Page 30 of You Belong With Me

Who was I to talk about love at all? He was right. I was an avoider. All I’d done was avoid it for years. Except…

“I don’t always avoid it. I let you kiss me, didn’t I?”

There. The words were out. They were said. No more pretending that he had to be the one to instigate the conversation or telling myself that I couldn’t bring this up. I needed for us to recognize that it had happened, even if there was nothing to be said about it.

Sebastian’ lip quirked up in a small smile, and he looked almost impressed, which made me glow more than I reasonably should have.

“Yeah,” he said. “But if I told you I loved you, would you say it back?”

I stared at him, flabbergasted, sure that I had heard it wrong. “What?” I spluttered.

Sebastian chuckled and dropped his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I just meant... if it had been a boy that you had a crush on who asked to kiss you, and he used that as his way to say that he wanted to go out with you. Would you have said yes?”

I stared at him, my heart thundering in my chest. He thought I didn’t like him. He thought I didn’t have a crush on him. He thought that I just said yes to the kiss because of this stupid game. And part of me wanted so desperately to correct him, to tell him that it actually had meant something and I wanted to be with him. But the other part of me screamed that I couldn’t do that. Because if I said that, it would ruin everything—not only because of Tiffany, but because he was Sebastian. He was Dean’s best friend. He was Ainsley’s brother. He was the boy next door. And if I said it now and he didn’t say it back, nothing would ever be able to go back to normal again.

“Pretend it was Thomas,” Sebastian continued. “Would you have said yes?”

I tried to imagine it. Not if it was Thomas, because I knew I would have said no, but if Sebastian had confessed his love then and there. By the time that party had come around, I hadn’t been into him for ages, but the feelings had come back so quickly that I knew they must have just been dormant, instead of gone. So I tried to picture it. Sebastian kissing me, then saying that he wanted me. I tried to imagine the moment of elation but as quickly as the feeling appeared, it turned into dread. What if he didn’twork out? What if we went out and he realized he didn’t like me? What if all of this was only good in concept?

“No,” I admitted in a whisper. “I wouldn’t have.”

Sebastian waved a hand, as if that proved everything. Then he stood up. And even though I knew we couldn’t stay forever, my heart ached at the idea of him walking away.

“I guess I should go,” he said. “It’s getting late, and we have school tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, but I didn’t stand. Sebastian seemed to realize I wasn’t going to. Because he picked up the sweater I’d been bringing back to him and draped it around my shoulders. Then he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

“Good night, Nellie,” he whispered.

I think I managed to grab a “Good night, Sebastian” before he wandered off, leaving me there alone.

And even though it put a little bit of a sick twist in my stomach, I pulled out my phone and opened Thomas’ contact. I couldn’t be with Sebastian, but maybe it was time I faced this fear head-on.

fifteen

By the next morning,I was regretting my decision to text Thomas, which was pretty unfortunate because when I walked into school, he was at my locker. He was talking to Clementine as I walked up, which seemed like a bad sign for me after the way Clementine had organized for us to meet the other day, but I used it to my advantage as he didn’t make eye contact with me as I walked up.

“Hi,” I mumbled as I unlocked the locker, keeping my gaze down.

“Hi!” Clementine said. “How was your night?”

I froze with the locker door half open as I thought about the night before. The soccer game with Ainsley. Wearing Sebastian’s sweater. Dealing with Tiffany over dinner. Sebastian and me talking outside the diner. And the cherry on the cake, Sebastian and me talking about love on the street last night. How could that be summed up in an easy-to-understand answer?

“Pretty good,” I said, knowing that there was nothing else I could say to explain it. “You?”

“Oh, my night was great,” she said. “Anyway, I was just talking to Thomas here about how well they did at the game yesterday.”

It was clearly an in for me to finally acknowledge the boy that she thought I was super into. When I glanced over at her, she wasn’t being subtle about it at all as she waggled her eyebrows at me just behind his shoulder. I offered her a tight-lipped smile, trying to seem like I was grateful, even though I was just exhausted. He probably mentioned to her that we’d texted briefly last night, but I doubt he mentioned it was not much more than a what’s up? and maybe we can hang out this weekend (his idea, which I hadn’t responded to yet).

“Actually, I came to your game last night,” I told Thomas. “You played really well.”

I tried to put some enthusiasm in my voice, but it was hard when I hadn’t followed the game at all and had no clue what position he even played, let alone saw him on the field. But even though I didn’t pass off my enthusiasm very well, Thomas lit up at the words.

“Thanks! You know, we really…” And then he was on a whole spiel about soccer. Clementine and I both nodded along, but I was pretty sure I could see from her gaze that she had no idea what he was talking about either. I tried to seem interested as I started grabbing books from my locker and stuffing them in my bag while keeping an eye on the clock, waiting for the moment that it would be late enough for me to say, “Well, I need to get to class,” but the minutes seemed to drag on.

When Thomas stopped, I couldn’t tell you a thing he said even though I’d been doing my best to listen, but Inodded and said, “Yeah, that sounds really cool. And it was awesome to finally catch a game.”

His brows pulled together a little. “Oh, that was your first game?” he asked.

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