Текст книги "Confessions of a Virgin Sex Columnist!"

Автор книги: Kay Marie

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

My lips shift into a small smile. "I hope you do too."

And it's enough.

It’s the ending I was waiting for, the one I needed.

With Patrick still watching, I slip out the door and shut it behind me. The tears don't come until I make my way outside and realize how far away from home I am on the busiest night of the year. There are no cabs and the thought of the subway just makes me nauseous. So I hug my coat close and walk, unaware as snow starts to fall around me, white flakes speckling my clothes, my hair.

Maybe this was how my year was supposed to begin.

Alone.

The fresh start I've been seeking.

But the idea just makes me colder. My tears freeze against my cheeks.

By the time I get home, I'm numb. Unaware of the world. So far within my own mind that reality seems like a distant memory. Which is why part of me thinks I might be hallucinating when I open my apartment door.

I blink, closing my eyes tight, opening. But the mirage is still there.

Rose petals decorate the floor.

Candles flicker warm and bright.

But I'm stuck on the other side by an invisible barrier, unable to step forward, because I can't tell if I'm walking into my dreams or into my nightmare.

 

Want to know the real reason I'm a virgin? Because I want to be. Maybe it's idealistic, but I've been waiting to be in love with someone who truly loves me back. So maybe my first confession shouldn't have been that I'm a twenty-two year old virgin. I mean, who cares? The real confession is that I'm a twenty-two year old who's never been in love. And to be honest, that's much more depressing to me.

 

 

"Hello?" I call through the door. My voice can pass the barrier but for some reason I can't. The roses. The candles. The romance. It just doesn’t seem possible that it could be for me. I'm an intruder in someone else's happy ending.

"Bridge? Did you and your date come home?" I ask, raising my voice just slightly. But there's no response. Maybe they've already moved in to her room? Though I remember her telling me she likely wouldn’t be coming home tonight.

I bite my lip.

My eyes shift to the left and then to the right, and I have this out-of-body moment where I wonder how strange I would look to my neighbors, standing outside my door with tear stains down my cheeks, too afraid to step into my own apartment.

And really, right now, all I want is my bed.

I take a deep breath.

Here goes nothing.

I cross the threshold, heart rapid in my veins, but nothing happens. A few petals crush beneath my feet, but aside from the subtle crunch, all I hear is silence. Shutting the door behind me, I peer into the kitchen.

"Hello?"

Still nothing.

Taking a deep breath, I walk a little farther, hesitant, and enter the living room. My eyes find him immediately. Ollie. Asleep on the couch. And even though I want nothing more than to zap him from my brain, I can't stop how my heart swells watching him there with his feet resting on the arms of the sofa and his hand flung thoughtlessly over his head. The look on his face is completely peaceful, totally at ease, already soft features made more serene by the candlelight. But the longer I look at him, the more an irrational rage builds beneath my skin.

What in the hell is he doing here? Asleep on my couch? Surrounded by roses and candlelight? My heart tightens, wondering if he could have possibly been waiting for me. But then I remember the countdown, I remember midnight, I remember the sinking realization that Ollie did not come to find me, that I was an idiot for even thinking it. And I shove that little shred of hope into the farthest reaches of my mind.

Ollie did not do this for me. No matter what I might wish for, what—if I'm being honest—I've been wishing for since I was five, there's no way Ollie did all of this for me. It's not possible. And I have to stop believing it is.

Which just leaves one question, who did he do this for?

Hence, the rage. Which, I might add, is growing stronger by the second. My fists curl tighter the more I take the scene in. How dare he use my apartment to set up some romantic evening with a mystery date. I mean, the nerve! Sure, we never dated, but there's a history there that needs to be respected. And I mean, the candles everywhere. Hello? Fire hazard! And what a sneak to tell us he had to work when really he wanted us out of our own apartment. Well, sorry I broke up with my boyfriend and ruined your plans by coming home early, Ollie.

I bite my lip, holding back the urge to scream.

Really, I should wake him calmly, tug on his shoulder, nudge him alive. But before I realize what I'm doing, I'm filling up a cup of water at the sink and charging back into the living room, seeing red—and I don’t just mean the rose petals.

"Ollie," I whisper furiously, just to be able to tell myself I tried to wake him up. In case I need justification for my actions a little while later, once I've calmed down and have started to obsessively relive the moment over and over again in my head, freaking out. And then I do what I really want to do, what maybe I've really wanted to do for four and a half years but never had the chance to.

