Love, Lies and Unfiltered Hearts

JOSIE The night is cold enough that I can see my breath. Maxwell Thorne, my knight in slightly dented armour, insists on driving slowly. The roads are icy, he says, and he isn't dropping me at a bus stop in the dark after what happened. I don't argue because I am past arguing. Frankly, I am past most things by the time he turns onto my street. I can see the Callahan house from the end of the block. The porch light is on, and Drew's truck is in the driveway. I have maybe thirty seconds to get through the front door before anyone sees me. *Thirty seconds. You've had longer to ruin your life before. Stay focused.* I know I won't make it when the front door opens just as Maxwell pulls up to the curb. Drew steps out first, jacket on, keys already in his hand, and Morgan comes right behind him with her fingers tucked into the crook of his arm and her hair still perfect even at ten at night. Of course it is, her hair is always perfect. That b***h! *Of course, she glows in the dark too. Probably moisturizes with unicorn tears.* Maxwell comes around to my side and opens the door without being asked, the same way he has done everything tonight like it is simply the obvious thing to do. As he holds out his hand to me, that is when I hear it. "Oh my God!" Morgan's voice carries clean across the cold air. "Is that Josie?" The way she says it, like my name is a punchline. As if the idea of me being driven home by anyone, in a car, like a normal person, is inherently ridiculous. Her voice has that particular tilt it always gets, the one I have been hearing since junior high. 'No one will ever want you, Josie. You know that, right? No one is ever going to look at you like that.' She would say. *And yet here we are. Plot twist, Morgan. Stay mad.* Three years of that voice, of that exact tone. Maxwell is still holding out his hand, and he's watching my face like nothing about this moment confuses him. I take his hand and step out of the car. And then, before I can think about it long enough to stop myself, I turn and kiss him. It is a quick brush of my lips against his cheek, barely a second. It is merely a point to prove to no one and everyone, and myself most of all. *You did not just do that. Oh, you absolutely did. There's no undo button.* Maxwell goes very still. I start to pull back, ready to mumble an apology and run away, but then his hand wraps around my waist and he pulls me closer. *Wait. Hold on. This was not in the plan. There was no plan, but still.* He takes over the kiss completely. His mouth moves against mine with a confidence that makes my stomach flip. One hand presses into the small of my back, pulling me flush against his chest. The other cups against my jaw, tilting my head so he can kiss me deeper. The kiss isn't awkward, pitying or accidental, it's deliberate and slow. The kind of kiss that makes your knees soft and your brain go completely quiet and turn to mush. My hands move on their own. My fingers slide up into his hair. It is softer than it looks, thick between my fingers. *Oh, so now we're touching hair. Sure. Let's just escalate everything tonight.* It makes me forget what I am proving. I forget about Morgan on the porch, about Drew three feet away, about the storage room, the missed bus and the whole awful day. Maxwell's hand is steady against my face and for a few seconds I just let myself be exactly where I am, not bracing for anything, not holding anything back. *Yeah… this is going to cost you later. Enjoy it anyway.* When we finally break apart, my heart is hammering loud enough that I am sure he can feel it. Maxwell looks at me. His expression has changed, something loose in it that wasn't there before, like I've knocked something open without meaning to. Then the corner of his mouth curves up. "I'll see you, Josie," he says. He gets back in the car, while I stand on the curb and watch his taillights until they disappear around the corner, and it is only when the street is completely empty again that the cold comes rushing back all at once. I turn around, and Drew is still on the porch, keys in his hand, and something locked tight behind his eyes that I can't name. I have never seen that expression on him before. I don't particularly want to figure it out now. Morgan is beside him. Her face is wrong. Not the smug amusement from thirty seconds ago. Something harder than that. Her eyes are fixed on the empty road where Maxwell's car was, and her jaw is tight, and she isn't saying a single word. Morgan being quiet means Morgan is collecting, storing, saving it for somewhere it will do more damage. *Oh, she's buffering. That's never good. That's villain loading screen behavior.* I walk up the front path and go inside without saying goodnight. I go upstairs, close my door, sit on the edge of my bed, and press the back of my hand against my mouth. My lips are still warm. I hear Morgan's voice drop low outside. The words don't carry through the door, and whatever she is saying, she is saying it quietly, which is always worse. The quiet is never the end of anything with Morgan. It is just the pause before she decides where to aim. I don't move until I hear her car pull out, and the house goes silent. Then I lie back and stare at the ceiling for a long time. I think about Maxwell's hand against my face, and the way he looked at me, not past me, not through me, not at the parts of me people usually decide are the only interesting thing. He just looks, as if he sees me clearly without any effort at all. *Yeah… that part is dangerous. That part is how people get attached.* I've spent three years being furniture in this town. Something people arrange their lives around without ever noticing. Then suddenly, someone looks at me like a person, and I don't have a framework for it yet. *Great. New emotion unlocked.* I'm still turning it over when sleep finally finds me. I know by Monday morning I will have already made up my mind to pretend it hadn't happened. *Liar.* That I didn't randomly kiss a complete stranger.