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14
Paul
Shelby bit her lip and looked down at her plate. I kept my eyes on her face, waiting to see if she’d say more. When she didn’t, I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and got up from the table. I needed a minute. I needed to process what her confession meant for us. Had she really admitted to having feelings for me since high school but pushed me away because she thought it would be better for me without her?
I crossed to the window of her dining room, looking out at her view of Main Street in the fading light. Then I turned to her, my heart squeezing when I saw her guilty expression. I didn’t want her to feel bad about it. But at the same time, that was a pretty significant tidbit of information she’d let loose.
“So,” I started, then cleared my throat. “You had feelings for me in high school.”
“Yes.”
“And I had feelings for you.”
She pursed her lips. “Mm-hmm.”
“So we could have been together all this time? We could have been like Bobby and Cassidy. They started dating in high school and look at them now. Still here. Still together. Happily married.”
“Maybe.”
My brows flew up. “Maybe?”
“Well, I don’t know, Paul. Maybe we would have, maybe we wouldn’t have. There’s no way to know.”
I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Uh, I’m pretty sure I know. Because I know how I felt about you. And the entire reason I joined the Marines in the first place was because I didn’t think you felt the same way, and I didn’t want to hang around here and torture myself. If you hadn’t pushed me away I probably wouldn’t have joined, and we would have been here, together, this entire time.”
She stood, coming around the table to stand in front of me, watching me carefully as she went. “Even if that were true, do you really think that would have been the best thing for either of us?”
“How could it not?”
“Paul, I was really struggling back then. Everything I’d ever wanted—everything I’d ever dreamed of—was ripped away from me with this diagnosis. I had no idea who I was without my dream of leaving for New York to be a professional dancer. It was all I knew, and just like that, it was gone.”
I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jeans, remembering the way she’d seemed so lost and broken at the time. I’d wanted to help her, but I had no idea how. It had been maddening. The powerlessness I felt was too big for my immature teenage brain to wrap my head around. The best I could do was hold her while she cried or distract her with cheesy movie marathons or make her laugh with dumb jokes. But it never felt like enough. And I’d hated it.
“And you,” she went on, pausing like she was carefully choosing her words, “you didn’t really know what you wanted out of life. School was about passing because you had to. But what did you want to be? What did you want to do?”
I swallowed and paced away, running a hand over the back of my neck. “I didn’t know.”
“Exactly. You can say you joined the Marines to get away from your feelings or whatever, but it wasn’t only about that. It was probably the best thing you could have done for yourself. It gave you direction and purpose. It gave you goals. You totally changed when you became a Marine. And as amazing as I thought you were back then… man, Paul, you became even better. Stronger. More disciplined. And okay, also really freaking hot.”
My eyes zipped to hers then, finding laughter there. I couldn’t help but smile even with all of the other emotions battling for center stage inside of me. “Oh yeah?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
I sighed and let my head fall, looking at my feet for a moment before I went back to the topic at hand. “So, what? You’re saying it was a good thing that we didn’t start dating that night at prom?”
“I mean,Ithink so. I got to figure out who I was and you got to figure out who you were. Just because it’s good that we didn’t rush into anything back then doesn’t change the fact that we’ve loved each other this whole time.”
My feet stuttered forward then, almost on their own accord. Then I stopped and stared at her. “That we’ve… what?”
She looked away shyly, not meeting my eyes. “Am I wrong?”
I crossed to her in three quick strides, placing my hands on either side of her face so she’d look at me. “No. You’re not wrong. I do love you. I always have.”
Before I could let myself overthink it, I pulled her to me, crushing my mouth to hers. Her hands came up between us, grabbing fistfuls of my shirt to secure me to her as she kissed me back, and it was like all the years of longing had been completely worth it.
I poured everything into that kiss. All of the times I’d watched her from across the room and wished she were mine. All of the friendly hugs or companionable touches that I’d wished would lead to something more. All of the goodbyes when I left to go back to my duty station and wanted to tell her to come with me because I couldn’t live without her by my side.
Shelby moved her lips over mine with a reckless yearning that told me she felt the same way. That I hadn’t been alone, aching for this like a drowning man who needed to breathe. I released her face, running my hands over her back and through her hair, the soft moan that escaped her almost bringing me to my knees.