I throw an entire cup of water on his face.

Bulls-eye.

"What the—" he spurts, jerking into a seated position, eyes practically popping out of his skull. Water drips off his eyebrows, making him blink rapidly as he wipes the droplets from his face. Without looking over, he asks, "Bridge, was that really necessary?"

I don't say anything.

I just wait with my hands on my hips.

"Okay," he says, running a hand through his somewhat soaked hair. "I—"

And then he finally decides to look up. All of his features freeze. The annoyance falls away, replaced with what I can only describe as shock, lips falling open, eyes widening. And then that somewhat devilish grin creeps across his face, the one that sort of made me fall for him in the first place. His eyes begin to shine bright as beacons, calling to me.

"It's you," he says.

I cross my arms, putting up the best guard I can. "Of course it's me, I happen to live here in case you forgot."

The smile deepens, grows more mischievous. "You're late."

"What are you talking about?" I ask, shaking my head. "I'm early and clearly I've interrupted something, but I hope you realize how easily you could have burned our entire apartment building to the ground. I mean really, falling asleep when there are what, a hundred candles in the room?"

But the more I speak, the less authoritative my voice becomes. Because Ollie is still looking at me with that look, with his eyes blazing and glittering in the candlelight, and despite my conviction, the tune of my heartbeat changes subtly.

Ollie stands. "I got tired of waiting."

I take a step back as he takes a step forward. "I'm sorry if you got stood up or something, but I've had a long night and I'm tired."

I start to turn, to run, to flee, but his fingers land on my arm and even the barest touch is enough to stop me dead.

"I didn't get stood up," he says calmly. "Like I said, you're late. But you're here now."

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

My heart pounds—fear or anticipation, I'm not sure what. But I can't concentrate on anything besides the fact that Ollie is still touching me, and I haven’t moved out of his reach yet.

My gaze slowly lifts. "What does that mean?"

"It means I wasn't waiting here for some girl," Ollie whispers, tracing a line of fire up my arm. I find I'm not breathing anymore. I'm hanging on his every word instead. Ollie licks his lips, taking a deep breath. "I was waiting here for you."

"Why?" The word tumbles from my lips, made almost entirely of air. A quiet gasp of disbelief.

Ollie lifts his brows, shaking his head just slightly. "Such a typical Skye response. Why do you think?"

But another question is the exact opposite of what I needed to hear, what I wanted to hear. It's another riddle, another game. And even with the roses, and with the candles, and with that passionate look in his eyes, I don't believe this can really be happening. I don't believe him.

I step away, breaking contact.

I breathe in cool air, trying to organize my frantic thoughts.

Ollie knows he made a mistake. "Skye?"

But I shake my head. "No, why tonight? Why this? How did you even know I'd be home? How'd you know it wouldn’t be Bridge walking through that door instead? Or no one?"

"I didn't," he urges, stepping forward. But I need to think clearly. I need to not be touching him. Ollie stops, dropping his hand and furrowing his brows, confidence shrinking before my eyes. "I didn’t know you'd come home. I didn’t know if I would be waiting here all night for nothing. But I hoped. Which is why I did all this. I decided to let fate play its hand. If you came home, I'd try one last time to make you see. And if you didn't, it's a new year and I'd let you go. But here you are, you came home. To me. Fate."

Neither one of us moves.

I'm made immobile by incomprehension.

"One last time to make me see what?" I whisper, eyes looking at the candles, at the roses, at my coat crumpled on the floor. Everywhere and anywhere but him.

Ollie takes both of my hands in his. They're small and delicate compared to his callused chef's palms. A heat gathers beneath my skin, warm, a rising tide. My eyes travel to the spot, thinking how perfectly our fingers seem to fit together, as though made to hold onto one another.

And then I finally look up. Right into those turquoise eyes that have a way of undoing me, of making me melt, of shattering all the convictions that so closely guard my fragile heart.

"Isn't it obvious, Skye?" he murmurs. "To make you see how much I love you."

I inhale sharply, releasing a slow breath. Part of me wants to rip my hands away and hide. Part of me wants to wrap them around his neck and never let go. I'm torn down the middle, frozen. But now that the words are out there, I can't ignore them. I can’t misinterpret them. I can't pretend they don't exist.

"Since when?" I whisper.

He holds me tighter. "Since I let you walk out my door four and a half years ago."

