Love Ridden

I take a deep breath and I'm almost ready.

"Niall, before I start talking you have to promise something…" His face says he is eager to oblige. "You can’t speak. You have to wait till I’m done. No questions. No comments. No interruptions. Because if you stop me..." I pause, trying to compose myself. "If you stop me, I will lose my nerve. I won’t be able to tell you what I want you to know, the words that I need you to finally hear. Okay? Can you do that for me?"

He looks into my eyes, his face softening and the anger draining away. All the agitation is gone. All that is left is tenderness. He looks down at my hands because I am cracking my knuckles, my own nervous habit. So he reaches over and takes them into his own, making them cease their movements and he nods.

Through the connection of our hands, the warmth from his body begins to spread into me.

Now, I am ready.

Stepping over the edge, I begin my free fall.

"When I first met you I knew that I had met someone who was so much like me. You are someone who laughs at the same things I do which is something I love. I mean, we have watched the same movies so many times we can quote them from start to finish. We are two people who are generally just happy. We are happy just because, no reason needed. Those are only two small reasons that you became my best friend. There are so many more, so many reasons why I love having you as my friend. You made me so happy, but then something changed inside me. I started to think things about you that you are not supposed to think about your best friend, things that I never thought that I would admit you." I laughed at myself. "And yet here I am. I’m ready to finally spill my guts to you. I’m ready for whatever happens after I say what I’m going to say because this last month without you has been terrible and I can’t imagine doing that forever."

I take one more deep breath.

"When I look at you my pulse quickens. Most of the time my heart feels like it wants to revolt. It wants to leave me. It wants to jump from my body every time I am near you. I’ve secretly watched you so closely, watched your mouth form words, your lips wrap themselves around sounds. I’ve imagined those same lips on mine. On me. I’ve thought of what they would feel like. I’ve thought of what you would taste like. I’ve longed to know what it would be like to fall asleep next to you, to be free to wrap myself into you. I’ve dreamed of your hands on me, exploring my skin, discovering the things I like most. I’ve fantasized about touching you. I’ve awoken in the middle of the night with my own hands touching myself, the memory of your skin against me, but it’s only ever a dream." I close my eyes and try to focus again.

"I know that it doesn’t make sense that I feel like this and that I haven’t talked to you. I know that I’ve been avoiding you, but I had to do something to save myself. I couldn’t watch you with another girl. Not again. I couldn’t become someone you only came to when she wasn’t around. It hurt too much. It hurt being slowly forgotten, slowly phased out and pushed aside." Tears were starting to form in my eyes. "I couldn’t watch you fall slowly in love with someone else."

I look up into his eyes and I swallow. I am going to say the words that would change everything.
"I couldn’t watch you love someone else when I am so desperately in love with you. I only want you. I want to be everything to you. I want to be your best friend and the woman who gets to love you. Forever."

I let the words sink in. I let them slowly fill the room and Niall is silent. So I wait. My breath held in my chest while he remains silent. My hands are still in his but I’m beginning to worry. Did I make the right decision? Have I ruined everything we’ve had? I have finally lost my best friend and the love of my life?

Niall’s hands leave mine and I am about to break for the last and final time. I lower my head, trying to hold the tears in but then I feel his fingers beneath my chin. Slowly, he raises my face, making it level with his own. He brings his other hand up and both of them cradle me, his thumb swiping away a tear that has escaped and made its way down my cheek. Yet, he still doesn’t say a word and I close my eyes, my mind whirling.

And then it happens. The most unexpected thing.

His lips are on mine.

He is kissing me.

And I am finally where I have always wanted to be.

I am finally lost in him.

Notes