Zach and Abby

9. - Edited

 Zach - Edited

The smile she had on her face that night was one I'd never forget. Even if she thought it was a regular dinner between two old high school peers, it was a date with Abby Mitchell to me.

She'd always been the girl too smart for me and too shy for me to ever talk to without getting shit from the guys I called close friends. She was always just there – in the back of calculus class, a table away in the cafeteria – and it took me two years and finding her at a college in Arizona to ask her out for the first time.

When I looked in her eyes on her door step tonight, I just wanted to erase the hesitation I saw in them. It didn't take much questioning about what Abby had been up to for the last few years from Austin to find out she had always been curious about that out of character hug I'd given her on graduation night.

In all honesty, it was a hug. I could have given her a real kiss or told her I always had a stupid crush on her, but I didn't. I gave her a hug and let Austin drag me away before I could even get a word in. But to her, I knew she was so shocked that a football player like me actually had contact with a wall flower like her.

This was college, social groups didn't matter and I wanted her to know this wasn't a game or whatever she might have been thinking. I so badly wanted to tell her why I hugged her two years over dinner or even on her doorstep, but I didn't. If I was making up the look I thought I saw in her eyes, it'd just be ten times more humiliating having her tell me I was crazy and that going out tonight was a dumb idea.

Even after she walked inside and I was in my car, I regretted not saying more. Or maybe I should have just kissed her. It seemed like I was better at acting on impulse then thinking things through. Kissing her could have freaked her out or made her slap me, but god knows that's what I wanted to do.

But since I couldn't find the courage to kiss her, I hugged her and held her tight, because that was enough.

And even though it was enough, I still slammed my hand against the steering wheel because there was always that little voice in my mind telling me all the things I could have done. All I'd done was hug her, and at the memory, I just sighed.