Right Where You Left Me

Winter snow bleeds into early spring as the months go by. The days are the same. Awkward interactions with the boy I thought I could have something with. Neutral interactions with Kim. Kate, Alex and I go bike riding and eat ice cream. By late March, I've finally accepted that Nate doesn't want me. That the kiss meant nothing to him.

Then, one day:

"We need to talk."

I look up from my book, alarmed. Nate is standing, arms crossed, eyes on me. It's almost dinnertime, the sun dipping low into the sky.

"No, we don't," I say quickly, gathering my book and earbuds and heading towards the exit of the room.

"Yes, we do," he retorts, cutting in front of me. He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms and looking down at me. The posture is casual, Nate does it all time, but the message is clear; no one leaves until he's said what he needs to say.

I sigh and look up at him. "What do you want, Nate?"

He rolls his tongue in his cheek, as if debating what to say next. "Do you regret it?"

"Regret what?" I ask exasperatedly, even though I know what he's referring to.

"Regret kissing me, Adya," he says, leaning towards me so the words hit me smack in the chest. "Do you regret responding when I grabbed you and kissed you?"

I look away. "Nate, you know I can't answer that-"

"Yeah, actually, you can."

"Fine," I say. I set my book and earbuds on the table to create some space between us and meet his eyes. "Of course not, Nate. Are you insane? I don't regret a second of it. I would do it again."

"You would do it again," he says, "Or you want to do it again. There's a difference."

I will my eyes to not flicker to his lips. I keep them trained on his eyes instead, but that's just as bad because they're bright and blue and focused with such an intense passion that overwhelms my lungs.

"Do you want to do it again?" I ask, throwing the question back at him.

"Yeah," he replies without hesitation.

My breath catches. "But-"

Nate pushes himself off the doorframe and shuts the door as he slowly approaches me. I back into the table. He leans back and raises a brow. "But?" he prompts, indirectly asking me to finish my sentence.

When I don't respond, a satisfied smirk spreads across his lips. "Exactly," he says. "You can't think of one good reason why we shouldn't. You want it. I want it. This time, there's no girl or boy between us." His voice softens. "It's just you and me, yeah?"

I press my lips together and begin to nod. But then I find the source of my hesitation.

"No, Nate." I turn away. "There is something between us. And it's the big elephant in the room. The one we never talked about. It's the fact that I haven't moved."

His brows furrow in confusion. "Haven't moved?"

"I'm frozen," I say. "Because you left me no fucking choice but to stay here, in Woodvale, crying my eyes out, forever."

"It's not forever, Adya," he tells me gently. "We're still young."

"When you're seventeen, everything feels like forever," I snap, tears streaming down my cheeks. "You left during the worst three years of my life. And everyday - God, Nate, everyday felt like hell. An inescapable hell that just kept repeating over and over again. Your empty bedroom. Your empty seat at school. Your bike that stayed in the garage, collecting dust, untouched."

"What do you want me to do about it, Adya?" he says. "I've apologized. I've done everything in my power to make it up to you."

"That's the worst fucking part!" I explode. "It's that nothing can change it. I can't just get over it. It's too deep. You're the knife, and you've stabbed too fucking deep."

"Can you guys stop yelling?" Nancy calls from the living room. "I can't hear my soap opera. Take it outside or something."

"Good idea," I mutter, taking Nate by the arm and dragging him onto the cloudy, rainy sidewalk. I need to get out of that room. It's too suffocating. I can't breathe.

The rain soaks my cardigan and hair. Nate rolls his eyes, and that just makes me feel worse. Knowing we are both in hell. And you can't love someone if you can't love yourself.

"What did I do? What made me so insufferable?" Those questions have been simmering inside of my head for a while, but only now, with our faces and emotions veiled with the rain and fog, do I have the courage to ask them.

He runs a hand through his wet hair, frustrated and distressed and obviously upset. "You didn't do anything wrong -"

"No, Nate. I don't believe you." I am furious. Hot, angry tears sting my eyes. The rain dampens my clothes and I am shivering, but inside I am burning with rage. I point at him and shout. "I don't believe you when you say I did nothing wrong. Because I just can't imagine how you could up and leave everything we had, and be so - so okay, so perfectly fine, without me."

I run a hand through my hair and wipe the tears out of my eyes. "I am - I am right where you left me. Wanting your attention and love and life. You were my life, Nate. I didn't have anything else. No mom. No dad. It was just you. And then you ditched me. No closure, no nothing. So I stayed right where you left me. In my deluded fantasy where you never left and I was enough for you."

"Listen," he says. Desperation twists his voice into something oddly fragile, like a shattered glass plate. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me ever. You're witty, and beautiful, and a genius - like, you're insufferably smart-"

"And you're an idiotic fool who put us both in this godforsaken mess," I shout. "You left and I had to stay behind. I had to help Nancy and my mom. I had to pretend -" I cut myself off, not finishing that sentence. "You constantly worry me and it's so fucking tiring -"

"Are you finished?" he asks, taking a few steps closer to me as the rain pours down. "Because if you are, I'd like to go home and dry off and sit somewhere warm."

I shake my head and march up to him, poking a finger in his chest and tilting my head up to glare at him. "I'm not fucking finished," I hiss. "I'm going to stand here and yell at you and you're going to listen because if we're gonna make this work, we have to let everything out."

"I know," he says. "I know. I'm sorry. I truly am, okay? But you don't need to worry about me all the time. I can handle myself."

I shake my head again. "I don't believe you. I have to worry about you, because you worry about me and I can't have you doing something that I'm not. I have to worry about you because otherwise you'll end up in places a lot worse than the first bus out of Woodvale. Because you're stupid and annoying and make the dumbest decisions -"

I am cut off by Nate grabbing my face in his hands and crashing his lips to mine.

Suddenly all rationality flies out of my head. The only thought is Nate, and the way his lips move against mine, hungry for more. I kiss him back just as furiously, the rain streaming down our faces and trickling over our bodies.

Our lips meeting is my resignation. It's my ticket out of all this mess. It's the chance for me to forgive and forget and live in the moment. Live in the moment. The exact words Nate said to me last time we kissed.

He pushes me back against the wall and my hands reach up to tangle in his hair, messy and damp from the rain. A burning fire ignites low in my gut and makes my ears and cheeks turn pink as I continue to kiss him. The rain is cold and wet but Nate engulfs me with warmth.

The kiss is angry but his actions paint a different story. If he was angry, he wouldn't be cradling my jaw in his long fingers, delicate and gentle. If I was angry, I would be ripping his hair out, not toying with the soft strands.

"We really shouldn't be doing this," I breathe against his lips.

"Shut up," he says, and he silences my response with another kiss.