Side Swiped

Chapter 39: The Muffin Man

"F*CK NO!" Her eyes were as wide as saucers. Then her bandaged hand clasped over her mouth. "Ouch. Err, I mean. Not right now. It's not because I don't love you or anything like that, but dude we're 17 and 18. We've barely lived yet."

I let out a breath. If she had said yes, I would've been absolutely elated, but now that she said no, I was kind of sort of happy about it. Not that I'd ever been engaged before, but I knew it was a task. We still had graduation and college to get through. We could still live our lives as individuals still being together.

No doubt though...she was going to marry me one day. Patience, was all I needed.

"Aww man. Jason, I'm sorry. I didn't mean f*ck no like never in a million years, just f*ck no not right now."

I chuckled. "That's ok. I was just asking in case you wanted to." I winced as that came out harsher than I meant for it to.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "So you don't really want to," she asked skeptically. Mackenzie Gold would perceive it that way.

"I do," I quickly corrected. "I do, but only when you want to. If you wanted to get married I would've been happy, but since you don't then I don't. To be honest it seemed like that was the moment in all the movies when the guy proposes."

"Well I want one of those surprise moments, but not like this," she laughed holding up her hand to show me her injuries. "For the record, that was pretty cheesy...but I like cheese," she winked.

"Was not," I defended. Mackenzie raised an eyebrow that said really.

I held my ground for as long as possible because I cracked with laughter.

"I know. I know it was," I conceded. "But somewhere in the middle of our conversation I decided that I'm done being a 'turtle'" I put airquotes around the word, in reference to her earlier terminology. "You're going to know exactly what I'm feeling, exactly what I'm going through from now on...Even when I'm feeling constipated." I added with a smile.

"Eww, no," her face scrunched up in disgust. "I don't need to know that. Too much."

"O you're going to know, and you're going to sit with me while I'm on the toilet until my tribulation passes."

She shook her head rigorously causing her brown hair to fall into her face. "No, no, no, no, no. That's more than I asked for." She laughed. My hand of it's own accord reached out tucking those pieces of hair back behind her ear. It was meant to be a simple gesture, but it turned into something else.

"You get it all. No other options Mack."

It was a leap, but it was one I was willing to make. Of course, making myself vulnerable after years of hiding within myself would make me

I smiled as I looked down at our hands. The connection of our hands wasn't strong because she couldn't really hold on due to her injury, but it was defintiely still there. It was like this new page in our relationship not as strong as it would be one day. I had to get used to communicating because it wasn't necessarily my forte, but I would work at it everyday and just like her hand would gain strength as the time passed, so would I and we'd be able to hold on to each other with all our might.

The thought satisfied me.

When we entered the cabin of the jet it was empty.

"He's good," I said to Mackenzie.

"I know. I didn't even feel the landing."

We made our way to the door and descended the stairs to  where our parent's were waiting for us. SInce I was turning a new leaf, I walked to my dad and hugged him. I wasn't used to having a father in my life, but I was happy he was here now, and I had a better understanding as to why he did what he did all those years.