He nods, and I hate that he looks scared. “I am.”
“All this time.” This time it’s not a question. I’m trying to process.
“All this time,” he echoes.
I turn around, close my eyes, and take a deep breath.
“I know this is a lot, Soph. Please tell me what you’re thinking,” he whispers.
Normally, I would compartmentalize, or deflect, or avoid, because I don’t care enough. Or I care too much. A part of me wants to do that, but a bigger part wants to get messy and step on the damn land mine. The words spill out in a torrent. “My first instinct is to walk away because I feel,” I pause, “I don’t even know…betrayed?” I shake my head. “That’s not the right word. I mean, I want to hug you so damn hard because you’rehim. And you’reyou. And I’m not a yeller, but I want to yell because this feels overwhelming and out of control and,shit… How is it possible that it makes no fucking sense and perfect sense at the same damn time?”
“So, yell,” he says, calmly. “Turn around, look at me, and get it out. Just please don’t walk away.” When I don’t move, he prompts, “Please, Soph.”
Slowly, I turn and look at his chest for a few seconds before he ducks to catch my eye.
“Don’t keep it in. Believe me, it does no good.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
“Louder,” he says, and the look on his face nearly breaks me; it’s so sincere.
I hesitate, because I keep emotion bottled up where it roils and gnashes and slowly devours me from the inside. I do not let it out where it draws attention and scrutiny because that’s when negative labels that always begin with “Too” get attached. And I fucking hate those because when someone tells you you’re too much, they take your power. And you don’t get it back.
“Soph,” he pleads.
I raise my voice.“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Louder.” He’s begging.
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?” I roar. The question is directed at him, but more than that, it’s directed at every person from my past whom I desperately wanted an answer to that question from, but I wasn’t brave enough to ask. Bending over, I put my hands on my knees and focus on the calm that’s inexplicably replacing confusion.
I tilt my head to look up at him from the corner of my eye.
He’s unmoving, but instead of looking disappointed like I feared, he looks steady. Like he’s ready to put his power in my pocket, and all I have to do is ask.
Tentatively, he closes the gap between us, never taking his eyes off mine as I straighten up.
When he presses his forehead to mine, I lean into the contact. I don’t know what’s allowed after an outburst like that, but I need to touch him. His eyelids flutter closed as his nose brushes mine.
“I haven’t been able to trust anyone for a long time. But friendship with you felt instant, and necessary, and freeing, and easy, and,” he sighs, and when his breath ghosts over my lips, they part, “fuck, I like you so much. I kind of thought real connection with another person wasn’t possible for me, like maybe what I’d been through had broken me. Turns out I wasn’t broken; I just hadn’t met you yet.”
My heart’s still pounding, but I don’t know if it’s from yelling or his words. Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I tell him the truth. “I felt the same way.”
“Felt?” he asks.
“Feel,” I whisper the correction.
The next words come out of him in a rush. “And then you walked through the door in Atlanta, and I’m so fucking attracted to you I can’t see straight. Realizing you’re falling for your closest friend, who’s also supposed to be off-limits, is messing with my head, Soph. I know I should’ve told you, but…”
He stops talking when my hands find his waist and run a path up to rest between his shoulder blades. His shirt is damp with sweat, and his muscles are tight beneath it.
“Soph,” he whispers, as his hands thread into the hair at the nape of my neck. “Fuck, I wanna kiss you.” The words are faint.
My entire body is tingling, and I can’t tell if it’s from the words he’s saying, or his touch, or the way he looks at me like the world could burn down around us, and I’m the only thing he’d save.
I match his volume. “Contracts have just overtaken root canals as number one on my most hated list.”
We both know we can’t, even if we want nothing more.
