Page 47 of The 7 Rules of Moving On
Stumbling out of bed, she snatched her bra off his dresser and pulled her dress off the floor and over her head, not bothering to zip it up.
“Dammit! I hate it when that asshole in my head is right!” she said to herself. “When will you ever start listening, Kissie?”
“What the hell are you so afraid of?” he asked, his voice rising.
“I’m notafraidof anything!” she lied.
“Do you think this sort of thing happens every day? Do you thinkthis,” he waved his hand between them, “is so common we can just let it go and expect to find anything like it again?”
“It doesn’t matter whatthisis,” she said, waving back. “It’s over. It’s nothing. It was never anything.”
He rocked back like she’d slapped him. “Nothing? You think we’re nothing?”
She knew she was hurting him. She was hurting herself. But this wasn’t part of the deal. He wasn’t following the rules.
“No catching feelings,” she said, spinning on her heel and heading for his door. “It’s been laminated!”
“Oh, fuck your rules, Kissie.”
Slowly, she stopped walking. Even more slowly, she turned around. “Excuse me?”
He’d climbed out of bed and was pulling on his jeans. Once he’d zipped them all the way up, he leveled a stare at her and said, “Did you not hear me?”
Planting her hands on her hips, her blood simmering, she said, “No. I don’t think I did hear you. Why don’t you repeat yourself?”
“Fuck. Your. Rules. Kissie.”
Seeing red, she whipped a finger at him and shouted, “No, Trig. Fuck your rules!”
“Ha! I don’t have rules. I don’t live by some ridiculous code of made-up guidelines.”
“No, you just do whatever the fuck you want and don’t care about the consequences.” Pivoting, she made for his door again, yanking it open this time.
“Wait. Dammit, Kissie. Wait!”
“What?” she cried, throwing up her hands as she turned to face him in the hallway. “What do you want from me?”
His steps were bold, not stopping until his face was inches from hers. “I want you to tell me you don’t feel something here.”
Her mouth opened, then closed again, no better than a fish gasping for air.
“You can’t, can you? Because this,” he took her hand, placing it over his heart, making his voice soft, “is real. You know it’s real.”
“It’s not.... I can’t—”
“Why not? Look, I know you don’t like small towns. That’s fine. Missoula isn’t that far away. We can try a long-distance thing. I’ll try anything if it means I can be with you.”
Tears filled her eyes, blurring her vision. “It won’t work.”
“How do you know? We’ve barely even talked about it.”
“It just won’t! I mean, we don’t even know each other at all. You have no idea who I really am or what I’m really like.”
He pressed his hand more firmly over hers, his heart pounding under her fingers. “I know so much about you. I know that you wave your hand in front of your face before you sneeze. I know you prefer cupcakes to cookies, and dresses to pants. I know you look at everything and everyone like it’s the first time you’ve seen them, and this makes the people around you feel important. I know you care deeply about your friends. I know you prefer order over chaos. I know you talk in your sleep.”
“I do not.”
“You do, actually,” he said, a corner of his mouth turning up. “Little whispers, like you’re telling secrets.”
