Page 121 of Grounded
"We've established I'm not little, so let's not continue that narrative."
"I didn't know you liked me that much."
"You were the first girl who gave me the time of day. Granted, that time amounted to thirty seconds of sass each morning, but I took what I could get."
"You would have been my first kiss. Remember I went all of high school without kissing a guy?"
"Yikes, even better that you denied me."
"You seem to know what you're doing now."
"A lot is different now," I point out.
Like how we aren't kids anymore and whatever it is between us isn't the worst idea in the world.
"Did you hate me because of my dad dating your mom?"
When my mom introduced me to Amelia, she and Bruce had been dating for six months. They didn't want to rush things in case they didn't work out. But I knew the moment Amelia and I were forced to get acquainted with each other that she counted me out within seconds.
What the hell did we have in common aside from our parents thinking they could find love the second time around?
"I didn't hate you," I begin. "But I was bitter. I had the best dad and here my mom goes replacing him."
"She didn't replace your dad. Just like my dad didn't replace my mom. It's a different kind of love in a second marriage, I guess."
"I'm sure you don't like her being here living in your house."
"Why didn't they buy something new? A new house for a new marriage. Why live here?"
"Have you seen your backyard?" I tease.
"I'm serious. Would you want to live in a house where memories were made way before your relationship was established?"
"I wondered that, too."
"See that corner? That pointy edge on the bricks?"
Amelia directs my gaze to the hearth in front of the fireplace. "Yeah, what about it?"
"When I was little, I was playing there with my dolls. My mom told me to get away from the fire because I was sitting too close. I was a dramatic kid and flung myself backward in a tantrum. The bottom of my head hit the corner and cut it wide open. They had to take me to the hospital to get stitches."
She cranes her head forward as she lifts the hair at the nape of her neck. A small scar is barely prominent, but I skim my finger along her skin.
Instead of joking with her that she still has the same tantrums from her youth, I want to kiss the scar on the base of her delicate neck. But that's too intimate for our honest, serious conversation.
"That had to have hurt," I tell her.
"This house is filled with memories like that one. Accidents, flashbacks, little idiosyncrasies only my dad and I would know. Why would your mom want to compete with that?"
"I guess we'll never know."
There are other troubling things Amelia doesn't know, reasons why I'll never open up to Bruce. But I've decided if things ever progress between us, shecan'tknow. It would ruin everything, and I'm willing to take the responsibility of keeping that secret safe with me.
"Is there anything else you want to talk about?" I ask her.
"Doyouthinkwewere capable of being civil in our younger ages?" I ask. "I'd like to give us credit, but we were eighteen. We were kids pranking each other with bleach in the washer and deleting TV shows."
"I knew it! I knew you deleted my episodes ofBreaking Bad. My mom said it had to have been a glitch," he hollers, pointing a finger at me.
