Everything We Always Were

Thirty Four: Obvious

Roni lets me take her car back to Fran's house, and I'm grateful to find a pair of sneakers in the backseat. Her feet are a size bigger than mine, but I'll take anything over these platforms right now.

I slide them on and start making my way through the yard and into the trees, holding my expensive dress off of the muddy Oregon ground. As I arrive at the clearing, I don't see him at first. But as I'm about to turn around, pulling the back of my dress up higher, I see movement in the treeline by the cliff edge.

"James?" I call out and he turns. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking," He calls back, making his way to me in the middle. "Why did you come here? What about the rest of prom?"

"It was boring anyway. And something is wrong with my best friend, so of course I had to check in on him,"

He smiles, and it's small and barely there.

"What's wrong, Jay? Why did you get so angry?"

"I have a question, too." He responds. "Will you answer that first?"

"Um, sure." I shrug, and he moves to stand in front of me, his hands in his pockets.

"Have you ever opened your necklace?"

I give him a funny look. "Open it?"

"Yeah," He nods and reaches towards the chain around my neck. "Look,"

Looking down, his fingers gently pull at either cover of the silver book, and it pops open. He lets go, the charm falling, so I pick it back up, pulling it as far away as I can and then reopening it.

I love you.

Are the three words engraved into the "pages" inside. My heart starts pounding in my chest. "What does this mean?"

"What do you think it means, Delia?" He raises an eyebrow at me and I stammer on my words, stuttering.

"I don't- I mean- Why- How did-"

"I love you, Delia." He sighs. "I have loved you since I gave you half of my sandwich on the playground."

"I don't know what to say, I don't understand,"

He sighs again and runs his hands through his hair, tugging at the ends. "I don't know how you couldn't understand. Do you really not remember New Year's?"

"What?" The confusion is deeper now, and I have so many questions.

"We kissed. At the New Year's party,"

Spin the bottle. What a menial game. Each time it spins, I get more and more happy because it doesn't land on me. And I guess it's pretty funny to watch my friends kiss each other.

"James!" I look up from my phone in my lap. "It landed on you,"

Glancing at the bottle, I see that it did in fact, land on me. Looking around the circle, the person on the other end is Delia.

Of course, it has to be Delia. I gulp, praying she would choose the shot. However, she is already pretty drunk and I would rather not have her black out again.

"Oh my god, wouldn't it be so funny if we did, though?" She giggles, leaning forward into the circle. My heart rate quickens in an instant, and I feel sweat on my forehead. I can't kiss her right now. This can't be the first time that I kiss her.

But all of our friends are staring at me expectantly, as Delia puckers her perfect lips at me, swaying back and forth on her hands and knees.

"Come on, James. Don't pussy out now," Cole jokes on my left. I gulp.

I lean forward and I do it. I kiss her. When I go to pull away, I find myself reaching up for her face instead, my fingertips brushing her cheek.

It hits me like a truck that she's drunk and I need to stop this right now. For my own sake.

"Why did no one tell me about this?"

"I thought you knew this whole time," James says, sitting down on one of the logs and pulling his suit jacket off. "I thought you were ignoring it."

"I didn't know," I genuinely didn't remember that kiss happening, and I made a mental note to yell at Roni and Fran for not telling me later.

"It's okay," He shrugs, rubbing his face.

"James?"

He looks up at me, and I can see the green in his eyes under the moonlight.

"You should have told me,"

"I thought it was obvious, I mean look at how many times I fought for you," He chuckles, and I notice the red tint on his cheeks. "I have loved you for so long, and I'm sorry about what happened with Tory. If I'm one hundred percent honest, I didn't even catch the part about you liking me, not even when you told me again that first night up here," He looks around, like he's just remembering it. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to ruin our friendship and risk everything we always were for everything that we could be if I wasn't sure that you felt the same. You're right, I should have told you but I was scared. And I guess all of the time we spent together was enough at first. But, seeing you with CJ was horrible. And knowing what he did to you all those months when I was clueless that you were suffering caused a lot of sleepless nights. Seeing you dance with him tonight was just the cherry on top, the thing that pushed me to my limits."

"You were jealous?" I laugh.

"I mean, yeah, look at you." He gestures at my dress and we both chuckle. "I'm so sorry if this ruins our friendship."

"James, I love you too, you know?" I smile and he looks up at me with wide eyes. "I probably have loved you since that day on the playground too. I was just scared, like you, to ruin what we had or lose you."

"You could never lose me. I would do anything for you," My heart flutters and I blush.

"Can you kiss me, now?" I blurt, forgetting to think before speaking.

The blush grows and my whole face is burning.

A hand slowly brushes against my cheek, and I look back up at him from my lap. Is this really about to happen?

Yes. Yes, it is.

James' lips are soft and warm. He presses his mouth to mine, hard, both of his hands holding my jaw. I let my hands do as they please, finding the front of his shirt and gripping hard, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss.

He suddenly stands, his arm snaking around my waist and lifting me up with him. I shriek a little and then laugh against his lips before he pulls me in again.

It's suffocating, in the best way possible, as he squeezes my waist and kisses me like he was been waiting for this moment for his whole life.

Because he has, and so have I.