The First Flight ❀ COLIFER

Chapter 12 ❀ Spill

"What is it?" I asked. His touch was keeping me there, but everything inside of me just wanted to get that cake and go back to the campfire.

Colin scratched the scruff on his cheeks and moved up, to the spot behind his ear. He was avoiding eye contact again.

"Okay, if you're just going to stand here—"

"Can we go inside for a minute? Just a minute?"

A minute that would never just be a minute and that would feel like an hour, I thought, but his eyes were too blue. Even when there was barely any light.

"Okay, I guess," I sighed as I turned around to head back inside. I sat down on my bed and he just stood there in the doorway.

"So?" I asked.

"So... I don't know how to say this."

I made a fist of my right hand, but forced myself to relax. "Okay... why are we suddenly talking again? Didn't we try that already?"

"I know, and I'm sorry—"

Okay, I was done. I was just done. He kissed me in an elevator, told his wife about it for no particular reason, admitted he would take it back and now he wanted to talk about it?

About what? The birds and the bees?

The freaking Big bang that created the entire universe?

"Colin, either you start talking or I'm out of here. I'm not going to let anyone play with my feelings any longer, so if you—"

"SHUT UP for just a second, will you?!"

I shut up. I stared at him and he stared back. There was a fire in his eyes, one that I hadn't seen there before, but I didn't know if that was just anger radiating from him or something else.

"I've been thinking about what I said to you last night," he continued. "About taking it back if I could. It didn't leave my mind once, because I knew I didn't use the right words. And you know what?"

"What?" I asked, because his gaze was boring into mine as if he was waiting for me to answer. I was glued to the spot; the atmosphere in the room had changed in a matter of seconds.

He took two big steps and he was right in front of me. "Yes, I would take it back."

"Colin—"

"But only because then I would have told her before I kissed you in that elevator. If I could take things back, I would have told her how I couldn't get you off my mind before I even kissed you. And I would have kissed you in the right way, without guilt, without terrible consequences, knowing that it would be the only thing that felt right. Because all it did now was feel wrong."

Somewhere halfway through his rant my jaw had dropped and I had stopped breathing altogether. When he was silent again all of my insides seemed to be on fire. My heart was racing, making it impossible for me to move.

Did that mean... what I think it meant?

Did he just admit that he had feelings for me?

That realization flipped a switch in my head. I got up, overwhelmed by a sense of impotence and guilt. "What are you saying, Colin? Do you even know what you're saying?"

"I..." He breathed out and grabbed the back of his head out of frustration. "I don't know, okay? I don't know what I'm doing. That's why I'm only listening to what I'm feeling, and this..." He got hold of my hand before I was able to get out of his reach.

I pulled away. Then I looked up, at his hoodie, that stupid blue hoodie he seemed to be wearing all the time now and kept reminding me of that stupid dream, and then up, into his eyes.

I saw what I wanted to see, but I didn't allow myself to think like that. I couldn't.

"I don't want to get on this ride knowing it's going to end at some point," I said as I backed away from him.

His response kept me frozen in my movements.

"That's not why you get on a ride in the first place. You get out there and do things that scare you to hell, because life is scary and yes, it gets messy sometimes. But you do it anyway, because even though things end, no one will ever be able to take the things that you learned on the way. You make the wrong choices, you make good ones, and maybe somewhere in the process you discover that you actually like the loops of the roller coaster."

He's not seeing it. 

He wasn't see the consequences of his actions, and it was starting to drive me mad. I swiveled around on my heels. "Have you considered the possibility that maybe this isn't what I want? That I don't want something that's already screwed up before it even starts?!"

"Jen, just lis—"

"No, get your hands OFF me!" I backed away from him, shaking, and I turned around to run out of the room. I tried to get to the bathroom before he could follow me, but I wasn't fast enough: he was behind me before I could slam the door shut.

"Colin, get out."

He stepped even closer. "No, I'm not getting out. We are going to talk about this first, because otherwise you're going to pretend that everything is fine tomorrow, which it clearly isn't."

I turned to the sink and held myself up, tears of anger and hurt burning in my eyes. "This isn't just about the two of us! We're dragging a lot of people down with us and you know it."

"This?!" He gestured in the empty space between us. "This is just something between you and I!"

"No, it's NOT!" I turned around to face him, and I was screaming as I continued, "Do you think this could ever work? What are you going to do, get a divorce? Get a place with me, have ten babies and seven dogs and live happily ever after?! Open your eyes, Colin. That's not going to happen."

"Why can't we take this one step at a time?"

"BECAUSE WE CAN'T! You're living in a fantasy world where there are no people who will judge us, no people who will get hurt. Helen. Evan. What are you going to tell him? That you left his mother for me? Is that the plan?"

"Will you just stop thinking ten steps ahead already and talk about what this is NOW?"

"THIS IS NOTHING AND IT WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING MORE THAN NOTHING!! Can't you see that?! We'll never be able to go out like a normal couple, we'll never be able to NOT feel guilty about it, because half the world will be following our every move. How am I going to explain this to my friends and family? And telling my parents... God, I don't even want to think about their reaction..."

We both fell silent for a moment, but I was pretty sure I could cut the tension with a knife. He started pacing through the bathroom and I turned on the tap of the sink when we heard her voice on the other side of the door.

"Jen? Are you in there? Is everything alright?"

Lana.

I looked up at Colin, who had turned pale and stood completely still.

"Yes, I'm alright," I said as I headed over to the walk-in shower. I knew he was looking at me when I turned on the tap. "I'm— I'm just going to take a quick shower. I was freezing."

"Okay," she called back after a moment. We heard her footsteps retrieving and I wanted to catch my breath, but seconds later they were back near the door.

"Jen?"

"Yes?" I said, trying my best to sound like I was actually in the shower.

"Can I just come in and grab something real quick?"

Oh, shizzle.