Of course he hadn’t noticed. Because it hadn’t been like that for him. It was almost humiliating, thinking about all the times I’d been convinced he’d been about to kiss me. Like when he’d climbed the tree to my room. Or when we’d been dancing at Downtown. He hadn’t thought about it at all.
“Maybe you noticed I’ve been drawing you since freshman year,” I went on, on a roll and unable to stop. “You helped Junie blow-dry my sketchbook. You had to have seen Kit. You didn’t think he looked like you?”
“Daisy.”
“Iknowit’s weird!” I cringed a little at the sound of my name on his lips. “I—I know you think it’s weird, and it’ll ruin things, and I know you don’t feel the same way. I’ve just—I don’t want you thinking I still want Dalton when the only person I want isyou.”
The near-shouted confession hung in the air like a stench, unable to breathe around, and my chest ached with the lack of oxygen. I didn’t want to look at Jamie—in fact, at that exact second, I’d have been content to never look at my best friend again—but my gaze lifted on its own accord.
Jamie’s eyes were still wide, his lips parted, his glasses slipping down his nose. I didn’t want to look any closer at the expression, too afraid I’d find horror, or disgust, or something equally as shameful in his eyes, but I still couldn’t look away.
I couldn’t breathe, but Jamie drew in a sharp breath, one that hitched his chest, and he let it out slowly, still not turning away.
Something about that look—that awful, unbearably intense look—made my stomach drop. “Stop looking at me like that,” I told him, voice shaking.
Jamie didn’t blink. “I’m looking at you the way I’ve always looked at you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re looking at me like—like you want to touch me. Like you want—to kiss me. You’re looking at me like you flipped the Romance Switch, like there are other people around to see it, and there’s no one else. It’s just us.”Stop looking at me like you love me.
“Daisy.” Jamie said my name quietly, and the frantic feeling underneath my skin suddenly stilled. Jamie’s voicewas even, level, and loud enough that there would be no room for misinterpretation. “I am looking at you the way I have always looked at you.”
And for the first time, I heard exactly what he meant.
I am looking at you the way I have always looked at you.
Like he loved me.
“Selfless.” Jamie took a slow step forward, as if he didn’t want to startle me. His chest rose and fell fast, but his words were soft, almost breathy. “The night of Lydia’s party, when you said it for the first time, I feltsick.”
How do you know I’ll do what’s good for you?he’d asked me when we sat in his car.
And I’d replied,Because you’re the most selfless person I know. I trust you.
“Selfless,” Jamie echoed again, taking another step forward. “As if I’d kissed you solely for your benefit. As if I hadn’t done it because I desperately wanted to.”
Now I was the one struck speechless, and even though Jamie’s voice was smooth, my heart started hammering hard in my chest. I could hear the pulse roar in my ears. “Jamie,” I whispered, but the sound was barely audible.
“As if I haven’t been taking liberties this entire time.” Jamie stopped a foot in front of me, and up close, I could see that he was trembling all over, as if an electrical current ran along his skin. “As if every time I held your hand, or pulled you close, or nearly kissed you, wasn’t because I was taking advantage of the situation. This entire time, I’ve felt so sick to my stomach because you trusted me todo the right thing, and I was too selfish in pretending it was real.”
A wave of dizziness actually had me swaying in my heels. “Jamie.”
“I was afraid you’d be able to tell how pathetically in love I am with you.” Jamie took another step toward me, almost as if some invisible force drew him closer. He came to a stop just before me, close enough to touch. “I mean, Daisy—how could you nottell?”
My brain was slow to wrap around it all, words that were obviously English but sounded more like gibberish. Nonsense. Not real. “You were so good at pretending?—”
“I wasn’t pretending. ‘The things I do for you, Daisy Carmichael,’” he echoed what he’d said before. “Like finally getting to be with you how I always dreamed, but knowing it meant nothing to you. It was self-inflicted torture, but I wanted it. I chose it. If it meant I got a glimpse of what it’d be like to be loved by you, I’d choose that pain again and again.”
I almost felt like I needed to put a hand out, to brace myself against his words and what they did to me. I could feel myself unravel, the hope and longing I’d been shoving down finally coming to the surface. “You look at me… like you want to write about me?”
“I do,” he murmured, dipping his head down low, our foreheads nearly brushing. “I do write about you. I am a moon caught in your orbit, Daisy Carmichael. I have been spinning around you for so long I don’t even remember what it felt like before.”
As Jamie’s forehead brushed mine, it was like theelectricity along his skin jumped to me. The moon and the little planet, the story he’d told Theo—a story he’d written. It’d been aboutus. About how he followed me, the little planet he felt irresistibly drawn toward.
“You’ve thought about kissing me these past few weeks,” he went on, shuffling his feet apart to bring himself lower, “but I’ve thought about kissing you foryears.”
Years. I suddenly remembered the day at the beach, the flippant words he’d given Dalton without hesitating.I’ve been in love with Daisy since Nell and I switched schools freshman year.
He hadn’t gone off script back then—he’d been honest. Our first meeting, when I’d jumped up to throw an arm around his neck as I claimed the twins as my new best friends, it’d started then for him.
