{18+ COMPLETED • COLLEGE ROMANCE}
When a college freshman with a learning disability and a reputation collides with a straight-A, straight-laced girl in the dorm kitchen one night, he sees the darkest parts of himself reflected in her. But the two o...
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M A D I E
November Twenty-Second
Five
I think together we could let the past die
And live in the future.
—
Today was the day.
We walked further than we ever had on the beach. Kicked the ball around for longer than the days before. And even as we trudged up to the beach house, dragging our toes in the sand, I barely felt tired. Everything in me was humming. Alive. Energized.
Today was the day.
The days before today had flown by. Each one that passed made me feel lighter and in more control both physically and mentally. I worked on schoolwork, but I also spent a lot of time with my journal. I wrote more than I had in a long time. With each page that I turned, I felt a little more purpose and meaning pump through my veins.
Bren was present but quiet. He had a lot of homework to do as well, and I could tell whenever it frustrated him. He never let me help, though, so I learned to give him space like he gave me.
I felt most at peace whenever we were on the beach, like now. But today an energy interrupted that peace. And I couldn't keep it in any longer. It was like a whisper to let go, to disrupt the feeling of safeness and find something more.
I wanted something more.
I stopped walking, digging my heels in. Bren had been holding my hand and turned around in surprise. His hair blew in the wind as he looked back at me.
"What?"
"Bren?"
The wind whipped in front of my face, too. It was an unseasonably warm day, my hair sticking to the fine mist of sweat on my forehead. It was tempting to jump into the water, cold though I knew it would be. But I was already in my suit, and the only thing over it was a pair of jean shorts that I could easily strip off.
Maybe Bren would go swimming with me. I still had some energy, and he'd been walking around in just his swim trunks, much to my distraction.
"Madie?"
He cocked his head to the side, his lips curving up and then dropping like he wasn't sure if there was something wrong or not. And I don't know why, but everything about it was just so him.
"You told me once that if you could, you'd kiss me every goddamn day," I whispered. "I want that, too. And I want it now."
With a tentative step, Bren closed the difference between us. His lips parted. And then closed. And then parted again. A sudden curse ripped out of him. "Fuck, you have no idea what hearing that does to me. You have no idea what you do to me, Madie."
