Caucasian Asian: An Anthony Padilla Fanfiction

Chapter 11- Apologies and tears

CH 11

Anthony’s POV

Time slowed down. I know, I know, as corny as it sounds, as soon as Nikki’s lips touched mine everything around us felt pointless. It took me a while to even process the fact that she had kissed me, that it was real. I thought I was daydreaming again, because for the last few days I had been doing in my free time was imagining all the things wanted to do to and with Nikki. For a brief moment I thought that this was another one of my fantasies but as my hands tightened around her waist, my rough fingers pressed against her exposed skin, feeling her moan into my mouth I knew this couldn’t NOT be real. I could smell her, as creepy as that sounds, she smelt completely… Nikki-ish. Her apricot shampoo, her floral perfume… all of it so completely her and so amazingly overwhelming. I had to have more. I was about to open my mouth to her when I remembered where we were, so I broke the kiss.

I pushed her gently away from my body and held her at arm’s length, my hands sadly no longer on her waist, yet itching to feel more of her.  I looked down at her mouth, and noticed her dark lipstick all but gone from our kiss and I fought a smirk knowing that I had kissed the colour off of those delicious lips. I wanted to kiss her again, but I knew we’d get teased by anyone who had seen us. I looked around the room eyeing people who had potentially seen us, luckily everyone had been too preoccupied to notice our little moment. ‘Good’ I thought, ‘I want to keep this moment ours, and our alone.’  My eyes returned to hers… but as our gaze met I realised she had tears in her eyes.

Nikki’s POV

The kiss was magical. It exceeded any and all fantasies I’d had about our first kiss together. It was just plain and simply: amazing. But Anthony didn’t seem to think so. I started the kiss… and he ended it. He didn’t want me to kiss him. He was just apologising, I read too much into it. Oh my gosh he’s going to hate me now! He pushed me away removing his hands from my waist… I must have imagined him holding on to me like that… He wasn’t touching me anymore. I felt empty. I looked up at him, afraid to see his reaction because I already knew what it would be. And I was right. He was embarrassed, frantically looking around the room to see if anyone had seen me force myself on him. Noone had, it seemed, because he sighed in relief. It was at that point that I felt my eyes water, and saw his form become blurry as tears filled my vision. I saw him look at me his expression turned from what I assume was a mix of relief and resignation to pure confusion. Why is he confused? How could he possibly not understand that I would be upset after he rejects me?! His voice interrupted my thoughts

“Nikki… wh-” He started, his seemingly empathetic expression contrasting his Joker costume.
“Don’t. Save it, please. I understand. I’m s-sorry, I shouldn’t have kissed you like that… or kissed you at all. I’m so sorry Anthony.” My voice kept wavering as the tears fell “I promise I won’t kiss you again, I’m sorry… I’ll –I’ll just g-go” I stepped away from him and felt something bump into me from behind, I heard the distinct sound of breaking glass… and pain… then suddenly everything went black.

Anthony’s POV

“I’m so sorry Anthony. I promise I won’t kiss y again, I’m sorry… I’ll – I’ll just g-go” I watched as she came undone tears streaming down her face. Why is she crying?! What the hell did I miss? One second I was having the best kiss of my life and the next she’s telling me she won’t kiss me anymore!? She stepped back, trying to get away from me for some reason. She didn’t see the waiter walking behind her with a tray full of shot glasses and a bottle of some alcohol – I don’t remember what is was, all I remember was Nikki screaming as she and the tray came crashing down, broken glass raining on her small form.

I heard someone shriek somewhere but it didn’t register… Nikki was on the floor covered in shattered glass, her own blood pooling around her as she groaned a solitary resigned breath before she passed out. The waiter who’d dropped the tray after Nikki had bumped into him was cursing non -stop, he crouched over her trying to see if she was ok, as he was about to reach out and touch her when I practically shoved him away. Some deep primal yet protective anger had been triggered by seeing Nikki so hurt, and I knelt next to her, barely registering the pain of the glass fragments under my knees. I picked up her unconscious form, pieces of glass tumbled from her hair as I cradled her to my chest.

“Someone call 911” Mari voice yelled,
“An ambulance is already on its way.” And after those words everything around me blurred out. Once again – like that kiss we’d shared not minutes ago- nothing around us mattered, all I could see and feel and hear was Nikki. Her eyes closed in such a way that she would have seemed peacefully asleep were it not for the scratches on her face, with the small streams of blood trickling down her forehead and cheek… she looked so fragile in my arms. Her injuries didn’t seem bad enough for her to have passed out… or so I had thought… I moved my left hand which had been holding the back of her slender neck and saw red. My entire palm was covered in Nikki’s blood… my body froze as I realised that a large shard from the bottle had sliced her neck open. There was a gash about 3 inches long and god knows how deep stretching diagonally from her collarbone up to the base of her hairline.

“N-Nikki?” I called out to her but she didn’t respond. I hugged her close, and I felt myself start shudder as tears came to my eyes.
“Don’t cry, Anthony.” I heard her small sweet voice croak out. I looked at her and I saw her beautiful blue eyes open again. The corner of her mouth was upturned into the weakest little smile as she continued “Don’t cry for me, I’ll be f-fine. I always am… you know m-me…” She gasped as her voice failed her for a brief moment “I’m a big girl…” She was going to say more but she suddenly coughed… blood. “I’m sorry, Anthony. I’m sorry that the last memory you have of me will be me kissing you when you didn’t want me to … I’m sorry. But for what it’s worth… It w-was nice.”
“What are you talking about, of course I wanted you to! I really care about you Nikki…. In fact I think I’m starting to fall fo-“ I looked down at her and my gut twisted in fear as I saw that those beautiful blue orbs I loved so much had disappeared behind her eyelids again. She breathed a single shaky breath in… but it didn’t come out again. She’d stopped breathing.

The paramedics stormed in and parted the crowd. Swooping around the two of us, dragging me away from her as I called out.

“Don’t leave me Nikki… Please… stay with me.”