WHY THEY LEFT (#Wattys2015)

15. I Want To Love You But Don't Know If I Can

X & Y by Coldplay
Rosalie

The whole drive was silent but inside I was screaming. What the hell did I just do, I kept yelling at myself. What I had just said was one of those impulse things -like a snappy comeback that you just need to verbalize- that wasn't meant to escape my lips. But I did. I said it.

My head kept replaying me yelling that sometimes I just wanted him to touch me. Honestly, it was truth. I'm human; I have human impulses. I didn't know why, I just wanted him to touch me. To just shut up and touch me.

He lazily drove the car with one wrist resting on the top of the steering wheel and one arm on the middle consul. He was the ultimate epitome of a '60s greaser boy in downtown New York. It only became even more like that when he pulled out a cigaret and lit it.

Strangley, when I smelt cigarette smoke on or around him, it never made me sick. Maybe it was the way his face looked when smoke rolled off his lips and glided up in the air around him, I wasn't quite sure but him smoking didn't bother me at all. I was sure that if I ever tried to smoke, I'd look like a wannabe and a complete and utter fool. Something in his cool demeanor and passive outward look made him seem complete with a cigaret in between his teeth.

He pulled into the drive way and simultaneously jerked the keys from the ignition while opening his door. I followed likewise. What the hell am I doing? I walked behind him in the darkness up the porch steps and to the door.

"Danny," I whispered as he reached for the door knob. Impulsively, I reached out and touched his arm. It was rather brisk now out side but his skin was warm under my touch. I felt like he was sending shocks through me from the tips of my fingers. I traced the faint line of a tattoo that I could vaguely see through the murky night air.

His tattoo sleeve was always fascinating to me. What were all the meanings behind the keys on his arms, the smoke that filled the space?

I looked up through the black cloak of the night and searched for Danny's eyes. I found them, his face outlining as my eyes adjusted. "Did you mean what you said?" He asked firmly. His eyes were dark and murky like looking into clouded water. He seemed tensed but I couldn't pinpoint all the ways he seemed. It was as if he was a puzzle of emotions, each one different in someway, yet piecing together in someway that I couldn't assemble.

Although he couldn't see my face that well, I still stared at him quizzically. "What do you mean?" I asked finally after pausing.

"That sometimes you want me to touch you?" I could tell without seeing him that that devilish, smirking grin was plastered on his lips. I shoved at his chest and dropped my hand to my side.

"Only when you aren't being an asshole." He was doing it again; he did it all the time. He made me feel vulnerable. Like a child: easily manipulated and gullible as hell. I wanted to say more, I was so irrationally pissed off still but that vulnerable feeling, that feeling of desire, was eating through my anger and leaving me wanting him. It was both my biggest fear and the thing I wanted most. I just wanted him to touch me.

Before I could say something more, my fear and my wish played out. His lips hit mine. Not softly and not romantically. He pulled me up to his chest heatedly and kissed me messily and angrily.

He meshed his fingers in my hair, pulling my face tightly to his. I slid my arms up and looped them around his neck, using him to lift myself higher to his level. Damn was I frustrated that I was so short compared to him.

As passionate as the kiss was, the drawn out, sloppy kiss, it wasn't sweet and wasn't cutsy. It was ferocious and heated, hot and messy. I didn't really mind though. He dragged his hands down my slides, slipping his fingertips under the hem of my shirt and holding my hips.