Wild Girl ✔️

chapter 27: beginning

Rose

I had just finished class when I saw him first.

I was walking down the stairs when I spotted him standing outside the building, in the quad. He looked lost, out of place, with his hands shoved into his jean pockets and black hair falling to his shoulders.

My heart was beating too fast.

I couldn't breath.

This isn't real, I told myself. He can't be here.

But he was. And when I walked outside and our eyes locked, I was transported back to the summer we spent together. The campus and the students were gone, replaced by green. Everywhere. It was all green. Trees and sunlight, hidden ponds between bushes and early morning sun hitting my back as he laid in bed beside me.

Sebastian was here.

I didn't know if the realization should make me smile or run.

His eyes held mine as he closed the space between us. He was running now, towards me, grinning from ear-to-ear. He looked out of place in the city, with buildings as his backdrop instead of trees.

"Rose," he said, eyes frantically running over my body. I barely had time to respond before his arms were around me, pulling me tight to his chest, crushing my body against his like I used to love.

I still couldn't breathe.

"Sebastian." I pulled back and took a step away until I could look up into his eyes. Black as I remember, but shining with a new light. Hope, I realized. "What are you doing here?" I watched as his eyebrows pulled together. His hands pulled away from me quickly as he shoved them back into his pockets. It was written all over his face, that this reunion wasn't going as he planned.

He probably expected us to be kissing by now.

Did he expect me to run into his arms? To kiss him like it hasn't been five months since our paths last crossed? I hoped he hadn't spent the time missing me.

I hoped he hadn't spent the time thinking I missed him, too.

Although I did. I do miss him, still. But we were worlds apart. A forest couldn't survive in the middle of the city. There wasn't enough rain or light. Or love.

"I—" His words cut off. Sebastian ran a hand through his hair, then over the stubble dotting his jaw. "I wanted to see you, Rose. I had to see you. Dammit, I couldn't stop thinking about you or why I just stood there and let you leave."

"I had to leave," I said. "I couldn't stay in that cabin forever."

"I know that," he said with a chuckle. Sebastian shook his head, face falling. "I knew you wouldn't want this," he said after a minute, letting out a long breath.

"We said goodbye," I told him. I awkwardly adjusted the strap of my backpack, widely aware of the crowd of students shuffling around us. I sighed and grabbed Sebastian's hand, tugging him behind me into a hidden area behind a circle of trees.

"I never wanted that to be goodbye, Rose," he said. He was leaning against a tree, looking more at home against the green. It was easy to remember why I had fallen in love with him when he looked like that. Like the wild wasn't just around him, but in him, too.

"You— You could have called, Seb. I... I have class." His face recoiled at the words and I told myself it was for the best. The trees behind him reminded me too much of Caleb's eyes and my head began to spin until I couldn't tell them apart. Sebastian and Caleb. I loved them both, and each hurt in a new way.