And with that, I do break away.

I thought I'd buried it, but the pain is still raw, and I'm not strong enough to sit there and take it. And if we're going to finally talk about that night after so long, I can't hold his hands and pretend that everything is okay.

"Ollie…" I challenge, trailing off, not sure what I want to say, to ask.

"Skye," he challenges right back, daring me.

My chest expands, swelling with all the unsaid words I've kept inside for the past four years, all the bitter remarks I ached to scream, all the vengeful accusations I've wanted to yell, all the nasty and hurtful things I've only said out loud in my dreams. But there's something else beneath all of that pain, something I told myself time and time again that I would never admit, not to him, not to anyone. But there it is, pushing past everything else, bringing a confession rather than an accusation to my lips.

"You broke my heart," I whisper.

"Skye." He sighs.

"No." I shake my head. It's my turn to speak. "You say you're in love with me? You say you've known ever since that night? Then how could you do that to me? How could you have been so cold, to not even speak to me, to let me walk out your door in complete silence while you listened to me cry? I don't think you even understand what was so horrible about that night, what made me need to never see you again. It wasn't the rejection. I was prepared for the rejection, I went in there expecting you to turn me down. No, the part that broke me was those few moments when I thought you loved me too. To have that little hope I always tried to ignore actually come true, and then to have it ripped away without so much as a sorry, without so much as a goodbye. Before that night, I never imagined you could hurt me so much. And ever since, it's the only thing I expect you to do."

Ollie steps back as though punched.

I stand firm. Because I meant every word and he had to hear them.

"I hated myself for hurting you," he says, still keeping his distance, vulnerable across the candlelight and the silence. "But you have to understand where I was coming from. Before that night in my room, I never once thought of you that way. You were my little sister's best friend, one of my closest friends. I never allowed myself to cross that line, not ever. And then you were there in my room, beautiful in the moonlight, like some sort of vision from my dreams, and something shifted. You touched me and sparks burned my skin, heat that had never been there before. And then you looked up at me, so honest, and told me you loved me. And I did the only thing I wanted to do in that instant, I kissed you. And it felt so right, I never wanted to stop."

I swallow the tightness in my throat. "Then why did you?"

Ollie shakes his head, laughing darkly, little bitter exhales. "Because, Skye, what was I supposed to do? You were leaving to start college the next day. I was leaving to go back to California, hundreds of miles away. We were in completely different places in life and I thought if I just stopped it, everything would go back to normal, that we would both forget. Only that's not what happened. I went to California and I couldn't stop thinking about you. I couldn't escape the memory of that kiss. And I went home for Christmas that year wondering if maybe you thought the same thing, if maybe it was worth trying. But you never visited the house. You never came over for dinner, never came in to see my parents. Bridget always met you out somewhere. And I realized I got exactly what I wanted. You forgot about the kiss. But you forgot something else too. You forgot about me."

"I never forgot," I whisper, voice raw. How could he think I forgot? For four years, I tried everything I could to push Ollie from my mind. And for four years, I've been able to think of nothing else, no one else. Even when I was with John, it was Oliver who burned in the back of my mind.

Ollie steps closer, still not touching me, but my awareness of him feels like a soft caress, stirring every part of me, zapping my every nerve to life. Our bodies are only an inch apart and palpable energy electrifies the small space. Still though, I make no move to close it.

"Me neither," he says, and his voice brushes warm against my cheek, pulling me closer. "Which is why I came to New York when a job became available. I wanted to see you. And I never meant to show up so unannounced, but when you came in that day, speaking to me like nothing had ever changed, I knew you thought I was Bridge but I didn’t care. For a moment, I got an idea of what we could be. But I didn’t know if you felt the same way. And I waited, sending you signals, trying to read the look in your eyes. But I couldn’t. And then I kissed you, and you ran away, which was a pretty obvious sign that I should bow out. But I couldn't do that either. So that brings us to tonight, to right now."

Ollie brushes his fingers across my cheek, trailing them around my neck, back into my hair. I look up, swallowing as my eyes meet his smoldering gaze, but the words are still trapped beneath my tongue. A shy smile plays on his lips.

"I'm in love with you, Skylar Quinn," he whispers, leaning down so our foreheads touch and our lips rest a tantalizing inch apart. "And I couldn't give up without making sure you knew exactly how I felt. I'm in love with you. Now it's up to you to decide what happens next."

I can't breathe. Can't think.

