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Both of us kept to ourselves, but while he found himself in fights at least once a month, I spoke to one other person besides my teacher.
Both single all four years of school, but girls did everything they could to get his attention, while not one guy looked my way.
I was interested because we were so similar, yet so different, and I was tempted to know how he saw the world.
But then, as soon as I thought I would get to learn, he was taken away by the one person who could.
Shaking my head, I use the remote to scroll until I get toA Christmas Story, and sit back down at the table. “No, but I may have had the occasional dream of less-than-perfect acts.”
“Dreams.” Elliot’s head quirks to the side in interest. “Care to share?”
My heart thuds a little faster. It’d be so easy to say it right now. Tell him how many nights I fantasized about him. How many times I left my door open in case one night he decided he didn’t care as much as I wish I didn’t. That it wasn’t just one dream, but dozens I wished were reality.
But as much as I crave I could part my lips to utter the words, I am who I am, even if annoyingly so. I don’t take risks because I’ve never been granted the luxury. And honestly, I’d much rather live with Elliot always being awhat ifin my life, than a flat-out rejection. I don’t believe my feelings could handle that, not with how deep and how long they’ve run.
Shaking my head, I divert my eyes and begin eating a slice of the ham. “Nothing too crazy.”
“Hmm,” he grunts, but I refuse to look at him only to be met with that same, almost disappointed glower on his face.
Instead, I continue focusing on the food in front of me for the next ten minutes, only glancing up to grab my water glass or watch small snippets of the movie. It isn’t until I’m almost done eating that Elliot finally speaks.
“Do you ever wonder what would've happened if our parents didn’t get married?”
A humorless, sad-tainted smile breaks across my face. “Back then, almost every day.”
“Why?”
My mouth opens and closes before I sigh and glance up at him. His gaze is what I expected—bored, but intense—though a small tendon that pulses in this jaw tells another story. Something past the surface of what he’s showing me.
Then it hits me like the kid in the movie who realized not to put his tongue on a frozen pole.
In high school, there were a few occasions I thought he was flirty, when I could have sworn he was hitting on me. But I couldn’t possibly fathom it beingmehe was choosing. Not when the girlfriend options were vast and many, and none of them were hermits. Today has followed that similar theme. Like he’s casting out the fishing line and waiting for me to bite. It’s as though he needs me to make the first move so he knows it's real.
We’ve both been waiting on the other. Too worried about the circumstances, our lives before, and our lives now to just out and do something.
We’ve been living the forbidden, miscommunication trope of life.
Goddamn it.
Iswear if my revelation turns out to be a massive misread on my part, and I end up rejected, I will never crawl out of the hole of my condo ever again.
Pulse thrumming, and anxiety whipping through me so fast the air feels all but existent, I rush the words out. “Because I wanted you.”
Elliot falls silent for a moment before his absurdly perfect lips slightly part, allowing his tongue enough room to sneak out and sweep along the edge. “You wanted me?”
A vengeful blush flares across my face and down the middle of my body, engulfing the raging butterflies in a blaze. But now that I’ve started, I force myself to continue. I can’t chicken out this time. This is it.
“Yes, along with everyone else in our graduating class.”
“Yet you never said anything.” A statement, not a clarifying question.
I scoff, standing to gather my empty plate. “Elliot, you know me well enough to know I’m not the most talkative type, especially back then.”
His mouth tugs down in the corners. “Neither am I.”
True. But also, I’m not the one asking him why he didn’t pursue me. I grab a few of the smaller, empty dishes and pile them together. “Does it matter, Elliot? Our parents ended up together anyway, so it would have been in vain in the end.”
“Not really, considering they’re divorced.”
