‘Then why do I miss you?’
I didn’t know how to answer that.
We followed the outer wall of the maze down the hill. Dylan was closest to it, and she trailed her hand along the hedge.You don’t need to do that,I thought about saying,you only need to follow the wall when you’re inside the maze,but I didn’t.
As we reached the maze’s corner, the first rays of the sun were coming up over the lake. They turned the surface silver at first, and then, as the sun came up, a pale gold, then a deeper gold, with streaks of pink and purple.
We stood there a long time before Dylan spoke again. ‘I miss you, Mandie.’
‘I haven’t gone anywhere,’ I replied.
She was the one who had gone somewhere. I could just see Romeo-Dylan’s boat, bobbing gently beside the jetty.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘For what?’
I paused. There were so many things I wanted to say, and almost none of them were a good idea.
‘For tonight,’ I replied at last. ‘The thing where Murray made you walk in on me and man-Dylan. I wouldn’t have kissed him if I’d known you were there.’
‘I don’t care about that.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
‘No,’ she said suddenly, turning to me. ‘That’s a lie. I do care about that.’
I opened my mouth to reply, although I had no idea what I was going to say.
But she grabbed my hand first. ‘You feel it, right?’
‘Feel what?’
She exhaled heavily and ran her free hand through her hair. It was almost exactly the same gesture that Romeo-Dylan had made when we were on the couch. They really were going to be perfect together.
‘This thing between us,’ she said. ‘Please tell me you feel it too.’
The world stopped turning.
For a moment, everything was completely silent and still.
She took my other hand. My heels dropped from my fingers to the ground. The sunrise caught in her hair and painted the side of her face in delicate streaks of gold.
‘Please tell me I’m not imagining it,’ she whispered. ‘Please tell me it’s not just me.’
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. For a long moment, I just looked at her.
Then, ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not just you.’
That was all it took for her to kiss me.
This kiss wasn’t nice.
This kiss was terrifying.
This kiss didn’t make me feel like I was on solid ground. This kiss was an earthquake, the ground breaking apart beneath my feet.
Our teeth clashed together. It was hard and fast and ravenous. One of her hands was fisted in my hair. One of mine was in hers. We couldn’t get close enough, tongues and lips and teeth smashing together again, no time to breathe, no room for air, only her, only her, only her and the sounds she made as I kissed her, only her and the sounds I made as she kissed me, the feel of her skin against mine as we pressed together, not close enough, not close enough, the racing of her heart beneath my hand, the fire as my heart caught alight in my chest.
