AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We’re frozen in time and in place, both of us now inches apart. My breath quickens, and despite his unreadable expression, I see it. The attraction? The curiosity? I don’t know. I’m not sure, but I can almost bet he’s about to kiss me, and I’m going to let him.
Holy crap, Elliot Rivera is about to kiss me.
“I promise that you’ll never find another like me!”Both my mother and Taylor suddenly blaring from a speaker, sing in unison, shattering the bubble he and I were surrounded by.
My eyes seal shut as I stand, the upbeat music echoing from the master bedroom and through the rest of the house. “Sorry. My mom is getting ready for a date. I’ll go tell her to turn it off.”
Elliot slowly rises and shakes his head. “That’s okay. I actually think it’s time for a break anyway.”
My brows cinch together in part annoyance at my mom for ruining our moment and the other in worry. He’s probably going to say it’s a break and go drive to get something and never come back. Probably both realizing he was about to make a huge mistake, and also deciding this school project is too big for two people.
I clear my throat. “Yeah, sure. Of course. I’ll keep going over the—”
“Would you mind showing me whatthatis?”
My gaze flickers to his, and I follow his line of sight out of the kitchen window leading to my tree house. It’s pretty big, whereas treehouses go, resting about twelve feet in the air and housing two hundred square feet. There was a time I tried to make it my bedroom, but quickly realized without a bathroom, it wasn’t really sustainable.
Still, if Mom isn’t home, I stay in it until sundown.
“Sure.”
He follows me out of the kitchen and toward my sanctuary. Its sides and front are covered in wood that’s a light oak color, but the back—my favorite part—is a giant glass window.
When we climb up the narrow set of stairs, my pulse begins thrumming hard again, but I desperately try to focus on each step so I don’t fall. Inside there is a couch, a desk, an art station, bookshelves, and a huge bean bag. If my dad had still been here after he got it done, I’d have electricity too, but for now, solar lights it is.
Elliot is silent as he looks around, his fingers unabashedly grazing over my shelves and the titles of some of the books nestled on them. My heart falters as he examines the space, his feet finally coming to a stop when he reaches the window.
With his back to me, I wait. My mind racing, not being able to reign in my array of emotions or settle on one singular thought. When he finally speaks, the air grows thin.
“This is the first place I’d come whether there were the slow or rabid zombies.”
A smile cuts across my face, and the ache in my cheeks is instant. “It’s my favorite place in the world.”
He nods, turning around. “It’s easy to see why.”
I bite into my lip, hoping it will stop the dozens of things I want to say from spilling out. Like how when it rains, I could come up here and draw an entire galaxy on two sheets of paper. Or when it’s snowing, the amazing insulation is thick enough that I sit up here for hours reading until the little solar lights finally stutter off.
How on the clearest summer night, I fall into my bean bag and make a wish on every last star.
“Can I tell you something, Adelina?”
“Yes.” My voice is nothing but a whisper.
He takes a slow, deliberate step toward me, and I suck in a sharp breath.
Elliot pauses, a genuine smirk curling the ends of his lips. For a moment, when those lips part I wonder if he’s about to tell me a lifelong secret of how he’s been head over heels in love with me and waited all this time before confessing. Or maybe that he just realized how he has a thing for the quiet, hardworking types.
But instead of either, or something even remotely in the same realm, he grips the nape of his neck and sighs. “I’m having a hard time understanding the unit. The chemistry of it is difficult for me.”
My heart squeezes painfully in my chest, and a heaviness I can’t possibly understand settles on my shoulders with the realization that I am a stupid, foolish girl.
I blink at least three times as I back away and walk to my desk. “Oh, got you. Um, sometimes it’s easier to show it as a visual. Let’s try that.”
Small little tremors shake my hands as I try to find my chalk, but after a moment, I become overly frustrated at both my wishfulness, and the stark reality, so I grab my Sharpies.
Elliot sits on the couch as I take the markers over to a blank wall. Without thinking, I lose myself in something I know. Something I can distract myself with while I attempt to get my silly little heart rate under control. I’m scribbling so quickly, and explaining so much that soon, the air isn’t as thick, and the room opens back up.
When I’m done, I glance back at Elliot as a fellow group member and not as the guy I wish would see me and not the wall I so clearly blend into.
