She Was Like Magic ✓

Chapter 18: Honest Emotions

Sierra 

Sierra Cruz had never been nervous for anything. Not when she was sashaying her way up to a guy to flirt with him, not when she had to call out a particularly nasty girl for her bitchy behaviour to another student in the middle of the campus, and not even when she had exams. 

But this was making me nervous. I kept stealing a glance at him and awkwardly half-smiled at him while I wrung my hands together. There was this uncomfortable sensation in the pit of my stomach. The kind of feeling you get when you're on a really fast rollercoaster and are about to go down a big dip. 

He was running his hand through his hair again and again so it was really messy, as he blew out deep breaths. I had the biggest urge to run my hands through his jet black hair, the colour of the sky right now. But I stopped myself and these fleeting thoughts and took a deep breath. 

"How about we play a game?" the words came out in a rush thanks to that feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

He stopped walking and looked at me, confused. 

I stopped too "Remember that game when we raced to the tree and we each traded one secret, how about we do that again?" I bit my lip in anticipation as he took a step towards me. He gulped and I saw his Adam's apple bob up and down, it looked so sexy that I was reminded of what we were doing just minutes ago in that bathroom. I could so kiss him right now. 

His gaze was directed to the floor as he scratched the back of his neck "Okay" he mumbled and nodded his head. 

He looked up within a split second that I was shocked at the intimacy of the moment because he looked straight at me and nowhere else. And because there was this solemn look in his eyes that told me all about the pain he had faced when I wasn't around him. That had me choking on a breath I couldn't take because of his eyes right on me. 

"Why did you run away? From me that day?" in the silence of the night his question hung so heavily between us, it felt like everything in this universe stood between us and at the same time none of it did at all. 

His penetrating gaze on me and that question and all its haunting memories, I wanted to run again. My defence mechanisms told me to get out of here as fast as possible and just avoid him forever. My arms came around me to wrap myself in them over my stomach. 

But I had ran enough. It was time to be strong and face all that had ridden me with fear. It was time to be strong for the guy standing in front of me whose innocent, stormy blue eyes were asking me why I had caused him so much pain. I didn't mean to was all that was echoing in my head. I didn't mean to. 

I don't think I even realised why I did run from him that day. And the days following after that I tried to rationalise it, but I don't think it hit me with full force how much my pain and fear had crippled me. Until his blue eyes were exuding his pain, until I no longer wanted to be afraid of drowning in those eyes completely, for him. Because I felt his pain like it was my own. And I was only feeling it now. How had he been carrying it with him since I left him at his apartment? My heart broke. The pain, the happiness of seeing him again, everything was just so intense in this moment. It was like the floodgates in me had opened and now there was no stopping them.

"Relationships scare me. Committing to people, building attachments scare the fucking life out of me because..." I trailed off. This was hard to talk about. I tried to calm myself because my voice was going to sound all shaky if I didn't. I wanted to be able to say this without crying. 

"..I don't have a great relationship with my parents" I closed my eyes and took a deep, shaky breath in. 

"When the people that are supposed to love you unconditionally can let you down every time you count on them and can have a mechanical relationship with you then it puts you off ever getting that attached to someone. It makes you scared because you're so full of pain. You end up thinking you are unlovable. That nobody will be able to love you and so you shouldn't ever get that attached to anyone either" a few tears were trailing down my face.