Being Blinded

Chapter Fourteen

The world seems to have a never-ending sheen around it, like it's all heightened in this glowing kind of etherealness. It's all cased in this unrealistic kind of disbelief, a feeling that sat in the recesses of mind since the second he closed my door last night.

Cloaked in a kind of heat that made me roll my eyes whenever the girls would describe it, I know attraction and have never been under the illusion I haven't felt it before. It was that it aways sounded so overexaggerated, everything just felt so dramatic all the time.

It was infuriating to be around him and constantly feel like my heart was beating out of my chest for everyone to see, it didn't dwindle knowing the feeling was shared. I needed the coldest shower known to man just to get my head out of the clouds.

It didn't even occur to me that we shouldn't be pressed together in the middle of a public carpark because everything felt more right than wrong in the moment. We'd had such an amazing night, all the worry I had about it being temporary evaporated in the heat of our kiss, it's like having my best friend back but with the addition of everything I have been longing for.

The memory of his hand around my neck sends prickles of heat along my skin, goosebumps of a whole new kind. I've had them from the chill of cool air, and the exhilaration of a performance or song but a person. No, that always seemed silly.

The acceptance stage that comes with everything going on around me, makes me realise that Imogen wasn't just teasing when she said I was a romantic with a disbelieving streak. It used to make me laugh and now it makes me wonder how I got to this point.

Sometimes I forget how long I spent denying any of the feelings that battled around in my chest, the way I flicked the switch and went in the opposite direction last year and where it left me a month ago. I can hate all the pain and confusion it laced me with, but now it's impossible to forget what it brough towards me.

I haven't been brave enough to ask Alfie what changed, what opened his eyes and made him see me, as much as it could make me fall deeper into him, it could also cut me open and leave me to bleed myself dry.

The knock on the edge of my doorframe echoes through the otherwise still silence just as I pull my purse over my head, hooking it across my shoulder and letting it dangle against the waterproof material of my jacket.

"Alfie?" I gasp, the knock making me jump but his presence keeping my heart beating. His hands are tucked into the depths of his dark-wash jeans, his blue hoodie is decorated with flecks of rain and the glimmer of one shining on his cheek catches my breath.

A small smile pulls against the edges of his lips, cerulean-jade eyes dance down my body and pull me closer to him with unconscious steps. "Baby" He greets, and the flush of his words stain instantly against burning cheeks. "I called you"

"Fuck" I chastise, delving into the deep crevasse of my jacket and pulling my phone from within it. Sure enough, his two missed calls glare back at me, obscuring the photo of Phoebe and I that I had found the other day. "Is everything okay? Did something happen?"

"I wanted to check on you" He hums, fingers brushing against mine before tugging me closer. You'd never have thought that he was going to need affection more than me, but every touch of my fingers against his skin, seems to calm him further.

His confession strikes me strange; a curious feeling unfurls in the centre of my chest. I haven't done anything but think about him since before our date yesterday, and impossibly more in every moment after. I had this idea in my head that everything was surely just smooth, that no one finds it hard to go from friends to more.