry. Appa’s was thunderous, heavy with years of resentment.
“You don’t want to raise him— no what you want is freedom!” Dad’s voice cracked like a whip, raw and accusing.
“That’s not true!” Mum quipped, “Do you want him to waste away the talent I gave him? He’sspecial, and you’d rather seehim buried under mediocrity like you are, I won’t have that for my son!”
Mediocrity. Ordinary. Those were her favourite weapons, and she used them mercilessly as if anything less than brilliance was a betrayal of who she believed we should be. But I was just a kid, and all I needed was her attention—a soft touch, a word of praise, something to make me feel she was proud of me for who I was rather than what I could do.
