all mine | ft. michael clifford

twenty-one;

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Special POV: MICHAEL CLIFFORD

"Mali, I kind of wanna kiss you," I'd told her.

Her face was soft, and slightly damp, and I was surprised she hadn't pulled away from my hand yet. She was as unpredictable as they came and that left me almost feeling nervous about what she was about to say to me. Something had been going on in her head either before or since we'd gotten on this flight and I knew she probably wouldn't tell me what it was, even if I asked. And god, I wanted to ask. But she was so easily put off, had such crazy changes of mood that I was weary about the things I brought up around her. It seemed absurd that I was walking on eggshells around the girl that I felt most comfortable with.

Her eyes flickered down to my lips and I waited for some kind of sign that she wasn't about to push me away and ask for a different seat.

When she didn't move, I decided 'to hell with it' and leant towards her, heart hammering like nothing I'd ever felt before – only to have her do the exact thing I'd somehow known she was going to do: she leaned back ever so slightly, gently prying my fingers off of her silk-like cheeks and placing my hand back in my lap.

"I don't think that's a good idea," she murmured, leaning back in her seat so that she was facing forward.

She wouldn't look at me. I wanted to kick myself. But I also wanted to know why the hell kissing her wasn't a good idea to her because to me, it was the best one I'd ever had.

"And that's because..?" I prompted, refusing to look away from her like I was sure she wanted me to do.

I wanted her to say it. I needed her to say aloud that she wasn't into me, that she didn't feel a single fucking thing for me. Once she said it, I could leave her alone. Once she said it, I'd forfeit this pitiful and sappy hope that I had going on and accept the fact that being friends was the only thing myself and Mali Cross would ever have going on.

"Because it's just not," she said.

Not good enough.

"So let me get this straight," I started, feeling the slightest twinge of annoyance that she was holding back from saying something to me. "I'm not allowed to kiss you – not because you don't want me to – but because it's not a good idea for some reason that I'm not allowed to know?"

She looked at me now and I couldn't tell what kind of expression she wore. She wasn't smiling. I didn't like it.

"I don't have to explain to you why you shouldn't kiss me, Michael."

She probably didn't even mean it, but I caught it. Instead of expressing the hint that she didn't want me to kiss her, she'd just said that I shouldn't. And I wanted to know why.

"But it's not that you don't want me to, is it?" I asked.

She didn't answer that, just stared straight ahead. "We're not talking about this anymore."

I refused to plainly accept that under the notion that I deserved to know something. She kept so fucking much from me while I was so ready to offer every thought I'd ever had to her on a silver platter.

"I'm still talking about it," I told her.

"Then you'll be talking to yourself," she murmured back.