Paint It Red ~ A Descendants Story

16. Disaster

After my failures with Jane, I did what ever person would do, run into their judgey best friend's arms while they scold them for being an idiot. Luckily for me, Ryder was very good at the scolding part.

'The part I'm most confused by is why you let her even try to kiss you if you were scared.' He said, passing a tub of vanilla ice cream and a spoon to me. 'If you were scared, it would make more sense for you to run at the realisation she was that close to you, not waiting until she actually kissed you. That's got to have hurt her.'

Surprisingly, Ryder's words weren't helping, I was mortified enough from the situation. 'No shit it would've hurt, she's never going to want to talk to me again.' I groaned, leaning back on the couch.

It felt like there was a continuous loop when it came to Jane, she would do something to show that she liked me, I would freak out and run away from it and complain to Ryder, then he would snap me back into real life and make me do whatever Jane tried to do. The repetitiveness was getting on my nerves and no doubt killing Jane too.

I had to admit that the signals I was giving her were all over the place, one minute I would be blushing like crazy at anything she said and the next I would be running away from any affection she showed me. I had started to annoy myself, I couldn't even imagine what she was thinking.

'Damage control time. Do you want to kiss her?' The question felt weird, like it shouldn't ever have to be asked. I nodded, of course I wanted to. 'Then go to her, apologise and then kiss her. The only way she's going to know how you feel is if you tell her. And I'm afraid that time has to be now.'

I didn't want him to be right but he was, there was no point in fighting it, plus if Ryder tells you something and you ignore it and it turns out he was right, you won't hear the end of it, it's better to just follow along with whatever he says.

'Okay, I'll do it.' I said, I was going to give myself some time to prepare myself before going but Ryder had a different idea.

'Well? Why are you still sat there?' He scoffed in disbelief, his arms urging me to move. 'Go get your girl, you're not getting anywhere just standing around doing nothing.' I was sitting, actually.

Soon enough he had shoved me physically out of his dormroom, I guess this is what he meant when he said he'd push me in the right direction, I had no idea it would be so literal.

Before I had left Ryder had given me specific instructions to follow, it felt ridiculous but like I mentioned, his advice is usually good. One, don't kiss her in front of anyone else, it'll be embarassing and also look like you're putting on a show. And two, catch her off guard, this one felt dumb, to show her once again, not putting on a show. It all felt very artifical to me, shouldn't these things come naturally? I didn't know how I would feel in the moment obviously, it could feel natural then.

The run back to my dorm felt longer than usual, I had taken the same turns even moved faster than I did majority of the time, yet it felt like hours had passed before my hand was on my door handle. Alas, I was stood in front of my door, terrified of what I was about to do.

I thought about Evie and I's old relationship, it felt so easy then, too easy. There were no butterflies, no fear, it was like reciting a role, thinking about it like that made me sad. I knew Evie was truely in love with me then, and it was wrong that I never felt the same. My heart ached for that younger version of myself, although a part of me believed she never existed.

Growing up a member of any royal family leads to maturing faster, but I found that I grew up faster than most. I always thought it was because of the neglection at an early age but while I was ignored by my parents, I wasn't disregarded by anyone else. I had Hatter to take care of me and he always cared. I never fully understood why I seemed to understand the world at a younger age, but maybe that was just who I was. Forever the little girl in the garden staring out with a dream of exploration, I would fufill that eventually. While it wasn't the world I was exploring, I was traversing an even scarier terrain now. Love.

At first I didn't realise she was sat on her bed and I was about to leave until she said my name. It didn't sound the same as before, it was sad, disappointed almost. The slight switch of tone changing the effect of it entirely, I used to thrive off of her saying my name, but it had changed.

She jumped out of her bed, a book falling to the ground with a thud, I didn't see any bookmark in it either, that would be annoying later. Why am I thinking about losing pages in a book?

'Hi, Jane.'

'Hi.' She had moved to only a foot away from me when she first stood up, the closeness was a comfort and a pain too, I didn't want to ever have to imagine how much conflict was going on in her brain when I walked away. It must have been eating her alive.

'Before you say anything, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for trying to kiss you, I should've asked it's just that I thought-' I hated when Ryder was right. Midway through her sentence I had pulled her lips onto mine, and it was better than I could've imagined. I was kissing Jane. I felt like I needed to slap myself to prove that I wasn't dreaming, Jane was kissing me. It was surreal, something straight out of my imagination but it was real. And it was happening.

Jane was the first to pull away, I hadn't noticed her hands had moved to my neck until she did, my gaze fell to my own hands that were on her waist. 'But you pulled away earlier? I don't want you to force yourself into anything.' The comment made me smile, because of just how 'Jane' it was to say, I wasn't sure if she was just oblivious to how obviously I had shown my feelings or if she was self concious, either way I wanted to set things right.

I placed a finger on her mouth, it felt right but also dumb at the same time, but that was romance, right? 'You have no idea how long I've been pining for you, this is as far as you can get from being forced. I choose this.' I removed my finger and replaced it with my lips once again, the touch of mouths setting my body on fire. This was the moment of my life where nothing felt wrong, because everything in my life led up to that point. The point where I was kissing Jane and she was kissing me.