Leap of Faith

23:43

Love?

Did he just seriously say that? I blink a couple of times in the darkness, trying to clear my thoughts as the word reverberates around my mind. Part of me wants to ask him to repeat it, but that would be asking too much.

“You’ve gone quiet,” Theo’s voice is closer to me than I had ever imagined. “Are you ok?”

I turn ever so slightly to face his voice, but instead I feel the skin on skin contact as our noses brush against each other. His breath is warm against my lips and knowing that he’s this close to me, I start to feel dizzy.

“I-I’m fine,” my stuttering gets out of control. I pull myself away from Theo and clear my throat, hoping that the huskiness of my voice has disappeared. “So, one word to describe yourself?”

"If I had to choose a word right now,” he stops to think, before chuckling to himself. “Mesmerized.”

Strange word choice. I think I follow his train of thoughts, but I don’t want to give it any validity, because that would only lead us down a path that we’d rather forget come tomorrow. He’s mesmerized by me, and that’s dangerous, because I think I might be mesmerized by him too.

I’m not sure when I came to that realization, but it might have happened four minutes ago when my stomach did that whirling thing, like butterflies in my stomach. That moment when my head and heart split and started to take over the different sides of me. The head ruling the logical side, the heart the illogical side. Right now, heart had the upper hand, but I really needed to keep my head. After all, in less than twenty minutes, we’d be out of here.

“Favorite color?” I demand.

“What?” Theo sounds confused and his voice is no longer a whisper in my ear.

“Favorite color?” I repeat.

“I just told you that I was mesmerized and you want to know what my favorite color is?” He asks, slightly bewildered. “You know, most girls would love to have a compliment like that, but not you.”

My head whips around at his tone. “Well, like I said, I’m not like most girls,” I immediately go on the defense and take to my feet. I hadn’t noticed just how confined this space had been until this very second, when I desperately needed to get the hell out of here. I start banging on the door, but no-one comes to my rescue. I can feel my breath becoming erratic, my lungs unable to fill up with oxygen and my head starts to become woozy. My vision blurs and whenever I go to speak, my voice gets trapped.

“Catherine?” Theo’s worried voice sounds far away. “Catherine, are you ok? Talk to me.”

I can’t. I don’t know where he his and that makes me panic even more. Then I feel his arms constricting at my waist, pulling me to him.