He’s burning up now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he melts all the snow on ground.
Especially, when he glances down – for the first time – at my fists in his jacket and I feel my hands sting.
Keeping his chin dipped, he lifts his eyes. “Get out of my face.”
“What?”
“Just get the fuck out of my face before I lose it, okay?”
“But I –”
He jerks his arm then and my fists are shaken loose, making me stumble back a little.
But it’s enough.
It’s enough to give him the space he probably wanted because his foot goes to kickstart the motorcycle, and I know that as soon as he does that, he’ll leave.
He’ll leave me here, standing in the snow, with so many unanswered questions. With so many emotions and feelings that I will explode.
I won’t make it through the night.
So I do the only thing that I can. The only thing that I can think of.
I hurl my heart at his feet, my beating, pulpy heart at his kicking feet, and hope that it’s enough to make him stay.
“I love you.”
I screamed that too, I think.
Everyone heard it.
Everyone heard my secret.
Holy. Shit.
Holyfuckingshit.
I press a hand on my stomach because I can’t breathe. Because all my organs are in disarray or at least it feels like it because I just told him.
Itoldhim.
My secret of eight years.
My secret because of which I stole and lied and cried and lived in misery for eight long years. My secret because of which I was sent here, to St. Mary’s.
I just told it to him and turns out, it was enough for him to stop.
It was enough for that foot to stop, the one resting on that lever. It was enough for him to stare back at me. Not only with his eyes but also with his body. He twists his torso in my direction as if he’s completely attuned to me now.
Completely attuned to what I just said.
And maybe,maybeI would’ve taken that. I would’ve taken the way his body looks tight and coiled, turned toward me.
But then, he goes ahead and climbs off his Ducati.
He actually swings his thigh over and comes to a stand and I have to step back.
Because he’s standing in front of me, his feet wide apart, his hands on his sides curled into fists and his chest moving up and down, all hot and snowy.
