In Waves | ✔️

42 | regrets

When I've finished washing up in Matt's bathroom, I can't help stopping and staring at the girl in the mirror. The blue of my irises are so vivid I look electrified, and my frizzy hair certainly isn't helping that image. Despite my adrenaline-boosted reflection, I'm sort of in a daze.

I've felt behind in the relationship department for so long. Watching people in my year get together in middle school, hearing through the grapevine what they've done behind closed doors, with every tidbit of information becoming juicier in high school. Wondering when it would be my turn and who I'd get that turn with.

But through the adrenaline, that familiar voice of worry calls from the depths of my mind. I'm taking these steps with Matt, but that only means we're stepping closer to crossing over the finish line. Building up momentum for a race he's ran dozens of times before me.

I rake my fingers through my hair in an attempt to tame the waves, breathing steadily, feeling the comfort of the heated tiles under my feet. Matt is still in bed when I walk out, propped against the cushioned headboard.

He watches me pick up my jeans from the floor. "You're leaving already?"

"Yeah, it's almost dark out, my mom's probably wondering where I am. Can you take me home?" 

"What if I say no?"

I smile to myself as I pull up my zipper. "Then I'd have to call an Uber and you'd be a bad boyfriend."

"Harsh."

I pad over to the bed, leaning over him to paw at the sheets.

"Looking for something?" He whips his hand from under the covers, clutching my top, moving it away when I reach out. "Guess you have to stay until I give this back."

Matt holds it further as I stretch and complain. Then he throws it aside and abruptly pulls me on top of him, my grouses turning to giggles. "I need to go!"

"Stay for dinner." He grins, securing my thighs on either side of him. "Grayson can make anything you like. Whatever you're craving."

"Wait, do you—do you have a personal chef?"

"Not every day, but it's Saturday so yeah he's here."

I smile in disbelief. "Your life is crazy."

"You have your own personal restaurant to eat at whenever you want! Whose life is crazier?"

"Still yours." I hold his chin, soaking in his angelic face.

Sometimes I'm struck by how impossibly perfect he is, so perfect that it makes me wonder how someone like him can exist in a world so flawed. How a boy can be so beautiful that it hurts, like I'm staring straight into the sun. It overwhelms me. He had to be carved in the heavens, I don't see how he couldn't have been.

A strand of hair has fallen across his forehead, but I resist the urge to push it back into place. I like the way it makes him look a little disheveled. I like sitting on his lap and feeling the warmth emanating between us. I like how the intensity of his gaze makes me feel like I'm drowning in his eyes. And I like how he won't break the connection, as if he's afraid he'd lose me forever if he dared to look away for a second.

"I really loved today," I tell him. "All of it."

That last part is a bit of a lie. I loved all of the day with him, but not before him. Not when the first thing I saw when I woke up was the image of me standing on Nate's doorstep with Alex walking out. And not at this very moment when that image is ramming into my mind again.

Matt shifts my hand from his face, giving it a kiss. "Me too. But it doesn't have to end yet."

The image dissolves as he moves my hair behind my shoulders, kissing a trail along my collarbone. My hands find the back of his head, holding him tight, my eyes involuntarily drifting closed. But a bolt of nerves brings me back from the edge of falling into this.