“What is it about me that you don’t like?”
As she looked down at her purple sweater that reached past her fingertips he smirked and lifted his eyebrow, “There is something about your face. The shadows on you turn me around.”
The Ferris wheel in the distance seemed to stretch even farther away. The cliff behind her dropped into the icy, thundering ocean. Her fingers stretched and pulled the sweater around themselves for warmth. Her teeth chattered as she looked to her right and left, as if expecting someone next to her to speak up in her defense. All that she saw was the fierce wind that was another reminder of how lost she felt. One of her hands reached up and landed on her forehead as hard rain starting pouring down on the two of them, “Turns you around? What does that even mean?”
His beautiful, soft features that she loved so much twisted in an anger that she could not decipher. She had seen him angry, millions of times. He had a horrible temper, but she understood it. This anger was different. She had seen it times before, but it would quickly go away or stay ignored. For a long time she had thought that it meant something, that he had finally realized who she actually was to him, but she gave up on that awhile ago. She could only wait for him for so long. The longer she held on to those feelings she had for him, the longer it ate away at her heart when they weren’t returned.
Shaking his head as if to shake off the anger he gritted his teeth, “Gah, I don’t even know what I mean. You just piss me off. Something’s not honest.”
The next emotion to appear on his face was confusion, as he tried to pinpoint what he was trying to say in his head. His dark hair was being matted down to his skin in the rain as she felt her hair doing the same. Pulling some out of her face, she stepped towards him, “Ethan. What the hell is this?”
He stepped forward once, a strong motion, but then pulled back two steps and threw his arms up in the air, “I don’t even know. I can’t stand you. I can’t stand what you do, “Pause as he formed a fist, “To me. I can’t stand what you do to me.”
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her, defiantly, “And what is it that I do to you that bugs you so much? You get pissed at me all the time, how is this any different? Why are we out here on a freaking roadside yelling at each other in the rain? You make no sense!”
His eyes immediately jumped from the sky it was staring at to her eyes, “Don’t roll your eyes at me. You know exactly what you do. And I can’t stand this anymore. This relationship we have.”
She stepped into the dirt that was now turning into mud to be a step closer to him, “Ethan, we don’t have a ‘relationship’. This is it. Can we just go?”
Picking the keys off of the ground where he had thrown them, he headed towards the red SUV that was parked at a jagged edge on the side of the old cement road, “Fine, let’s go. Let’s keep on acting like nothing is weird.”
Leaning down to the ground she scooped up some of the wet, slimy mud into her hands, “Fuck you, Ethan.” And with that the mud flew from her hands and landed on his back, coating his dark jacket with mud.
His body turned fast and anger flooded from his eyes, “What? This is what you want right? I thought you wanted to go.”
Tears started to creep down her cheeks and she cursed them as she never wanted let herself get this angry, “You don’t even know.”
With an exhausted look he exhaled sharply, “Know what?”
Turning her body completely, she looked out passed the cliff and into the ocean, “What you want, what I want, what I’ve been going through. I hate you Ethan, I hate you.”
He couldn’t read her words. She was always so simple to read, but this was one thing he couldn’t figure out, “I know exactly what I want.”
Turning back to face him she had a resolute look on her face and just nodded, “And it isn’t me. I get it. I’ve known for a long time, so can we just stop having this conversation.”
There it was. That was his answer. He also knew that she wasn’t going to let any more go. He had to give if he wanted to know anymore. The question was, was he ready to risk all this? Accepting this feeling he had was too big of a step that he wasn’t ready to make. There were so many changes he would have to make. Even the thought of having any type of feeling towards her was enough to make him want to run, but the word that was flooding his mind was too loud to not answer to.
This was it, he had to find out. He had to find out what this road would lead to or he would regret it for the rest of his life. He couldn’t just wonder what could have happened. The words just tumbled out of his mouth like they were the first words he ever learned, “I love you.”
Her arms crossed again, her typical frustrated stance, “Yeah, I know, right.”
His face was firm. He wasn’t going to turn back now. Just saying the words to her made his body hum louder than he had ever felt before. His eyes turned wide and pleading, “No you don’t. I love you like I’m not supposed to love you. Do you hear me? I love you.”
Her eyes closed and a few small tears snuck past her lashes. Her small hand covered her lips as they began to tremble, “What? Ethan, you don’t know what you’re saying…”
His body tensed and he held his hands at his sides. He wanted to touch her so badly. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and finally feel how that felt, “I love you. I want you. Don’t you see? That’s why you make me so crazy. That’s what all this fear was about. I love you.”
A small sob came from her body that was now shivering from the rain as she could hardly speak, “Ethan… I don’t believe…”
“Believe me.”
As the last two words escaped his mouth he took the last remaining steps that lay between them and wrapped his arms around her. Pulling her as close as he always ignored that he wanted her and grasped the hair on the back of her head, he kissed her hard.
She kissed back immediately, like her lips had been preparing for him this whole time. The kiss was powerful, but didn’t last long as all of the fears that had built up for the last months escaped. Her body collapsed into him as she wrapped her arms around him. Not wanting to let go, she held on in fear that when reality came into sight, he would forget his proclamation and she would never feel his arms around her like this ever again. Right now, to both of them, this moment is all that there was.
