Page 19 of Rejected
“I know that you have all of us. My family is yours too, it’s…”
“I am not talking about the family.” He took a step closer. His eyes never once left hers. “I am talking about you. You alone.”
“You are sounding strange again, stop it.” He took another step closer; it did not look like he was about to stop. “I thought we were just friends. Playing games, being actors, being silly together. I thought you were the same as me. I thought you… you saw me as your best friend’s little sister.”
“Justin was never my best friend.”
“I know. I was.”
“You were. Until you weren’t. Until I couldn’t see you like that anymore.”
“Because you… you developed feelings for me?” she said the word as if it were distasteful, and he flinched, seeing it.
“I did not develop feelings for you,” he said, and his jaw went so hard she thought he’d break a tooth. “I was in love with you.”
“You fell in love with me?”
“You can’t call it ‘falling’,” he said tightly.
“You can’t? What, were you pushed or something?” She tried to joke, but the breath died in her throat when he nodded. “What do you mean? By whom?”
“By your eyes. Your hair. Your lips. Your smile. By every smart and incredibly stupid word that falls from your mouth. By your brilliant brain and incandescently beautiful face. By your…”
“Stop.” It was incredibly childish, but she put her hands over her ears.I cannot listen to one more word of this.“Stoptalking like that. What’s the matter with you? You used to be so rational. So normal. You despised poetry—especially mine. And now you’re talking about my hair and it’s strange.”
“Do you know how many years it’s been, Jo? I’ve been in this hell for years.Years. And what killed me,” he went on, relentless, “what killed me was that I had to contend with being your friend, the one you told all your ideas to, all your troubles to, all yoursecrets to. I like that—love it. But I want more. More, Jo. Just.. more.”
“Stop being like that. Go back to being my Teddy.” She nearly screamed it. She didn’t—but she wanted to.
“Iamyours, Jo, that’s the point. I… I don’t see the point of going on in life if I am not yours.”
This was too much.
“All right, I’ve heard enough of this.” She took a big breath. “Let’s stay like this, please, Laurie. Let us stay best friends.” She was pleading by now, and she was not even embarrassed.
But Laurie was already shaking his head.
“I cannot stay like this, Jo. I will lose what’s left of my sanity. If I did not propose to you right now, I might have grabbed you and kissed you just to make this fire stop consuming me every second of every day.”
Everything froze. Every leaf stopped swaying in the night breeze, every petal stopped sending out its fragrance, and every single light in the garden dimmed as the world fell out from under her feet.
“K-kissed me?”
“Kissed you.” His voice was barely above a whisper, and his chest rose and fell rapidly, as if it was hard for him to breathe. He leaned a fraction of an inch closer, and she forgot how to breathe.
His lips were red and swollen, even though they had not even touched her. As if he had already devoured her with his lips. Devoured her. With his lips.
What a disgusting thought to think about one’s best friend.
But what a delicious thought.
What an absolutely heart-stopping thought.
Suddenly, it was not her childhood friend who stood in front of her, but a man. A man with a body sculpted as if out of Greek marble, with a face that could cut glass and women’s hearts, and a pair of lips that looked like ripe cherries and a demon’s temptation…
“Jo,” he whispered in a low voice, full of promise andneed. His eyes held hers as he took a step towards her.
“Stop looking at me as if I have destroyed your entire world.”
