Page 47 of The Consequence of Loving Me

How she shared her story with me.

The way she painted herself.

How she painted me, in such vivid detail it felt like I was looking in a mirror.

And I’ll be damned if I couldn’t forget the way her body felt against mine. The way her lips were no more than an inch away from my own, how the only thing that went through my head was the need to kiss her.

I felt the need to kiss her until she forgot how much she hated herself.

But our lips never touched.

They haven’t touched because I don’t think either one of us are ready for that.

Before I kiss her, I need to know I run rampant through her mind like she runs through mine. I need to know if, when she goes to bed at night, she’s wondering about me.

I need to tell her I no longer have a girlfriend, but it feels so cheap to announce that to her. To make it seem like Selma was just some barrier between the two of us, and now that she’s gone, we should be something.

I don’t even know what I want at this point—the breakup with Selma too fresh.

But I do know I’m too hyperaware of the space Veronica and I share. Even though we have classes together, I’ve barely said three words to her recently. We may live in the same house, but she’s also been avoiding me like the plague.

Aside from barely having any interactions together lately, I’m still too aware of her.

Her scent lingers in the kitchen after she’s been in it.

My mind wanders with thoughts that make my blood rush south when the basement shower runs for thirty minutes straight.

As we sat through the most recent and boring lectures from our professor, she doodled on her notepad, and all I wanted to do was snatch it away from her again and see what she was creating.

I wished it was me.

I hoped she couldn’t get me out of her head either and that it reflected in her art.

But there’s no way for me to know that or not, because she hasn’t allowed me close enough to her to find out.

The few words we’ve exchanged tonight are already more than all the ones we’ve exchanged since the night she confessed everything to me.

I’d told myself I’d give her the space that she needed—especially after she divulged so much of her fucked up past to me—but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t sucked staying true to my own promise.

When I had watched her hand roam wildly over the piece of paper during class, it made me think of the painting that was stashed under my bed.

The painting that, every night, I pull out and gaze at, as if it might tell me one of her secrets.

But no matter how long I’ve studied it, I haven’t been able to figure her out more.

A cough interrupts me now. And then, “How long are you going to stare at her before you go over there?”

I completely forgot that Aspen was next to me.

“Tristan isn’t all that bad,” he says. “Maybe he’ll be good for her.”

I turn my head to glare at Aspen, not missing the smug look on his face while he smirks at me. “Shut up,” I respond before I resume staring a hole into the back of Veronica’s head.

“She’s definitely fucked up,” Aspen says, “but aren’t we all? How could she not be after what she’s gone through?” He’s watching Veronica now, too.

It feels like someone has an iron fist around my heart when it registers there’s a possibility she also told Aspen about her past.

I’m too obsessed with her truths. It shouldn’t bother me if she’s telling them to Aspen too, but here I am, jealous at just the idea of it.

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