Page 18 of Last First Kiss
Clara nods, but she still won’t look at me. With my free hand, I gently lift her chin. Her eyes are red, the whites tinged with pink, and her usually bright honey-brown irises appear dull. It makes my chest ache, because I know she’s holding back tears.
If it meant she’d never look this heartbroken again, I’d move every grain of salt on earth, one by one, to take that sadness out of her eyes.
I hold her gaze and cradle her face because Ireallyneed her to hear me.
“Clara, I love our connection. I love how close we are. I wouldn’t ever want it to change, okay? Never ever. No matter how many people say we’re freakishly close. Because I think we could be closer.” I laugh, and Clara rolls her eyes, but I see the tiny crack of a smile on her lips. “I’d live inside your skin if I could. You’re my favorite person in the entire world,” I say, and I mean every fucking word. I can’t imagine a life without her where the bond we have is any different, because that would destroy me.
“You’re mine,” Clara says as she turns to kiss the palm of my hand. Immediately my body relaxes, because this is us. This feels good, natural, and I wouldn’t change it for anything or anyone.
“Are we okay?” I know we are, but I need to hear her say it.
“We’re good,” Clara says with a smile, but it’s a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. I want to ask her why, but before I can, she says, “Do you want to talk about what we’re telling your family?”
That kicks me into a completely different state of mind. What are we going to tell my family? They are going to go CIA-level interrogation mode when they see us, and we need to be ready, or my grandma will sniff out the lie, and we’ll both end up on an endless loop of dates we can’t get out of.
“Fuck, I don’t know. What do you think?”
Clara shrugs. “I can think about it tonight and get back to you about it tomorrow. We’re not seeing them for another week, so we have time.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
That alone makes me relax a little, but not enough to stop my brain from spiraling.
I still need to tell Clara that I have the best breakup excuse for us, but I can’t do that without mentioning that I might be moving. And now’s definitely not the time to tell her that.
I’ll wait until I actually have a job lined up, which probably won’t be for a while, anyway. I’ve already received a few rejections, and I don’t have any interviews lined up, so it’s pretty clear this is going to take some time.
I’ve got time.
“Try not to overthink it. Yeah?” Clara pulls me into a hug. She knows me too well. I don’t fight it; I let her yank me on top of her, and I melt into her, allowing the smell of her to lull me into deep relaxation.
“I’ll try,” I say, even though my mind is already completely blank.
The smell of Clara always does this to me. It wraps around me like a weighted blanket, coaxing me into utter relaxation and perfect calm. She’s a human balm for my nerves.
It’s moments like this that make it so hard to tell her I’mthinking about moving. Because when I’m next to her, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
We stay this way for a few hours, watchingBob’s Burgers.
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, Clara is gently nudging me to wake me up.
“I need you to get off me,” she says.
I groan and nuzzle into her deeper. “But I’m so comfy.”
Clara laughs and starts to push me off.
“Fine,” I say, slowly sitting up.
She kisses my cheek before standing and whispering, “Goodnight, bunny.”
A nickname she’d given me when we were ten, because she’d sworn I had too much energy, and I tended to skip everywhere instead of walking.
“Good night,” I say through a yawn. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she says back, and that makes me fully wake up.
“No, I saidIlove you. Say it back properly.” I cross my arms.
