“But I guess we don’t have a choice anymore.”
I order myself to breathe and to focus. The ache in my heart, in my entire being, hurts like all hell. “Sabin, what is happening with us?”
It takes a long time for him to answer. “I’m not sure. I know that I feel safer and happier and better in every possible way when I’m with you. And that worries me. A lot.”
“Sabin—”
“So, I’ve tried the one-night stands, and they don’t get me anywhere. They don’t make me need you less. Because there’s no feeling, no attachment with anyone else. And maybe I also chase after that because I can’t have the alternative. Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever kissed a girl who I felt anything for. I have no idea what that’s like. Maybe I never will.”
“Of course you will.”
“I don’t know, Blythe.” Then, he lets out a ragged breath to control his emotions. “Because the girl I trust most in this world is taken.”
Now, my heart is pounding again. “I love you. You know that.”
“I do. The problem is, I might beinlove with you.”
He’s just said what I’ve been unable to face. “Is that why you left Maine and moved here?”
“Yes,” he says directly. “I thought leaving would make it better, but it’s the same now. And I left because I already feel goddamn guilty enough when it comes to Chris. I get so happy when I’m with you, and then I just crash hard because…I can’t…I’m not allowed to feel anything for you.
“You draw me in, and we’re completely in sync. I’m fucking complete. And that makes me miserable because it shouldn’t be like that. You’re not mine. Idon’tget to feel like that. There are times when I watch you with Chris, and I’m so…I’m so jealous,” he confesses. “I don’t want to have to say that to you, but you wanted honesty. I’m jealous. I’m an asshole for that. It’s wrong. So, I run and try to get you to stay away, but that doesn’t work either. And I know it’s all on my end, and it’s my fault.”
I have to think long and hard before I say what I do. “I don’t know that it’s all on your end. I don’t know what it is, but there is something happening between us that’s different than it’s been. I understand…the jealousy. I’ve felt it, too.”
He shakes his head. “You can’t. You’re in love with Chris.”
“Yes, I am.” I search for how to understand and explain what I feel. “But…Sabin, I get overwhelmed by you sometimes, by how much I care for you, by the force between us. We call each other best friends, but that doesn’t capture it, does it? We’re not just best friends.”
“No, maybe not. So, what are we?”
“I can’t define it. I mean, right now? Right in this moment, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to explain what you mean to me, how to make you feel everything that I do. To…to convey that I would fall apart without you. That I adore you on so many levels. There are no words to capture that in a way that feels satisfying. When I hug you, when we’re close, it doesn’t seem like enough. It doesn’t show you the importance of the way I love you. Normally, when you feel this powerfully for someone, you…you show them. Physically. You make love.”
“And we can’t do that,” he says.
I don’t like what I have to ask. “Is that what you want? How you think about me?”
The rumbling sound reappears, and the ground beneath me vibrates. “Sabin, it’s another one?” My words catch in my throat.
With my hand still in his, he takes the few steps forward to be close to me. He puts his other hand on the doorjamb above my head. “Just hang on. It’s okay.”
He looks down at me, and I squeeze his hand.
I do love him, so much. I just don’t know what to do with these feelings, how to categorize them. And I am at a loss for how to fix what has been building between us. What has been so perfect and easy for so long now feels terribly complicated.
The earth shakes for another few seconds and then stops as suddenly as it started with no warning on either end.
“It’s like you’re in my blood,” he says softly. “I can’t get you out.”
I feel his body touching mine, and as I look up at him, he moves in a bit closer. There’s a charge between us, one I can’t deny but one I can’t label either. I have the urge to envelop him in my love, to protect him, to convince him how he moves me.
Now, he puts his hand on the back of my neck. There is such tenderness and care in his eyes.
“Sabin…” I can’t move. I don’t want him to stop, but I also don’t want him to move in closer.
He does though. Just a hint. Just enough so that I feel his breath on my lips.
We are both still, waiting for some kind of divine intervention to tell us what to do.
