I’m not an idiot, Kenji. I have reasons for the things I say.â€
“Yeah, and maybe I’m just saying that you have no idea what you’re saying.â€
“Whatever.â€
“Don’t whatever me—â€
“Whatever,†I say again.
“Oh my God,†Kenji says to no one in particular. “I think this girl wants to get her ass kicked.â€
“You couldn’t kick my ass if I had ten of them.â€
Kenji laughs out loud. “Is that a challenge?â€
"It’s a warning,†I say to him.
“Ohhhhhh, so you’re threatening me now? Little crybaby knows how to make threats now?â€
“Shut up, Kenji.â€
“Shut up, Kenji,†he repeats in a whiny voice, mocking me.
And he leans in, so carefully. Breathing
and not breathing and hearts beating
between us and he’s so close, he’s so close and I can’t feel my legs anymore. I can’t feel my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere,filling everything and he whispers
“Please.â€
He says “Please don’t shoot me for this.â€
And he kisses me.
His lips are softer than anything I've ever known, soft like a first snowfall, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. It’s sweet, it’s
so effortlessly sweet.
And then it changes.
“Oh God—â€
He kisses me again, this time stronger,
desperate, like he has to have me, like he’s dying to memorize the feel of my lips against his own. The taste of him is making me crazy; he’s all heat and desire and peppermint and I want more. I've just begun reeling him in, pulling him into me when he breaks away.
He’s breathing like he’s lost his mind andhe’s looking at me like something has brokeninside of him, like he’s woken up to find that
his nightmares were just that, that they never existed, that it was all just a bad dream that felt far too real but now he’s awake and he’s safe and everything is going to be okay and
I’m falling.
I’m falling apart and into his heart and I’m a disaster.