The setting sun carved shadows down her cheekbones and lit the curve of her jaw, turning her features almost unreal, like she belonged in some frame I wasn’t allowed to touch.
This feeling, the one that had been growing inside me for years, felt too big for my skin tonight. Maybe because of the warmth in my veins, maybe because we were alone, maybe because Matt and Jenny were out and gone and wouldn’t stumble upon us. Or maybe because I’d reached the limit of how long I could pretend I didn’t feel everything I felt.
And God, there was so much.
I watched the way the wind tugged at the loose strands of her hair, and something rebellious whispered in me:She feels it too. She must. How could you feel so much for someone and they not feel anything for you.
I slowed the swing with my hands on the chains.
Claire groaned, her feet dragging.
“Ethan, don’t stop. I want to go higher.”
I swallowed. My mouth felt dry.
“Just… wait a second.”
She frowned softly, confused, and it struck me how innocent she looked in the moment, uncertain but open, trusting me completely. That trust nearly undid me.
I stepped around the swing, every nerve stretched tight, until I was standing directly in front of her. She went still. The soft wobble in her smile faded. Her hands tightened around the swing chains.
“Ethan?”
Her voice was barely a whisper.
I didn’t touch her at first. I just looked. At her flushed cheeks, at the way the fading sun caught in the soft hairs around her temples, at her parted lips and wide eyes. She looked sober now, ss if suddenly, nothing else existed but my face inches from hers.
My heart hammered so hard I felt it in my throat.
This was the moment, the line I could not uncross.
Claire stood slowly from the swing, the wooden seat creaking behind her. The space between us felt electric, charged with something pure and enormous.
“Ethan…” She said my name like a question, tinged with hope and fear.
I raised a hand, carefully, as though she were something made of spun sugar, and touched her chin with the tips of my fingers.Her breath caught. I tilted her face up just a little, enough that her eyes lifted to mine.
I saw everything in them.
Curiosity. Fear. Want.
And beneath all of it, certainty.
As if she had been waiting for me to do this for a very long time.
Her pulse fluttered fast under her skin. My thumb hovered near her jaw, not quite touching, terrified of crossing that last inch.
“If I’m wrong,” I whispered, my voice raw, “tell me.”
She didn’t step back. She didn’t breathe. She just stared at me with that stunned, aching softness that made my chest feel too tight.
Her fingers rose, slowly, curling into the fabric of my shirt as if she needed something to hold on to.
That was all it took.
I leaned forward, closing the impossible distance, and the world tilted.
The kiss, when it happened, was clumsy at first, tentative, two teenagers touching something sacred for the very first time. Her lips were warm, unsure, answering mine with tiny, stolen breaths. I felt her tremble against me, and my own legs nearly gave out beneath the weight of everything I’d kept inside for years.
