Chapter 7
875 Words
The parents left at seven.
Aria heard the car pull out of the driveway, and then the house went very quiet, and then it was just the two of them and all the air they'd been holding back for days.
She found him in the living room.
He was standing by the window, watching the taillights disappear down the street, and when he turned around the easy mask was completely gone. Just him. The boy from the dark.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
Neither of them moved for a second.
"So," she said. "Talk."
He let out a breath.
"I don't really know where to start."
"Start with the party. The whole thing. Not just the pieces."
So he did.
He told her about the friend he'd been visiting, three hours from home. About wandering into a party he didn't want to be at. About a girl dancing in the middle of a crowded room like she was the only person in it.
He told her about the power going out. About crossing the room in the dark for a reason he still couldn't explain. About finding her, and the ten minutes that followed — a conversation he remembered word for word eight months later.
"You told me you danced because it was the only time your head went quiet," he said. "You told me you were probably moving soon and you were tired of being the new girl. You told me your name but the music was loud and I only caught the first part." He paused. "Ari. That's all I had. Ari, and a voice, and ten minutes."
Aria sat down slowly on the arm of the couch.
She remembered now. Not all of it. But enough. A voice in the dark. The strange easy honesty of talking to someone you couldn't see and would never find again.
"I told you something too," she said slowly. "I asked you why you weren't dancing."
His eyes sharpened.
"You remember that."
"You said you didn't dance. And I said everyone dances in the dark when no one can see." Her voice was quiet. "And then the lights came on."
"And you were gone."
"And you were gone."
They looked at each other across the living room.
"I looked for you," she admitted again. "For a while. I felt stupid about it. I didn't have anything. Just a voice."
"I had the same nothing," he said. "For eight months."
He crossed the room slowly and sat down on the couch, close but not touching, and the space between them felt charged with everything they weren't doing.
"And then my mom showed me a photo," he said. "And it was you. And I thought I was losing my mind. Because the one person I'd been trying to find for eight months turned out to be the one person I'm absolutely not allowed to want."
The word landed in the quiet room.
Want.
"Cayden," she said softly.
"I know." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Trust me, I know. Our parents are getting married in a few months. We live in the same house. We're going to be a family on paper. This is the worst possible version of finding you."
"So what do we do?"
He turned to look at her.
And the honesty in his face was almost too much to hold.
"I don't know," he said. "I've been trying to make myself not feel this since the day you walked in. Being cold to you. Being a jerk. Telling myself you were just some girl and I made the whole thing up in my head." He shook his head. "It didn't work. None of it worked."
She was very aware of how close he was.
How easy it would be to close the space.
"This is a mistake," she whispered.
"Probably."
"It could ruin everything. Our parents. The family. All of it."
"I know."
"We should stop. Right now. Before it starts."
"I know that too." His voice dropped. "Tell me to stop and I'll stop. I mean it."
She looked at him.
The boy from the dark, finally with a face, sitting close enough that she could see everything he wasn't hiding anymore.
She didn't tell him to stop.
That was the moment everything tipped — the moment the impossible thing stopped being a question and became something real, sitting in a quiet living room in a house that was about to become a family.
His hand came up, slow, giving her every chance to pull away.
His fingers brushed her jaw.
And from the driveway, headlights swept across the window.
A car door slammed.
"They're back early," Aria breathed.
They flew apart, and by the time the front door opened and Victoria called out "we forgot the gift, can you believe it," they were on opposite ends of the couch, a careful three feet of empty space between them, both pretending to watch a TV that wasn't even on.
Victoria grabbed something off the side table, waved, and was gone again.
The door closed.
The car pulled away.
And Aria and Cayden sat in the silence, hearts pounding, three feet apart, both knowing that three feet was never going to be enough again.
- Writer
