Page 74 of Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
I can only hope that in the end, I’ll be her choice.
“Do you want me to go?” she asks, her voice sounding watery.
I curl my hands around her waist. “You leaving is the last thing I want, Mer.”
I hope she knows I don’t just mean now. I meanever. But I won’t say more. I won’t push. I won’t be her anchor if she wants to leave the island again, leavemeagain.
“But you don’t want to do this without a commitment.” She states this like it’s a fact, not a question.
I mull over the words, my mind sifting through possibilities and scenarios like I’m thumbing my way through a file cabinet, looking for just the right one. Only, here, there is no one right thing.
We both made mistakes back then. She might have pushed me away, but I think I knew, somewhere deep down, that she didn’t really want to. That she couldn’t mean such hurtful words. Merritt wasn't—isn’t—a cruel person. I think she knew exactly what she needed to say in order to push me away. To protect herself but to protect me too.
Even when I considered that possibility in my teenage pea-brain, I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t call her or text her or try to find her on social media. I didn’t push to see if something else was going on with her.
No—I took her words, as out of character and out of nowhere as they were—at face value. I wallowed in hurt and bitterness. Then I tried to move on with someone else. Cass was more to me than a rebound or someone I used for that purpose, but I wouldn’t have ever pursued her with Merritt anywhere in the picture.
Back then, it was easier to simply let Merritt’s words keep us apart. To believe them. To let my fear keep me from fighting for her.Becausewhat if she did mean it? What if I was too small for her?
The same fears exist now.
The only difference is that I’m amanmaking a decision, instead of a boy.
It feels like hurling myself into a stormy sea, hoping the skies will clear and I won’t get dragged under. But it’s worth the risk, isn’t it?
She’s worth the risk.
I slide my hands to the curve of her waist. Merritt is so strong, but I see who she is underneath. Not weak, never that, butvulnerable. Soft. As scared as I am.
But brave enough to call me on it and be the first to confess her fears.
It only makes her more beautiful to me.
“I don’t want to pressure you to decide something today. I don’t want to unduly influence your choices, even if I have some strong opinions about what I’d like.”
She grins at this, and it’s like the sun beaming through a bank of gray clouds.
I lick my lips, not missing how her eyes track the movement, and the hunger I see there matches the one building in me. With intentional softness, I trail my hands up her back again, then twine them in the hair at the back of her neck. I smile when she bites her lip.
“The question is—can we keep doing this without knowing the end yet?” I ask.
“Thisas in kissing on one of your tabletops?” she teases.
I give her hair a gentle tug, watching her eyelids flutter a little. “That. For surethat. But more. Are you willing to risk the hurt to see what could be between us?”
The question hangs in the air, like a held breath. But she doesn’t make me wait long.
“Yes. Are you?”
Instead of answering right away, I let my hands dance down her neck, fingertips lightly dragging over the skin of her bare arms when I reach the bottoms of her sleeves. I lean forward, sliding my beard against her cheek, and the sound of my bristly hair against her softness does something to me. Flames lick through me, building, building, building.
My lips find her ear, and I keep them close enough to brush as I speak. She whimpers softly.
“I would rather risk everything for a chance than live another moment without you in my arms.”
She slumps against me, as though this answer is one she’s been waiting years to hear. I kiss the shell of her ear, working my way slowly from her ear down her neck, back up to her jaw and toward her mouth.
Mine, mine, mine, I think with each kiss. I figure it’s okay to let that Neanderthal part of me at least have this much sway.
