Wakedea

5: Gab

 Did that just happen? I shouldn't have done that, I know for damn sure Ransom didn't mean that. It was the wine, we were being so careless. My mind was racing a thousand miles an hour. I pretended to sleep although sleep couldn't hit me if it tried. I laid there, eyes closed next to Pike replaying the night in my head.

Would he even remember this when the morning came?

All I could do was picture his face when he pointed to yes. His eyes showed seriousness but I couldn't believe him. Why me? I've thought about how many times I caught myself looking at him, he was tall and athletic, you could always see the outline on his muscles. His hair was curly and brown, his eyes the color of the sky, and his beard was full. He was a full-on man. He's enough to make any girl swoon head over heels. In fact, a few other clan members have had a thing for Ransom at one time or another. Another fact, I have felt the same way.

The problem is this, what if he didn't mean it? What if I would dive headfirst into this wanting love, and ruin it with the simplest thing, and then our crew was broken. All because of my dumbass. Why me? I think again. I'm nothing to look at. I'm painfully average. Short, red hair, brown eyes, I did develop some curves growing up, and I was strong, but I had an ugly scar over my eyebrow, but there were some beautiful women in the camp. Maybe, just maybe he thought I was beautiful when he was drunk. I remember a tv show I watched when I was younger that talked about "beer goggles" maybe the wine was worse?

The light came, and so did more snow. What's worse than the awkward moments of last night, was that there were 10 inches of more snow. If we wanted to die, we could leave. Luckily, I knew Pest would be okay until we got there. They wouldn't kill him without us as an audience. But, we had so much more to walk. I wanted to try but knew it wasn't wise at all. For the first time ever, I wished I could run away from my problems. I'd rather face the Frenzies over checking if Ransom wanted to talk about last night.

Ransom was fast asleep, a rare sight. Pike was awake and eating, and I was pacing. Playing last night over and over in my head. Was I drunk and just didn't remember things correctly? That has to be it. I breathed a sigh of relief and that made Ransom roll over and meet my eyes. I held my breath.

It was now or never. He smiled, was that really all it took for me to open up? "Listen, I think we need to talk about last night." I started, he sat up quickly. "I feel like we were both a little out of it, I know I seemed a bit out of it I guess I don't know how much I remember."

I remember everything. He wrote. Fuck.

"Do you?" he nodded when I asked, "I do too..."

He looked at me confused, "I mean I remember what you said," Here we go girl, it's now or never. "Listen I'm just confused, why me?"

Why not you?

"Have you seen half the damn Haven? You have girls fawning over you like you're a god." I started pacing while saying this. "I feel like if you really looked around you, you'd realize they're much better than me." He started writing but I wasn't done yet.

"I'm a Chatty-Kathy, Cig was going to name me that but he wanted a badass name for me, you don't talk, which I don't mind but how do you even like someone who can't shut the hell up?" Pike stood up alert, he knew something was wrong with my voice. It started cracking, "I'm a talker, that's the only thing 'great' about me, I'm fucking so average it hurts."

The silence sat like a fucking weight on my shoulders, "I just don't get it, I can't even pinpoint one thing about myself that would be something that caught your eye." I start again with a fire in me, building quickly and out of control. "I mean look at you, you're gorgeous, like are you kidding me, you and your blue eyes, just staring at me like you are right now." I sighed, he's holding his notebook straight to his chest like he's waiting for me to shut up to show me what he wrote minutes ago while I was rambling my ass off. "And your body is like a Greek god depiction, what the fuck is that about?"

"I can't tell you how many times I've thought about it if you even knew that I was obsessed with you," I should not have said that, but it just kept coming. "How I would get infuriated when these women on Haven would fall all over you, knowing they would have a great fucking chance with you." I stutter, "Y-you with beauty would make sense, you with me doesn't." I now started to cry.

He stared at me still, seeing if I had more to say. This is why I liked him, he's been letting me vent and he's a good listener. I wish he would talk to me like I'm talking now, I imagined his voice deep and raspy. "I just don't want your time wasted on me, I don't want to ruin anything," I confess.

He wrote something else down while I continued. "Think of the Crew, it's not fair, this would ruin everything." I state going back to building my internal fire again, "That is if you even meant what you said."

He stood up, upset. Shit. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you upset."

You are the most beautiful human I have seen, and I would ruin it all for you.

There it fucking was. What he was waiting to tell me. I dropped to my knees, concerned he followed. He grabbed my hand and threw his notebook to the side wondering if he said the right thing. He did. Goddamn him.