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“No,” I say, horrified, “I’m not—I don’t—” My words come out all jumbled and then they don’t come out at all. “Eden, give me a second chance.” It comes out too soon, too desperate. All soul, all wrong.
“Isaiah…” she sighs, her cheeks turning scarlet. But this time, she doesn’t hide herself. She doesn’t back down. This girl has guts. “I don’t know you anymore,” she says. “You’re not that boy.”
Cold sweat drenches me.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life groveling. I’ll be the king of groveling, Eden.”
“You don’t need to… to do that, Isaiah, not for me.”
“Oh, I do.” I know how a man on death row feels, begging for his life. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want. Do you want to be just friends? You asked me that once, and I was such a jerk… I can’t lose you, I can’t.”
“Doyouwant to be just friends?” she asks, smiling a little.
“You know I donotwant to be your friend,” I reply with barely suppressed fury. I take a deep breath to try to calm myself down. “But I’ll take you any way I can get you, ok?” Her hair is heavy with water, and she keeps wiping at her forehead, but her sleeve is drenched and it does nothing to stop the rainwater from getting into her eyes. I hurriedly get out of my jacket and hold it over her head. I’m pretty much naked underneath it. I don’t even care. “Look, baby, I’m sorry we’re out here in the rain. And for before, on stage. It shouldn’t have happened like this, all this pressure on you…”
“I’m doing ok,” Eden says, shaking.
I look at her. Back straight, hair dripping, lips trembling. Even here, in the pouring rain, after all these emotions, she’s standing tall. Defiant.
“You are,” I tell her, my voice breaking. “You are so freaking strong.”
“I am what I’ve had to be.”
Suddenly, the word ‘strong’ feels like the worst thing I could have said to describe her. As if she’s ever been given a choice. It was between being strong or dying.
I can’t take this any longer.
I lean down and kiss her.
Her lips are soft and eager and familiar. I taste rain on them and my own tears. I pull her against my chest and her hands come gently to my back, as I whisper “oh my G—” inside her mouth, the rest of the word lost as I sigh and close my mouth over her lips.
I kiss her hungrily, and she meets my every move, my every sigh with one of her own. Her little body melts against me, and she lets herself fall, sure I will catch her.
Our kisses are like the rain that’s pouring down on us, intense and passionate. Each touch ignites me. I place my hands on either side of her head, holding her against my lips as if she's the most precious thing in the world, and she clings to me as if I'm her lifeline. Time seems to stand still as we share this moment, lost in the sensation of our lips moving together. Every touch, every brush of skin against skin, every sigh, every gasp for breath, is a release for a need that’s been building up for years. I feel breathless and overwhelmed by how much I need her. It’s true what I said: I can’t stop. I won’t stop, not ever.
But then it suddenly dawns on me how innocent, how sheltered she has been. She is almost twenty, but she has lived the life of a nun—and worse. And I can’t think of the worse right now. But I can stop myself, even though it physically hurts to pull my lips from hers.
“Do you want me to let you go?” I murmur into her wet hair. Our hips are still joined, and I lean back my torso to look at her. “Because it might actually kill me to do that, but I’ll do it. For you, I’ll do it. Or at least… I’ll try.”
“Isaiah,” she says quietly and I melt against her, almost sliding to my knees. She smiles, rubbing my back. “Do you really think you have to try?”
I don’t dare to breathe.
“All you have to do is look at me and I am undone,” she says. “I am trembling and hurting and wanting you so much I can’t breathe. It’s been like this since the beginning.”
“You… you have?” I squint to discern her features beyond the rain.
“I’m Darcy and I’m Heathcliff,” she quotes my own song back to me. “You’ve made an Austen heroine out of me. Don’t press me, man, I’ll recite it right now.”
My whole face turns into a smile.
“You… you heard?” I duck down my head, too embarrassed to look at her. “You remembered?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And… did you not hear me say I’ve been wanting you so much I can’t breathe?”
