Broken Defender

Chapter Nine ~ More Rumors

I was awake by five this morning. The sound of thunder, and pattering rain on my roof kept me from returning to sleep. I wasn't scared of storms. Actually I found them to be quite fascinating... but this one was just too noisy to sleep through. It didn't help that I had last night playing in my head like a scratched groove on a record. Too many thoughts swirled about in my mind, to many questions. Why did he kiss me? He didn't even know me that well. Sure we had talked for hours, but I felt that now, even after hours of conversations, even with our in depth knowledge of each other... still it wasn't enough for an action like that. It was too fast, too personal. I'd gather that only after a month of Sundays like the one we had spent, would I have felt perfectly comfortable with his forwardness. So why did I still feel so stupid for pulling away from him? He was moving too fast, yet I felt as though I were the one at fault for last night.

It made no sense for me to feel guilty. He probably should have expected any self-respecting girl to pull back and slap him hard across his perfect cheek. To call him out on his brazen actions. On that note maybe my actions last night weren't so unmoral... still I regretted it. Still I wished I wouldn't have pulled away... even if he had been in the wrong. In all honesty, I was crushing on him way too hard, and only in my dreams had I thought it possible for him to like me back... of course in my dreams I wouldn't have told him "Don't do that." The three words slapped me in the face repeatedly, foiling my and Harry's chance of a relationship. Why didn't I just walk away? Why couldn't I have just pushed him back and walked away, leaving him unsure of my feelings? No, that wasn't enough for me, stupid idiotic me. I had to go and tell him not to do it, no doubt implying that I never wanted him to do it again. And now I am positive that he doubts my feelings for him. He probably figures me to be a prude... or perhaps just uninterested.

But then there was the chance that he understood. Maybe he could see how desperately I was falling for a stranger, and he wanted to seal the deal. Maybe he just wanted to put the possibility out there in order to keep his chances with me from slipping through the cracks... maybe he was beating himself up over this too. Maybe he was lying awake, staring at his ceiling like I was, replaying the entire night and grimacing at the memory. Thinking to himself "You idiot. You moved too fast. Now she'll never like you back." I only hoped that he was as distraught over this as I was... I did like him back though, and I wanted him to like me... I just wasn't ready for the contact. Was I ready now? Now that I'd experienced my first kiss, a millisecond though it had been, could I do it now? Could I put aside the fact that we'd only known each other for a weekend, and let him kiss me? Was there some form of kissing guidebook that prevented me from allowing his persuading contact? I liked him after all... how long would a decent woman have to wait before letting a man kiss her? If Saturday's events at the park had counted as our first date, which I'm sure they didn't... and if Sunday's events counted as our second date... would it not be perfectly appropriate for him to kiss me? I was so confused. Though I knew those had not been dates... I was positive that we'd learned more of each other in those two days together than a lot of people did after a week of dating.

It was still pouring down rain when my alarm went off. I prepared for school in a routine manner, taking a few more minutes on my appearance, as I secretly wanted to look good for Harry. After what felt like hours of debating this morning, I made the conscious decision to be happy today. To put aside the frustrations of the night before, and look at Harry as a possibility... not as an emotional threat. I hummed along with my radio. The normally up-tempo beat of Yo-Yo by the Osmond's played dully as the bad weather affected my frequencies. I loved this song when it had first come out, and though I had heard it a million times since then, my fondness for it has not changed. It's such a happy little melody, light and childish... plus it always reminded me of my ever-present crush on Donny. Gosh, it's embarrassing to think about celebrity crushes now that I actually have a potential love interest staring me in the face... but yes I was still crushing on Donny. Harry kind of looked like him though. I drifted away from my mirror, mascara brush still in hand as I stared back at my magazine clipped poster of Donny Osmond. I guess I could see a similarity... though I was probably only finding similarities because I wanted to. I was starting to think Harry was cuter though... I looked a little longer, before deciding. Yeah Harry is way cuter than Donny... which sucks because that just makes him absolutely irresistible.