“Me?”
“Yes!”
“You’re afraid of me?”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“Because I fucking love you, Claire!”
“I love you, too.”
“I know,” he agreed. “That’s what makes it even worse!”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I cried out hoarsely. Reeling from his admission, I stood in the rain, staring up at the only boy I’d ever loved, and screamed, “None of what you’re saying makes any sense to me, Gerard!”
I didn’t want to be in love with him, and I was. It sucked. Big time. I wanted requited love. The proper kind. Like Shannon had with Johnny. And Aoife with Joey. Well, minus the drugs and the teen pregnancy. I just wanted a real relationship.
With him.
He marked me in childhood and that mark had only scored deeper on my heart as the years went by. I knew him, though. He lingered on my heart. I couldn’t seem to get past him.
Apparently, that was too much to ask for because the boy I wanted was broken in the head. He didn’t have the same feelings I had. He didn’t work the same way I did.
“When has anything about my thought process ever made sense, Claire?” Gerard shouted back. “I know I’m fucking all of this up.” He pushed a hand through his drenched hair and shrugged helplessly. “I’m not trying to purposefully upset you. I swear to Christ, I’m not, but that’s what happens.” He threw his hands up in defeat. “That’s what I seem to do, Claire.”
“Then you need to stop.”
“I’m trying,” he bit out through gritted teeth. “That’s what I’m trying to do, Claire. I’m trying to talk this out with you!”
“I don’t need any more words, Gerard,” I clapped back. “I don’t need you to put any more words into the atmosphere that you don’t mean.”
“That I don’t mean?” he demanded. “What have I ever not meant?”
“How about all of those lies you’ve fed me for the past sixteen years about loving me and wanting us to be together,” I strangled out. “Only to turn right around and do the opposite every chance you get!”
“I do love you, Claire. I do want to be with you. I’ve always wanted to be with you. I just—” he stopped short and blew out a frustrated breath, hands moving to his hips. “If you just let me explain … ”
“I am, Gerard,” I urged, voice high-pitched and torn. “I am letting you explain. I have given you all the time in the world to explain. To figure it the hell out. Sixteen years, to be precise. But you can’t come up with a good enough excuse off the top of your head quick enough, now, can you?” I shook my head. “Instead, you say all the right words and then you turn around and do the complete opposite.” Teeth chattering from the cold, I stamped my foot in frustration. Big mistake. My shoe landed in a pothole, causing brown, muddy water to splash all over my tights. Again. Furious, I balled my hands into fists and screamed. “And now I’m muddy again!” I glared at him, heart racing at a thousand miles an hour. “And these shoes are new!”
“It’s not about me finding excuses to not be with you, Claire,” he roared. “It’s about me knowing that you’re the perfect person for me.” Clearly furious, he slapped the heel of his hand against his forehand and hissed, “All the while knowing that I’m not!”
“What?” I shook my head. “That makes no sense, Gerard.”
“Yeah, it does.” Nodding eagerly, he ignored the raindrops that were trickling down his face. “I know you’re better off without me, Claire. Okay? I know that.” Releasing a shaky breath, he held his hands up and shrugged helplessly. “But I also know I’m not better off without you.” He raised his hands in a helpless motion. “Not better off one bit.”
“Oh my God,” I cried out, beyond confused. “I never know where I stand with you.”
“In front,” came his quick response. “On top. Number one. Fucking always, Claire.”
“I have been waiting all my life for you to make a move. For you to grow a pair and just tell me how you feel.”
“You know how I feel.”
“Stop it, Gerard!” I snapped. “Stop playing with my heart. I can’t take it. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, because breaking my heart by accident is one thing but doing it on purpose is another thing entirely and I don’t think I could come back from it.”
“Who’s playing?” he demanded. “I fucking love you, Claire Biggs.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s the truth!” Gerard roared, turning a dark shade of purple as his outrage clearly grew. “I didn’t choose any of this, okay? I was born and there you were, and I had these feelings. And they grew, Claire,” he roared, stalked towards me. “Holy shit, did they grow!” Looking more furious than I’d seen him in years, he hooked an arm around my waist and pulled me roughly against him. “Like neon fucking lit-up boomerang feelings that keep coming back no matter how hard I push them away!”
“Oh yeah?” My heart decided to accelerate to the point where I felt like I was having physical chest pains. “Well, you can’t just … ” My breath was puffy, and my voice was torn. “You can’t just … ” Pained, I pressed the heel of my hand to my chest bone, while using my other hand to clutch my temple. “Oh God … ”
“What?” he demanded. “What’s happening to you?”
“I’m having a moment.”
“You are?” Panic, anger, and confusion all filled his tone. “Holy shit, from what?”
“From you, Gerard,” I groaned, fisting his drenched school shirt in my hand. “From you, because you just hit me with the feels train, okay?”
“The feels train?”
“Yes, the feels train, you big dick!”
“Well, choo-choo,” he snapped back, tone laced with sarcasm as he pretended to yank on a horn. “Hop a-fucking-board, sweetheart. It’s about time you decided to join me. Considering I’ve been on the same damn feels train for years—”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up!”
“Shut up, Gerard!”
“No, I won’t shut up because you’re not the only—”
“I said shut up!” I screamed, clamping a hand over his mouth, eyes locked on his as the rain hammered down on us. “Shut up, Gerard Gibson. Just shut the hell up already!”
One moment we were glaring, and screaming, and shoving at each other and the next we were kissing.
Somehow, and only God himself knew how it happened, my hand on Gerard’s mouth had been replaced with my lips.
Desperately. Voraciously. Adoringly. Our lips collided in a frenzied hunger that had been building up for sixteen years and had finally bubbled over.
Kissing him felt like I had suddenly remembered the answer to a question that had been tormenting me for hours. You know the feeling of frustration when something is on the tip of your tongue forever and you finally figure it out and relief floors you? Well, that’s how I was feeling in this moment.
And it wasn’t just me doing the kissing, either. Gerard didn’t hesitate to reciprocate my kiss. Not for one millisecond. No, he was kissing me back, and I mean really kissing me back. With just as much flair and need and desperation.
Fisting my hair in one hand, he reciprocated every reckless thrust of my tongue with an experienced thrust of his own, while he pulled me roughly against him with his other hand, fingertips digging into the fleshy part of my hip.
Trembling violently, I clung to his shoulders, feeling my body grow weak. Seriously, my legs were shaking so violently, I could hardly keep upright.
Oh God.
Oh God.
It was the strangest, most perfect, most real and right feeling ever. I never wanted anything more in my life than this boy and all he could give me. He was too much and not enough all at once.
This kiss?
His lips on my lips?
His hands on my body?
His tongue in my mouth?
It meant everything to me.
I wanted to laugh.
I wanted to cry.
I wanted to … oh, God, I felt so much in this moment, so much for this boy, that I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I was floored by relief and flooded by feelings all in one breath. I only knew that I didn’t ever want him to stop.
But then he did.
Tearing his lips away from mine, Gerard pushed his hair off his forehead, breathless and panting. “Fuck.”
“No.” Feeling panicked that he was going to slam on the brakes again, I fisted his shirt and pulled him back to me. “Don’t stop.”
“I don’t want to,” he replied in a gruff tone, hands moving to rest on my hip. “Trust me. But you’re going to get sick out here.”
“I don’t care,” I croaked out, feeling like I would die right here on this mortal spot if he didn’t kiss me again.
His gray eyes blazed with heat when he said, “Yeah, well, I do.”
