“I keep askin’ myself every day—what it is about you that got me this bad?" He shrugs. “I keep thinkin’ if I figure out what it is, I’ll stop feelin’ like this. But the list just… keeps gettin’ fuckin’ longer.”
Oh fuck.
He’s gonna tell me he loves me.
I should stop him.
But my heart’s got her hand over my brain’s mouth—Don’t ruin it. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Let him talk.
And he’s staring at me, hand to his chest,
feelingthe words he’s about to say.
As if it hurts to keep them all in.
“I keep goin’ back to that night at Type.
“Was there with that girl, and then…”
He gestures to me.
“Then I saw you.
“And she was gone, Sonny.
“Nothin' else existed. Nothin' but you.
“Not a slow fade. Not some poetic bullshit.
“I mean—fuckin’ gone.”
He shrugs. “You were gravity, and everything else just fell away.” His eyes burn into me. “And I know how it sounds,” he says, voice worn and torn. “Like some line a guy would use to try to fuck you. But it wasn’t that. Swear to God, Sonny—it wasn’t.
“I just wanted to be next to you.
“Just wanted to keep talking to you.”
He laughs, shy?—
“That would’ve been enough.”
He goes quiet.
My pulse is throwing punches. I can hear the blood brawling through my ears.
“Then… you defended me?—”
His voice stutters him to a halt,
and he looks at me in awe.
“She was throwin’ fuckin’ knives at me, and you—boom—stood right in front of me. Didn’t flinch. Didn't insult her, didn’t make a show of it. You had me. Just like that. Didn't even know me, but stood there. For me.”
He says it, the moment hitting him in the chest all over again.
“After that, hell—you could’ve had anything you wanted from me that night… I’d've given it to you.” He swallows. “But then the way you kissed me… the way you touched me… You made it aboutus. You wanted me in it. With you. All the way.”
He shakes his head, it still getting to him.
