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“Yeah, I may or may not have shoved it in my backpack and brought it home. I was afraid something was going to happen to it,” I said.
“Yeah, my mom definitely would have thrown this away, so thanks for that,” Natalie said.
She put the bowl back in the box.
“So, we’re doing this?” she asked.
“We’re doing this,” I said.
* * *
Natalie and I kissed some more, but she always pulled away before we could get too far.
“Are you okay? I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to,” I said.
“No, I want it. That’s the problem. I want too much and it’s too fast, Em. One of us has to have some sense.”
I pouted. “I see your point, but I don’t like it.”
She laughed. “Noted. We should take this slow, Em. I can’t lose you again.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said. “We won’t let it happen.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized how foolish they were. How naive.
“If this goes wrong, it’s going to be bad,” Natalie said.
“I know,” I said. “But if we don’t try? Can you go back to how things were before we kissed? Because I can’t.”
She shook her head. “No, I can’t. But we should be careful. That’s why we should go slow.”
She was right. Going slow was the most rational thing to do.
“Okay. Slow.”
We both sat up and put our hands in our laps.
“See? This is fine,” Natalie said, pulling at her bracelet. I gripped my legs to keep from touching her.
“Yeah, this is absolutely fine.”
We looked at each other and I couldn’t take my eyes off her lips. The lips that I would be kissing right now if I wasn’t trying to be a rational person.
“When did things change?” Natalie asked.
“The first moment I saw you,” I answered immediately, because it was the truth. The moment I’d seen her standing there at the bottom of the steps, gravity had shifted.
“I think it took a little bit longer for me, if that’s okay. I think it was the first night we had to share a bed. I was pretending to sleep the whole time because I couldn’t stop thinking about rolling over and touching you to see what would happen,” she said.
“So that’s why you were practically falling off the bed.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It was to stop myself from reaching out to you.”
Everything fell into place.
We’d been fighting this, whatever it was, since the moment I’d arrived with the moving truck. Every moment we’d spent together during that week had led us to this. It had only been a matter of time.
“I really should go home. I’m afraid if I don’t hit the pause button, I won’t know how to,” she said in a whisper. I almost groaned.
“You’re right,” I said. “You’re right. I should drive you home.”
