“What’s happening?” I whispered, but he just looked down at me and said, “Shhh.”
His hands held me at my waist, and I loved the secure feel of them on me, like they belonged there. His eyes peered down into mine, but it was too dark to tell if they were saying what mine silently were. I almost wondered if I was alone in those feelings, but the quick rise and fall of his chest and the thumping of his heart against mine told me what I needed to know.
Every part of me wanted him in that moment, and in many more to come. But I made a good choice that night. I didn’t kiss him like I wanted to. Because even though I was drunk, I knew it was wrong, and I didn’t want to be wrong when it came to him.
When the coast was clear, we parted and nearly jogged the rest of the way to my house. I made it in safely and made him promise to text me when he got back. I spent a good amount of time collecting myself afterward, dizzy from more than just the alcohol I had consumed. When my phone dinged only twenty minutes later with a text from E, my heart caught in my throat.
Fall in Love With Me,it read.That’s my pick.
I smiled into my phone like the lovestruck teenage girl I was. I didn’t text him back, too afraid to ruin whatever it was I was feeling. I fell asleep on a cloud, drunk on the hope of something that hadn’t happened yet but already meant everything.
The next morning, I read the text over and over, giddy and excited. I suffocated the feelings of betrayal that kept rushing to the surface because I was proud. I was proud of my drunken self for not kissing E when I had the chance, and I was even more proud of myself for not texting him back when all I wanted was to talk on the phone with him all night. I told myself these were good choices I had made, and I truly believed they were.
The thing is, the world doesn’t stop spinning because you made one good choice. It just gives you a little balance before the next fall.
Track 4
“Getaway”
-Earth, Wind & Fire, 1976
IN AUGUST, E left for a three-week trip to Italy with his family, and Enzo wascompletelyjealous of it.
“Fucking rich brat,” he muttered.
We were walking from my house to meet Lara and Kasey at the park.
“He’s not a brat. And he’s not rich,” I rebutted. “It’s the first vacation his family’s ever been on, and he’s almost seventeen.”
Enzo looked at me with disgust as he snarled. “Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not.” I shrugged. “You’re just being an asshole.” I didn’t add theas usualit deserved.
“Oh,I’mthe asshole?” His eyebrows became part of his hairline with that one.
I sighed, unfazed by the hostile attitude of his I’d become accustomed to. “I don’t really see an alternative to that one, Enz.”
His brows fell as if he were wounded, but he cleared his expression quickly, shaking off the proof like a human Etch-A-Sketch. He looked at me silently, but I kept my eyes forward.
“What’s up with you two?”
A pang of nervousness ran through me. My stomach shook, and my hands immediately clammed up. “What do you mean?”
He looked away, slapping the leaves of a low-hanging branch as we ducked under it. “You’re always talking and laughing. Always sneaking off and shit.”
“We’re friends. And we don’t sneak off,” I deadpanned.
“Yeah, you do.”
“No. We don’t.” I said it with such conviction even I almost believed it.
But it was true—wedidalways sneak off. We always found ourselves in quiet corners of the gatherings, in our own little world entirely. Whenever I brought my spiral notebook with me, he was the one I’d read my poems to. He was the one who’d listen to my lyrics. He was the one I wanted to share them with and the only one who made me feel like they mattered.
He looked at me like every word I wrote was a secret meant just for him. And maybe they were. Maybe I wrote them for him without even knowing it. Maybe he was always my muse.
“Whatever,” Enzo said as he rolled his eyes.
He dropped it after that, likely because it was clear I’d be standing firm in my denial. But it was more than obvious he was threatened by my relationship with E. Another girlmight have backed off to make her ‘man’ feel secure, but I wasn’t that girl, and Enzo wasn’t my ‘man.’
