The Almost Summer

Chapter 13: I go down with my ship♥

Shock locks me in place, but embarrassment causes me to move.

 I mean, I want this, but kissing him feels...awkward. I look at him and arrange my face into a "what the hell?" expression.

 "Autumn... I'm really sorry..." he says, as I interrupt with a muttered: "Why'd you kiss me?" At this we both blush a horrible red colour. By saying it out loud I made it something that happened. Something we can't ignore.

 "I just... I don't know." He shrugs, not meeting my gaze. What does he mean, he doesn't know? How can he not know?

 "You don't just go around kissing people! It's, well, strange." I get out, and then pause. Where the hell is this conversation going?

 "I know," he says, and it reminds me of when a teacher is yelling at a kid for forgetting their homework or the like, and then all the student says is that they know, they get it. Anything to make the teacher shut up.

 "So..." I continue, hoping to prompt him into giving me more information.

 "So..." he sighs in response, turning to wipe down the counter. Is that...is that it? I stubbornly refuse to let this go.

 "So, the kiss. Did it urm..." I really, really don't want to say this; don't want to be in this situation. But... "Did it... mean anything?" At this he freezes, back still to me. I can almost hear him weighing out what I mean by this.

 "Like, as in, you and me...?" It's a question, but not.

 "Yeah." I laugh shakily. Why am I laughing? What is this? Why is this conversation going in this strange, off track, casual direction? He just kissed me for god's sake. If my life is a story, my plot development is crap. I should fire my writers.

 "Oh...well it didn't not mean anything. I just don't think it meant...what you wanted it to mean." What does he mean by that? What do I want him to mean by that? Why is my mind a jumbled mass of nonsensical questions? Did I turn the Mr Whippy machine off? I turn to check. I did. My mind returns to more important matters.

 "Oh. You mean do I want to like, date you?" I feel so stupid right now.

 "Yes. But, I mean, I don't... Autumn I don't want to." He turns around to face me. I see everything on his face then, everything we can't convey through our awkward, stilted conversations.

 I lurch away from him, from the situation. I've been embarrassed before, but nothing like this. This is real humiliation. Red hot mortification manifests inside me like little maggots squirming away. It makes me feel sick.

 "Autumn-" He says, but the only emotion behind his voice is pity. It reflects off his pale blue eyes. I never noticed how pale they were before: like ice. It's beautiful, and the fact that I still notice it makes me feel...I don't know. Annoyed.

But the pity in his voice makes me feel worse: that he feels sorry for me, that I could even think there was a possibility of him liking me in that way.

 "It's fine. We're friends, just friends." I garble, pushing myself up from behind the counter. The words remind me of a different time, when I sat aboard a plastic pirate ship in the sunshine, having just been mistaken for his girlfriend. Well, mistaken is right.

 He looks at me sadly, and realisation hits me like a brick in the face. A big, ugly brick that's definitely going to leave a nasty bruise. "Well, we were friends," I get out, already preparing to do a runner.

 "Autumn, please don't say that. I mean, it's not like I wouldn't like you, I mean there was even a time when..." He trails off, flushing bright red. "But then you kept saying we were friends, and then I thought that meant you didn't like me so I just..." He looks hurt, and angry, and confused and embarrassed and a whole other range of emotions I can't quite name.