The Little House of Paints

Chapter 11

I practically give myself whiplash with the speed my head shoots up. That is one of the last things I ever thought he would say. My fifteen year old self would be running around circles in this little hidden covering before jumping into his arms. My twenty year old self has a different reaction.

I'm frozen in shock. I try meeting his eyes now, but it seems like he is now the one avoiding eye contact. I'm tempted to believe him, but Mckenzie words quickly float back into the forefront of my mind. Instead of confessing my equal interest in him, something that apparently hasn't changed over the years, I do the most inappropriate reaction in the world, I snort. And when I say snort, it is the type that has you covering your face running away in embarrassment. The type where you hide until you can no longer hear the ringing of it in your own ears. The type where you blast music to drown out the sound.

"I'm so sorry." I quickly put my hands over my face, my cheeks flushing, "I wasn't laughing at you. Well at least I didn't mean to." I start to ramble, but quickly catch myself. Forcing my hands to move, I pick up one of his hands, and will his eyes back up, "I was practically in love with you when I was fifteen. I didn't think that you were interested in me at all."

He is a little more cautious when his gaze meets mine and his neck must be thanking him for it. I can already feel a pulsing pain starting in mine. His brows begin to furrow as he digests what he just heard, "Why would you think that I didn't like you?" He finishes off the question by giving my hand a little squeeze.

"Well besides the obvious reason of you constantly avoiding me, your sister literally told me you didn't." Mckenzie's red hair flashes through my mind as I try to disentangle my hand from his. Saying it out loud brings me back to that time, that day, the pain that I felt.

Instead of releasing his grip on my hand, he tightens it. Grabbing the other one, he covers both my hands with his own, "Kendahl, why in the world would I not like you?" He starts as if the conception is absurd to him, "You're smart, beautiful, funny, and incredibly talented. That first day that you entered the school, everyone started talking about you before the first period even began. I was dying to see what had gotten the school all stirred up. Believe me it was a complete surprise when I saw you with, of all people, my sister. And when I saw you, I felt as if the breath was hit out of me. I have been hit by two hundred plus pound linebackers and that was nothing compared to the moment I first saw you.

"You were so quiet, not quite comfortable in your surroundings. I loved my sister and all my friends, but I was furious seeing that she couldn't see your discomfort. I had only seen you across the room and I could see you were like a deer in the headlights. I tried to steer them away from you because I didn't want you to be too overwhelmed. Mckenzie thrived on the attention, but you looked like you wanted to throw up. I'm sorry if that came off as rude, but I wanted to ease whatever tension you were feeling. I have always wanted to make your life better."

He looks off into the trees that are surrounding us as he continues on, "I knew from that day forward that I was in deep and there was no coming out of it. I didn't stick around you because I didn't want to freak you out. I thought that if maybe I eased my way into your life and hopefully eventually your heart that would make everything easier for you, instead of throwing myself at you like everyone else had. After a couple months of doing that, I thought that maybe you were comfortable enough around me to tell you how I truly felt, so I went to Mckenzie." This time he laughs harshly.

"Looking back, that probably wasn't my best move, but she was your best friend. You know how close my sister and I were, so I thought that instead of making an embarrassment out of myself, I would ask her if you had any interest in me. I had heard the giggling behind her closed bedroom door. I knew that you guys talked about your crushes.When I started to ask about it, she immediately told me no. That you had told her that you thought I was an arrogant asshole, who had everything handed to him. That hurt, I'm not gonna lie. After that I completely wrote off the idea of being with you in any kind of capacity. It wasn't too long after that that Kenzie's cancer came back.