If best friends didn't have a pull on you, I would've not have been in this situation. I'll be alone in my dorm room studying, in a bliss that only ignorance can bring. Not in front of the last person I wanted to see, specially at this moment. But Allison promised it was just going to be a small group. I didn't know that group included him.
But here I was with sand between my toes and hair flying around my face in various directions, arguing with the only guy I wanted to hide from. Or hit. Whichever came first. I wanted to get out of here as fast as possible.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked in that tone of voice that was custom made for attracting the opposite sex. He hasn't moved. At all. I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath; one of those that you see the ladies from the info comercials doing when selling this or that certain product to help you relax. I move my lips so that they take cover inside my mouth to stop from talking back at him. I'm biting the inside of my lower lip, trying to calm myself.
I felt his body blocking the air from moving in front of me. I know he's looking directly at me right now; the same way you know when someone's staring at you and you feel that hotness on the back of your neck.
I come up with the courage I didn't know I had. It had to be hiding inside me somewhere all along because I couldn't contain myself now. He makes me behave like this; I'm someone completly different when he's around.
"One hundred and ten percent." I open my eyes and look at him like I mean it. And my traitor heart is beating like it wants to speak and contradict what my mouth said. Who does he think he is? He's not going to mess with me. I'm not like them. He may be used to all those pretty girls stalking him wherever he goes but that's just not my style. Not that I have a stalker style; hence this encounter.
"Ah, so is going to be like that," and he chuckles while shaking his head slowly. He takes a few steps forward and stops right in front of me and his eyes scrunch a little around the edges, like he wants to get the truth out of me; as if he already knows I'm not saying what I really think. The air that he was stopping for sure now doesn't have nowhere to go because he's blocking all its routes.
"Listen," he raises his eyebrows for a second and then licks his lower lip, "for your information," he's moving even closer now and his mouth near my left ear, "you're not exactly type either," and I can hear the sound his throat made when as he swallowed. He stepped back slowly and one corner of his mouth moved up as if sharing a secret I wasn't part of.
I felt shivers inside my body so I moved my arms and crossed them in front of me. Behind him I could see the waves crashing against a wall of rocks and the sun had already set. To the other side I could see Allison sitting on a cooler playing some sort of cards game with some guys and I wanted to hate her from forcing me to come here.
I know I had to say something back. But I couldn't come with any words. Hyprocrite courage, where was it now? Why did it have to hide when I needed it the most? He will not have the power to break me. I will not give him that pleasure.
"I know! Trust me, a blind man can see that," and my stomach felt weird, like it was punched. He was the one that kept approaching me when he saw me, even when I was trying to hide. And when that happened, we always had some sort of confrontation instead of conversations. He always said the right things to make me angry.
"Right. A blind man and everyone else. In fact, I'm sure that," he continued in that voice so unique of his that carried a hint of seriousness and is loaded with certain cockiness that I'm pretty sure he's practiced a thousand times.
But I couldn't let him step over me again, and interrupted him. "And that you're sure that what exactly?" my tone of voice was raising and my feet moved towards him in fast strides."You know what?," I said near his face. I couldn't see his eyes clearly now since it was dark but I know they were this kind of green with a tint of blue; a mix so rare that I couldn't find a name for it yet. "I'm tired of your little insults. I'm tired of this and I'm sick of you, do you understand that?", I finished with a sigh and my chest was going up and down like if my heart was a trampoline and a kid was jumping on it.
He had the audacity to laugh. I couldn't believe he was laughing, maybe even mocking me. The rocks that were his background were now blurry. I closed my eyes and hoped that the tears that were beginning to form were already gone. I would not let him see me like this.
Suddendly everything was quiet and I could only hear the waves crashing and the sound of the breeze. I felt warm and then one of his hands was near my check. What was he doing? Having him so close felt so weird but at the same time, it was so amazing. My body was reacting like he was a magnet.
"Hey," he told me almost whispering. He cleared his throat, "you know I never really mean this stuff," I never heard him talk that way before."Right?" he finished sounding kind of nervous. I had to open my eyes because this wasn't like him. When I did, he was looking at me with this hesitation that didn't fit him.
"Do you want to," he started asking with a tired sigh. I could see him looking to both sides, as if looking for confirmation to what he was about to ask. "Do you want to end this?" And he way he sounded was in a way that only a tired man can talk after fighting for so long.
My thoughts were all scattered. I'm sure I had a look of pure confusion on my face but my heart knew what he meant. I have been waiting to hear those words all along, even if I was in denial was walking and getting closer now and I couldn't move. Somewhere in my mind, instinct told me to run but my heart was screaming at me to stay.
Like those waves that kept hitting the rocks; that's how we were and like the tide that touches the shore, that's how our lips finally met.