Nine
"Amber- Oh my gosh, get in here."
My mother had spotted me walking in my rain soaked clothes and she rushed to the porch with a fluffy yellow towel in her hands.
Walking up the steps, she draped the towel up and over my shoulders and I pulled it tightly around myself. The warmth was comforting and I used the cloth to wipe the smudged mascara out from underneath my eyes.
"Honey, what happened?"
I looked up at her; her pale green eyes wrinkled around the edges by age, her smile compassionate.
"Boys mom. Boys happened."
I wore flats to the bookstore the next day.
Part of me missed the satisfying click of the shoe on the wooden floor; watching the eyes turn as they heard the thundering anthem of pure authority echoing throughout the aisles of novels. But the other half was happy to have both feet attached firmly to the ground.
"Amber?"
Appollo- Dylan, poked his head around the corner.
I haden't realized how tall he actually was until I stood on my flat feet. He towered above me; his goofy smile oddly comforting among the rows of books. My hand paused on the row of books I was skimming my finger across and I looked over at him.
"Oh, hey."
"Is Captain Douche-Bag here?"
My eyes slipped away from the books I was staring at and fell to the floor. The subject of Steven still sent a sickly feeling into my stomach; I haden't even texted him since that day in the rain.
In actuality, I was blaming myself. I was being immature; sex was just a part of life. I was acting foolish; and he was going to leave me because I had said no that day. I was going to go back to being entirely alone in the romantic department.
Dylan accepted the silence as an answer and changed the subject instead. Almost nervously, he put his right hand into his hair and pushed it back quickly.
"So uh... Tomorrow night there's going to be a party down here at the bookstore."
He coughed, laughed, and blushed all at the same time. I raised my eyebrows.
"The author of the series you've been reading is actually going to be here- She's celebrating the release of the next book. Even though we know-"
"Nothing is ever going to be as good as the first." I finished the sentence for him, laughing and watching the redness fade from his cheeks.
"AMBER!"
Dylan and I both looked over at the entrance of the bookstore and spotted Steven standing there. His hair looked windblown like he'd been running, and the flowers clutched in his finger's looked like they'd been pulled out of a bucket and then left to wilt in the sun.
He walked over, glancing at the ground and then up at me.
"I am so sorry for what happened a few days ago. You are the most beautiful girl I have ever met, and I have no idea how I could have ever been so stupid. Can you ever forgive me?"
Steven paused and looked over at Dylan, who still stood behind me.
"I love you. I can wait if it means waiting with you."
My hands found their way around his neck and I realized I was kissing him. I didn't know why, I didn't understand. Even now, I don't understand why I had felt the need to crawl back to someone who had hurt me this way. Maybe I felt like he meant it, like it was real because he said it was.
And in that moment, all that I thought I needed was Steven to hold me and tell me he loved me; that he needed me. He still wanted me after I had said no; that had to mean something. This was real...
"I'm sorry Dylan, but I think I'll have to take a rain check on tomorrow." I didn't look back at Dylan, my eyes only centered on Steven and the way the light glimmered in the ocean's of his eyes.
"Yeah- Yeah, no big deal. I'll see you around."
Steven wrapped his arm up and around my waist, holding me close to him and leaning in to kiss my lips again.
"Now, Amber where are those heels? You know how much I like them..."
We started walking out the door and I stopped the check my hair in the glass of the window near the front of the building.
Steven swung the door open for me and moved his hand just a bit further down my waist and onto my hips.
This time, I didn't object.
