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I looked, but also didn’t. My mind was stuck on the warmth of her lips against my cheek, the sound of a perfect pucker playing on repeat like my new favorite song.
“Should we redo it?” I found myself asking. Because I was an idiot, or I was too tired to keep my guard up like I should, or because I did want a picture of it. It was a cute idea. Cheek kisses were cute between platonic friends, or whatever the line was we were telling ourselves these days.
Chapter 27 - Carmen
“Oh, darn. This one’s blurry, too.” I wasn’t lying. I was a terrible photographer. Always had been. But I still felt like a liar because we didn’t need this particular pose after all the other pictures we’d already taken. I just wanted a reason to put my lips on him again. I’d done it the first time on a whim, not prepared for how much I liked kissing his face.
I held the phone up, feeling a little jolty and hot and cold all over. This was a very bad idea, like when you tell yourself not to read another page of a good book, and the next thing you know it’s three a.m. and your eyes feel like they’re bleeding.
“I’ll hold it.” Isaac took the phone from me, giving me free hands. His mistake. I took his face in my hands again, another thing I found I liked very much, and leaned in.
I smiled at the camera before turning andbreathing in the clean soap smell that lingered on his skin, pressing my lips to Isaac’s sandpaper cheek. The texture was intoxicating, both rough and soft. I closed my eyes and pressed another kiss a little lower, then one more a little closer to his mouth, and that’s when I knew I’d taken this way too far.
I took a giant scoot back and ran my hands through my hair, so completely mortified. Isaac, for all his flirting, had never been so bold. He also hadn’t exactly reciprocated. In fact, I was dying to know what those pictures would tell me if I ever dared to look at them.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s fine.” Isaac sighed. His expression made me want to hide beneath the pillows, because he seemed to see right into my soul without giving me a glimpse into his. In other words, he had on the perfect poker face, meant to protect me from whatever he was really feeling. He turned and crisscrossed his legs, facing me. “Carmen, talk to me.”
I shook my head. What could I say? That I was the world’s biggest hypocrite? That I didn’t know what I wanted? How great for him.
“Here’s what I see,” he continued, as if he was teaching a class, and I was the student being coaxed into participation. “I see a lot of fear and embarrassment, and I want to understand it. You said it yourself. We can share the hard stuff with each other.”
He put his hands down between us on the couch, and I reached out and covered them with mine, letting my breathing slow. He was treating me like a frightened deer, but I didn’t have to be one. I had to stop doing this.
“Yeah, I’m scared,” I admitted. “I’m a little rusty, and for good reason. I took a break, and it’s been… freeing.”
“A break from what?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? I’d lost myself there for a while. My real personality with all its quirks, dressing in whatever I felt like, telling jokes that had the potential to totally bomb. But I didn’t say any of that, because suppressing those things about myself had their roots in something Isaac was already sorry for. He didn’t need to spend another second feeling sorry about it. He might have been the first guy to make me question my worth, but he certainly wasn’t the last.
“I’ve been taking a break from relationships,” I finally said. “I got a little boy crazy in college. Okay, a lot boy crazy. I left all those dumb high school boys behind who had never noticed me, and it was time to find love like my parents had, and my grandparents, and mytiasandtios. So, I went all in, and I did everything I could to be this perfect girlfriend because I just knew this guy was going to love me forever. And then it didn’t work out.” I shuddered. “Wash, rinse, repeat.”
“Been there,” Isaac whispered.
“Yeah.” I believed him. I knew I wasn’t unique in getting my heart broken by people with commitment issues. That’s why I stopped. It wasn’t them or me. It was the situation, setting us up to have wildly different expectations. “It was just… a lot. I was ready to be happy again. Comfortable in my own skin.” I rubbed my eyes. “I know I sound like the most jaded person ever, it’s just the last guy who broke my heart chased me hard. I hadn’t wanted to date anyone, but he was persistent.”
“When was this?”
“Mm. Almost two years ago.”
“He’s the one who brought you flowers?”
I nodded.Thanks, Papá. “Yeah. He was very good at the romance stuff, and he was so complimentary. But I look back, and I’m not sure any of it was sincere. He got frustrated one day and told me…” I didn’t want to repeat what he’d told me. “Basically, he said he thought I was pretty, but annoying, and he’d been hoping to end things a long time ago. It was like, poof. Mask off.”
Isaac groaned. “Why are there people like that in the world?”
“I don’t know. All I know is, there’s a lot less pettiness and fakery that goes on between friends. And when you tell a guy you’re only interested in friendship, and you mean it…”
“It protects you from getting hurt again. Makes sense.” Isaac’s fingers left mine and he sat back, looking contemplative.
He was right. I did feel better telling him, but also not. Mostly, I felt hollow inside. Guilty. I knew with all my heart Isaac was not fake, that he liked me for me. And yet, the thought of another romantic relationship still made me itchy. I had asked for friendship and then made everything confusing again. Any other guy I’d ever gone out with would have turned his head and taken advantage of the moment, letting our lips meet like it was a happy accident. But not Isaac. He’d promised he wouldn’t do something like that. And what had I done? Tempted him to break his promise to me, creating all this awkwardness between us.
“Let’s get you home.”
“Okay.” I picked up my things and put my shoes back on.
On the drive home, Isaac looked like he was a million miles away. I didn’t know if he was gathering his thoughts or preparing how best to distance himself from me. And I couldn’t ask. It wouldn’t be right.
