Read It Was Always You (Gaming the System) for Free Online

could see the action. “Just thinking…”
    “About?”
    I looked away. “Just feeling bad, I guess.”
    His mouth thinned. “About last night? That was my fault…I’m sorry—”
    I shook my head. “Don’t apologize, okay? We can both feel bad that it happened and try to forget it. And treat it like the pleasant memory it should be…”
    An unreadable look crossed his face. “So…you thought it was pleasant?”
    I frowned at him. That should have been obvious, I thought.
    “Didn’t you?”
    His brow twitched and he looked like he might start laughing. “Uh. Yeah. You could say that.”
    I hugged my arms to myself for lack of anything better to do with my hands, suddenly uncomfortable. I didn’t want to admit to myself how long I’d wondered what it would be like to kiss Jeremy, to feel his hands on me. To wish it was his arms around me instead of his warm coat. To smell his smell, trying unsuccessfully to bury that tingling feeling in the pit of my stomach. Trying to forget the way Jeremy made me feel.
    Because he wasn’t mine and I had no right to feel this way.
    “I need to tell you something,” he said, the breath escaping through his lips and haunting the chill air between us like a phantom.
    I swallowed, my throat suddenly feeling thick. “No, don’t.”
    He blinked. “How do you even know what I’m going to say?”
    I took a deep breath and let it go, the vapor from my breath drifting out between my lips to mingle with his. “Whatever you are going to say is going to make this more awkward and more—painful.”
    He said nothing for a long moment, then reached his hand, placed it on my jaw. It was warm. His thumb caressed my cheek. I closed my eyes, wishing I had the willpower to pull away from him.
    “Mic…” he whispered.
    I sucked in a painful breath and backed up a step. He let his hand fall from my face and we stared each other down for a long, thick minute.
    “Tiff went home a few hours ago.”
    “What? Why? Did she—did you tell her about what happened in the closet?” Oh, shit. Shit. If possible, the guilt clutching at me squeezed even tighter in the pit of my stomach. How she must hate me.
    “No. She left because she knew…” his voice trailed off. He looked away and squared his shoulders, as if afraid to go on.
    “She knew what?” I said.
    His eyes returned to mine. All his features, his coloring looked like shades of deep blue in the faint light of this mountain evening.
    “That it was always you.” Those words seemed to trail out between his lips, mix with that phantom breath, coalesce into something otherworldly between us. My throat tightened and I swallowed.
    “I…” I shook my head, unable to find the words to reply to that, muted by joy and terror at once.
    He moved up to me again, this time placing one hand on each cheek. “ Always . Since that first day I came over to play with your brother Doug in middle school and you wouldn’t leave us alone. Since that day I helped you when you scraped up your knees. When you failed your algebra test and tried to hide your tears when you asked me to tutor you. Since that day you helped me practice my graduation speech over and over again, listening for hours, helping me memorize it, cheering every single time I finished it. Since…”
    “Since the beginning…” I said, my voice trembling.
    He nodded. I leaned up on tiptoes to lock my hands around his neck and pulled him down to me. And since he’d started it last night between us— finally making that move—it was my turn tonight.
    His mouth fell on mine and I tasted him, his warm, firm lips. I felt that kiss clear down to my toes. It zinged and sizzled through my body, every extremity. His lips opened and my tongue danced with his, communicating without words, only feelings—long bottled up by fear and uncertainty.
    All those years in high school I’d nursed that crush, afraid he’d never feel the same way. And apparently he had. And we’d lost—what? Six