Oliver McDonough is in love with me.

I've waited my entire life to hear those words. And still, after so much time, I have no idea what to say.

So I don't speak.

I lean up and kiss him instead.

And just like four and a half years ago, the fire sparking between us flares to an inferno in an instant. Ollie kisses me back and before I know what's happening, I'm in too deep. My hands slip into his hair. His arms hug me tight, lifting me onto my toes. We're both hungry after waiting so long.

But there's something else. Something wrong. A prickly sensation in my chest that even the flames won't burn out.

I try to ignore it. I want to. But I can't.

And really, I've been ignoring my gut for too long already.

I break away, ripping myself free of Ollie's embrace, turning my back on him, breathing heavily as I bend over my stomach, eyes on the ground, trying to fight the dizzy spell threatening to overwhelm me. And I realize my eyes have started to burn.

All of my dreams are coming true.

So why am I crying?

"Skye?" Ollie's voice is deep and dark.

But I can't look at him.

"Skye, what's wrong? What happened?" And the vulnerability in his tone just brings me back to the moment four years ago when I asked him nearly the same thing.

"I don't know," I whisper, voice trembling. My entire body is shaking. "This is all happening too fast."

He puts a hand on my arm, but I don't spin around. "We can take things slow, Skye. I don't care about that."

And with those softly spoken words, I do turn. I meet his confused gaze. "Not that," I murmur, shaking my head. "This. Us. It's happening too fast. I was in love with you for most of my life, and then I spent four years trying to stop being in love with you. And now here you are, telling me all the things I always wanted to hear, and it's happening too fast. I just—I'm just…"

I shake my head, trailing off, unsure.

"You're just what?" Ollie asks, stepping back. And I can't help but notice how cloudy his teal eyes have become, how dark, how lonely.

"I'm waiting for the ball to drop," I admit quietly.

He recoils. "What the hell does that mean?"

I take a deep breath. What do I mean? Why am I doing this—do I really want to break my own heart? But as much as I want to reach up and kiss him and make this knot in my throat disappear, I don't think I can. "It means," I say slowly, only understanding the words once I speak them aloud. They're not coming from my thoughts—they're coming straight from my soul. Brutally honest. I try again. "It means that this happened four years ago. I thought I was about to get everything I ever wanted, and then just as quickly, it was all gone and I was left empty. Even though you're saying all of these things, I'm just waiting for something to happen that will take them all away. I'm not sure if I believe that you and me are possible. We're more like a dream, and eventually I'll have to wake up and realize I never had you in the first place."

Ollie's face is stone, not moving as I speak. His brows twitch once and I wonder what he's hiding from me. "So you're saying you don't even want to try?"

I shake my head, because hearing those words from him sends a splintering crack down the center of my heart. "No, I don't know what I'm saying. I just, I feel like I can get my heart broken now. Or we can try and then when it all falls apart, it'll just be that much harder for me to put myself back together again."

He steps closer, touching the tip of my chin with his fingers, urging me to look up. "But what if we try and we make it. What then? We both get everything we ever wanted."

But I don't say anything.

I don't know what to say, because I've been hurt by Ollie before in a way I never dreamed possible. And I don’t know if I can see past that, past the pain.

He drops his hand and steps back, squinting. "Do you trust me, Skye?"

"Ollie…" I trail off, looking away, self-conscious.

"It's an easy question, do you trust me?"

But it's not easy. Not really. I trust him with my life. I trust him to protect me, to keep me safe. I trust him as a friend. I trust him to want what's best for me, to care about me. I trust him in so many ways, in every way but one. But for the purposes of this conversation, there's only one way that really matters.

Do I trust him with my heart?

"No," I whisper.

For a moment, I think he doesn’t hear me and I can't say it again. But a shudder passes through his body, a pulse of utter defeat, and he sags. I can't look up from the floor as he stares at me, waiting for something more, for something else. But I don't give it to him. After a few moments of quiet, he slips past me. Each step echoes in my ears, louder than the last. But I'm stuck, immobile. The creak of the apartment door slipping open sounds as loud as lightning, but it’s the click of it shutting closed that hits my heart like thunder, booming, impenetrable, rumbling on and on without end.

And then it passes, leaving me totally and utterly empty, swept away in the winds and unsure where I've been stranded.

All I'm left with is one single thought.

One question.

Is this how Ollie felt four and a half years ago when I was the one walking away?