Chapter ten
555 Words
The rain had stopped.
But the storm in my chest hadn’t.
Emily’s fingers still lingered on the piano keys like she was afraid to let the music go. Or maybe she was afraid to let me go. Either way, I wasn’t moving.
Neither was she.
The door was still stuck. Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was fate.
Maybe the universe knew we needed this room.
This pause.
This chance to feel what we were both too scared to name.
I turned toward her slowly, like I was trying not to break something fragile. But she wasn’t fragile. She was fire wrapped in soft things—words, music, sarcasm. And when she looked at me now, it wasn’t soft.
It was real.
“You didn’t kiss me,” she whispered.
“You told me not to.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
Her voice was barely a breath.
My hand reached up before I could stop it, threading gently into her hair, brushing a curl behind her ear. She leaned into the touch like she’d been waiting for it forever.
“Emily.”
Her name felt like a secret on my tongue.
And then I kissed her.
Not rushed.
Not unsure.
Just… inevitable.
Her hands found my collar, then the side of my neck, like she wanted to hold me in place in case I vanished. I kissed her like I’d never kissed anyone. Because I hadn’t.
Not like this.
This was the kind of kiss you couldn’t fake. The kind you feel in your ribs. The kind that asks questions and answers them all at once.
She tasted like lemon tea and tension and something I couldn’t describe without losing my mind.
We broke apart only when our lungs demanded it. I pressed my forehead to hers, breathing her in.
“So… this is a thing now?” she asked, eyes still closed.
“This was always a thing,” I said. “We just kept pretending it wasn’t.”
She laughed—a soft, startled sound—and pressed her nose against mine.
“I don’t do casual,” she whispered.
“Good,” I said. “Because there’s nothing casual about you.”
We sat there, tangled in each other and silence, until she finally spoke.
“What if we’re wrong for each other?”
“Then I’ll be wrong with you.”
She smiled.
And that smile? It cracked something open in me I didn’t know I’d sealed shut.
I pulled her in again, slower this time, my lips brushing hers in a quiet promise.
A knock at the door made us jump.
“Uh, hello?” a voice called. “We’re doing rounds. Room's locked from the outside. You guys okay in there?”
Emily’s eyes widened.
She bolted upright, hair tousled, cheeks flushed.
I grinned.
“We’re good,” I called. “Just… stuck.”
The lock jiggled, the door finally creaked open.
Emily stood up quickly, brushing her sweater down, and whispered, “Skye is never going to let me live this down.”
I followed her, hand grazing hers as we stepped out into the hallway. She didn’t pull away.
She looked back at me once, over her shoulder.
And smiled like she wasn’t scared anymore.
Like maybe this—
Us—
Was just beginning.
- Writer
