Page 188 of Falling Backwards
“No one has ever complimented me like you do.”
Her wispy words take my gaze back to her face from where I’ve been relishing the look of her in my hands.She’s still frowning…but quite unlike moments ago, her eyes are glistening something fierce.
She doesn’t seem sweet anymore.She seems vulnerable.Even a little bit…hurt?
God, what her upset tears do to my heart.
AndGod,what she’s just said….
I release her hip, shuffle closer yet, thumb beneath one of those eyes even though no teardrops have escaped yet.
No one has ever complimented her the way I do?
“Crazy,” I whisper into the diminished space between us.“That’s crazy to me, Maggie.”
As her words seep deeper into me, I brush my thumb over that place again, and to her temple, and down the side of her cheek.And as I do it, I swear I can tell it’s seeping into her right back—not just my touch, but the tenderness of it, the honesty of it.
I’m glad for that.
I think of her most recent stupid ex and have to ask, “Did Marcus never tell you how lovely you are?”
Her expression threatens to crumple.
“Not in the ways you tell me,” she says, her voice starting to wobble.“I didn’t realize until you started doing it that he—and the others—allthe guys I’ve been with—they weren’t so sincere.I know they liked things about me, but they didn’t sound the way you sound.They didn’t look at me the way you look at me.”She hesitates.Then, so faintly it almost escapes me: “The way you’vealwayssounded and looked at me.”
My chest burns.
Sixteen-year-old me cared about her as much as he was capable of.Current me is surpassing that like a motherfucker, somehow both falling backwards into how these feelings started so long ago and then through to the biggest, deepest, steadiest version of it that there can be.
But it’s strange: even though I don’t believe anyone could match Past LukeorNow Luke when it comes to feelings for Maggie Moss, I have no idea how anyone couldnotfeel so much for her either.Even in my stupidest times, I was smart enough to know how special she is.
I find myself nodding and, just as faintly, agreeing with her.“Always.”
A tear finally swells out of one of her eyes and skips down her cheek.I wipe it away.
Here, her gaze does soften and turn sweet again.“Sometimes you tell me I’m beautiful just with a look, like you believe it so much that it radiates from you, and other times you tell me by—by touching me when evenIdon’t like how I feel.”
She lowers her eyes to where her hands are still resting against my chest.More tears slip down her cheeks; this time, both of us brush them away.
“And it’s been helping me,” she whispers.“God, Luke, you overwhelm me in the—in the best ways.As effortlessly as you breathe.Witheverythingyou do, not just the physical….I didn’t think you could do that anymore, but you can, and…” she sniffles, “…you’re even better at it now than you were before.It h-helps me see myself differently.Makes me wanna not dislike myself anymore.”
My stomach flips hard.
It flips and flips as I think about all that—it won’t stop.
Throatily, I confess, “I’m happy to help, Maggie.And you do that to me, too, you know.”
My hand frames the side of her face, causing her head to tilt into it, her eyes to close, her brow to once again crease in the prettiest way.
A tiny show of trust I didn’t know I craved until this very second.
“You overwhelm me too,” I repeat, “and not only because of how you look…”
My other hand slips down from her waist and trembles just under her shirt, finds her skin, puts a sharp catch in our breaths and my own shirt in her weak fist.
“…or because touching you destroys my ability to appreciate anyone else.”
“But you—lately, you haven’t even had the chance to.”She isn’t far from gasping as my fingertips skim farther up under the fabric, summoning more chill bumps.“You haven’t gone near anyone else.”
