Page 152 of Falling Backwards
My pulse is trippingall over itself.
I can’t help dozily wondering, not fleetingly at all: how would he feel if we were together?
What must it be like to be surrounded by his body without…without clothes and sleepiness and fake dating in the way?
What would it feel like to have him and be had by him when even hugs and snuggles feel perfect to me?When eyebrow touches and controlled moments of contact light up my nerve endings like stars blazing into existence?
I think it would be blazing too.
Beautiful—it would have to be beautiful because somehow, I’ve come to realize that’s what he is.
And what he thinks I am.
I tune in to how tense my muscles have become, how lonely my mouth feels, how unsteady my breaths are, how hot my face is.
God, these thoughts.They have the beginnings of an ache stirring in me.I can imagine how we’re lying right now being shifted into me underneath him, confined in the best and warmest way while we….
Don’t wake up yet,I silently beg him as I move just enough to press my thighs together.Don’t wake up and see me like this.I didn’t wanna feel like this about you or love spending time with you or wish I could hold on to the sincere parts of you, and it has all happened anyway, and I don’t know what to do about it.
Luckily, he goes on sleeping.
I try to relax.Try to unknot all these knotted-up things in me.Try to get flickers of old kisses and desires for new ones to go still.
How insane am I, honestly?
I mean, what do I really expect to see unfold with him?How could I even daydream about this fake relationship turning into a real one?Why the hell would that happen?Have I forgotten who we are to each other at the end of the day?He’s simply doing me a favor by pretending, not trying to send out different messages that he likes me for real.
But maybe he’s starting to because pretending has lowered the guard he’s had up.
The voice in my head is quietly rational, but it shakes me deeply.
And maybe I’m realizing I like him, too, because my guard has lowered right along with his.
I lie here with this for a minute.
For a few minutes.
For many.
I can’t seem to brush it away.It makes too much sense.
Could it be?
Could it be that having to put our animosity on hold has doneusa favor we weren’t anticipating?Are we growing closer because we made room for it?Because we’ve allowed it even though we thought we were just calling a temporary truce?
As these questions and possibilities ripple through me and fill me with butterflies, I look at both sides: the animosity and the closeness.
Over and over again, I look at them.
And the more time I spend on them, the more I think I know which one I want to let go of and which one I want to keep.
L U K E
I wake up to more than just morning sunshine.
I wake up to a soft body tucked along mine and under my arm.My hand was clearly once being cradled to her chest, anchoring me to her in a most intimately comfortable way, but now her grip is loose because she’s snoozing.
I wake up and realize that what I believed was a great dream during the night was real: Maggie had gotten on the couch with me and snuggled us into close, toasty, cozy proximity.
