Page 35 of She Came Upon A Midnight Clear
She pauses before answering. “If you were asleep, how do you know you said anything?”
“Because I sort of seem to remember… something.”
She takes another sip of her coffee, studying me, then she sets her cup down.
“Baby. Come over here.”
I move closer, and she pulls me onto her lap so that I’m straddling her. She holds my cheeks in her hands and looks into my eyes, and my stomach is fluttering—it’s those butterflies again, but this time it’s nerves too.
I wait for her to say something, but she’s still just looking at me, from my eyes to my mouth and back again, and every possible emotion seems to be shifting across her features.
“Dru, what—what is it?”
“Sorry, baby. I’m behaving like I’m in high school. Look, I just need to know if you meant it.”
“Meant…what?” I ask, but I know exactly what she’s talking about. “No. Sorry. I mean, yes, I did say… that I love you. And of course I meant it. And apparently you’re not the only one behaving like a nervous, clumsy kid.”
I wait while my heart hammers; it feels as if it’s trying to break right out of my chest.
A slow smile spreads over her face, and relief washes over me, making my knees weak.
“So,” I start, “it seems like that was a good thing?”
“Yeah. So good, Evie. Because I love you, too. I am so, so in love with you, pretty girl.”
Relief and happiness flood my body, making me go warm, and the weakness in my knees spreads all over.
“Oh my god, Dru! Why didn’t you just say so?”
She chuckles, and I’m smiling because I’m so damn happy, but maybe a teeny bit annoyed—more at myself than with her—for not just having the guts to make this an actual conversation instead of doing this tip-toeing dance around it.
“Because we’ve gotten so in the habit of being friends and denying our feelings—at least, I know I have. We just handled this whole conversation like a couple of teenagers. Me, most of all. But now that we’ve gotten that part out of the way, I’m going to tell you again, every damn day. I love you, Evie. I always have. I’ve loved you since the first time we met. I wasn’t supposed to, and you weren’t supposed to. Maybe we needed to live more life first. I don’t know. But here we are, together, and it’s everything I’ve always wanted. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. Because all I ever wanted was you.”
I’m stunned. I knew she liked me, but boy, was she hard to read all those years ago. For good reason, I guess. And even though she’s told me that she was already crushing on me, I had no idea to what extent. I had no idea she loved me the way I loved her.
To my horror, I start to cry.
She wipes my tears away with her thumbs and smiles at me, then her eyes tear up a bit, and it surprises me so much, I stop crying. I touch a fingertip to the tear at one corner of her eye.
“Oh no! Why are you crying?” I ask her.
“Because I’m so damn happy, baby.”
She pulls me in and hugs me tight, and I hang onto her for dear life. Because it feels as if sheismy life. How did I live so long without her? She’s home to me, and I’ve just been traveling loose through the world for the last six years. Hell, ever since I lost my mom. I’ve never felt anchored—not until now. Until Dru.
“Dru?” I mumble into her neck. “When we kissed at that holiday party six years ago… was that an accident?”
“I’ve told myself it was. But I think we both know better now.”
“It wasn’t an accident for me. I’ve been pretending so I didn’t feel so guilty about kissing my roommate’s ex-girlfriend. But when I saw you at that party, I hung around under the mistletoe hoping you’d show up there and kiss me. Is that terrible of me?”
She laughs and pulls me away so she can see my face. “Not at all. It was fucking brilliant of you.”
"Well, and we were both a little tipsy. Or I may have been a lot tipsy."
"Actually,I wasn't. At all," she says. I just really wanted to kiss you.”
I let out a long sigh. “Why did we force ourselves to stay away from each other all this time again?”
