Bound To Fall In Love

Chapter 3

I will be the first to say my relationship with Zander, for lack of a better word, is complicated. I've known him for 6 years and we've moved from enemies to friends to rivals but sometimes in between all that we could've been lovers.

My first kiss was with him. We were in our first year of high school so I was 15 and I had the biggest crush on one guy named Marc. When Marc and I finally started talking and I felt we were getting serious. I begged Zander to teach me how to kiss so I wouldn't make a fool out of myself if Marc tried to kiss me. Zander thought I was insane but that evening he took me to the abandoned library on campus. It was more of an old office filled with shelves so people referred to it as a library. We sat down on the floor face to face for the longest time just staring at each other, before he cupped my face and kissed me. It was a slight kiss, barely a brush of lips but everything in me melted and then we were kissing again, deeper with feelings too tangled to decipher so I didn't try. My mind no longer felt tied to my body instead I was somewhere simpler and yet so complicated. When he stopped kissing me I was dazed, our foreheads still touching we shared the same quiet breath. Once I came to I looked into his eyes and he said "don't kiss Marc" and so I didn't.

We never really talked about what happened after though, we went back to normal. I didn't like Marc anymore which made things awkward between us for a while until we decided to stay friends. Zander dates other people but to be fair I purposely shied away from the topic of us whenever he tried to bring it up, we were too young, we are best friends 'best friends kiss all the time' I would say but I guess he sensed that I wasn't ready and never pushed. They were other instances where we were so close to becoming something else but never did. Any romantic scenario was defined with almost. Almost kissing, almost saying more, almost, almost, almost. And it terrified me, big emotions welling up in me but mostly I was terrified of what would happen if we didn't work out. What would I do, who would I be without him. The thought seems inconceivable but the answer was simple. Nothing. I would be nothing because my days started and ended with him. When things sometimes got really hard for me he was the reason I had the strength to get up in the morning, he made me happy, made me feel alive. I have lived so long with him and this feeling that I refuse to even think of the possibility of us not being together even if we were together only as friends.

~~

Zander is going back tomorrow, as head prefect they needed him to come in earlier to get something’s settled. The first years have already arrived so he wouldn't be alone. The bright side of being prefects is that we now get to live in the prefect's compound which has a bunch of small beautiful cottages.

I sneak out of my house and into his once I'm sure everyone is asleep. I have a spare key to his house and his room is downstairs so it's not hard to sneak in and out, which I've been doing for years. When I enter I see he's still awake leaning against his headboard.

"I was waiting for you" he says and opens his arms. I immediately fling myself onto his bed and wrap my arms around him. He pats my head and we stay like that for what I wish was eternity. I break the silence first "I can't believe we're in our last year"

"It feels like forever yet like no time has passed at the same time"

"Are we even growing older or is time moving around us"

He looks at me then and says "I wish time would stop for us" but instead of time my heart stops, how can he look at me so full of longing and hunger and expect me to stay sane. I move to straddle his lap so we can stare into each other's eyes. He leans closer and our foreheads touch, air feels better when I share it with him, when I know I'm breathing him in. We always seemed to get into this position with our foreheads touching, our routines are so set in stone I truly believe nothing could ever shake us. "I wish-" I start but don't finish. Because I have everything I need right now and I know we'll last forever as long as I can keep this desire for more at bay, like a wave each moment it seems more likely to drown me than let me stay afloat. He closes his eyes and I'm scared not knowing what he's thinking, what he is trying to hide from me. He closes the gap and places a feather light kiss on my lips. "I miss you already" he sighs and I smile.

"I'll be there in a week" I laugh but he just looks at me.

"The whole week will be excruciating" he says

"How did you ever live without me then" I tease

"I honestly don't even know." We fell silent after that, each contemplating how we managed to exist without each other for so long. I don't remember who I was before him and I do not want to remember her. I like to believe I created him with my thoughts but he brought me to life. I often wonder if what I feel isn't normal, maybe too obsessive, too possessive, but I don't care, as long as I have him everything is right in the world and I couldn't care less about anything else. With that thought I fall asleep in his arms.

He will wake me up later to go home, he will hold me tightly as if he won't see me again and once I leave his house all the dread I've been suppressing will settle like an anchor in my heart.