Her Melting Point

Let Me Tell You What to Think

"So, left or right?" he asked.

They were standing in front of a t-junction of a garden path.

"Do you honestly not remember the maze?" she teased.

He looked at her askance, from the corner of his eye.

"Would it ruin your fun if I did?" he asked, and Jackie snorted.

"It might."

"Then no, I don't remember it."

Jackie gasped dramatically.

"You do, don't you?" she exclaimed in fake accusation and poked his upper arm with her finger.

She immediately asked herself what it was she thought she was doing - and he slowly turned to her. Goosebumps ran down her back. He murmured something that sounded like 'menace.' That brought back memories! Jackie panicked.

"You can close your eyes, and I'll spin you, and you'll get disoriented," she blurted out. "And then we can solve it from scratch. Don't you want to solve it again? There are so many maths problems I wish I could redo." He seemed to consider it; and Jackie tugged at his jacket. "Close your eyes."

She didn't expect him to obey - and yet, here he was, standing in front of her, his eyes shut, his arms relaxed along his body.

Her fingers curled tightly around a fistful of the fabric of his jacket, and she pulled. She asked herself what was wrong with her and ordered herself to stop larking about, but continued moving around him. Her ballet flat and his trainers were making soft crunching noises, somehow loud and crisp in the night air. It might have something to do with the tension between the two of them, like a current running up and down in a Jacob's ladder electricity arc. She then stopped and let go.

"Do you know which way is which?" she whispered.

She could guess in the dim glow of the lights that he shook his head. She picked up his hand.

"Don't open them."

Her voice was raspy. She took a few steps backwards, leading him after her. His hand lay heavy in her grasp. They made two turns, and then she carefully spun him, making him face a dead end. She moved away from him, trying to make as little noise as possible.

"What's in front of you right now?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said and blindly waved his hand behind him, searching for her. "Jackie?"

"I still think you might be lying," she said.

"I'm not. Jackie?"

Her ears caught an anxious note in his tone. She told herself that she needed to stop this folly; she was making this ambiguous situation a hundred times worse. Instead, she let him catch her fingers. He faced her, an attentive expression crinkling his forehead.

"Shall we?" she asked. "We don't have anything to mark paths with again, but I think between the two of us we might still be– You could probably open your eyes," she said with a shaky chuckle.

He gently pulled at her hand, and she stumbled forward. His long, fluffy lashes fluttered. In the twilight, his irises were black and bottomless.

"What–" Her voice cracked.

"Are you flirting with me?"

He, as usual, sounded as neutral as they come.

And Jackie, of course, immediately yelped, "No!"

"Noted," he said and released her.

A shuddered exhale escaped her.

"I'm sorry," she started muttering. "I sort of got all buzzing! And it's late! And dark, and– And I probably shouldn't have had all that sugar and coffee after nine!"