Accidentally on Purpose

Chapter Fifty-Five

For a moment, Jonah looked taken aback. I waited as he opened his mouth and closed it several time, anxious about how his reaction would be.

And then, still in a state of confusion, he said, "So what you're saying is that..." he paused to lift his eyes up from the shirt to look at me, "this whole thing has... this whole thing between us has been a lie?"

Now it was my turn to be confused. "What?"

"Is this like some kind of a game to you?" he asked, but he didn't sound accusing. He was simply wondering, trying to understand the whole situation. He looked down at the shirt again while I was trying to find my voice, and only then when he looked back up, I found hurt shining in his eyes. "Have you been playing with me?"

"What? No! No, it's not like that at all," I said in a rush and took a step closer to him, but he stepped backward. Shit.

"Then explain to me because I don't get it." The shirt had turned into a crumpled mess in his hand. He shook his head at me. His brain was probably already filled with a bunch of assumptions, and the sinking feeling in my gut told me that those assumptions were probably not good assumptions. "Do you even like me at all? What, was I just an experiment to you?"

"Experiment? Jonah, it's nothing like that at all—"

"Explain to me," he repeated, "please."

"I will if you stop interrupting me!" I whisper-yelled, frustrated at how he wouldn't let me speak and worried that my family would be listening inside the house. "I liked you. You know I've liked you for so long. I've liked you since the first day of school, just after I made a full recovery on my injuries." Jonah closed his eyes for a second as if he didn't want to hear me talk about the accident. "I still do. You were always so—so closed off, so quiet. And I just wondered why. I wanted to talk to you, get to know you."

"So you wanted to see what you could do to break the walls of that quiet boy who sits in the corner," he accused, and I took a sharp intake of breath. He hit the nail right on the head.

"It doesn't—" I sighed. "You make it sound like a bad thing," I tried weakly.

"Isn't it?" he asked. "That was what you were trying to do, wasn't it? Ridicule me, make me the joke of the year—"

"No!" I looked at him right in the eye, probably with a look that told him that he was being stupid. "I liked you! Why would I do that to make fun of you?"

"Well, I don't know, Hannah! It doesn't make any sense to me."

I took a deep breath to calm myself, but the cold air outside still got me shivering. I looked at Jonah and saw that he was shivering too, even worse than I was, so I said, "Why don't you please come inside? You're freezing."

He shook his head. "Just talk to me."

I rubbed my temples. "Okay. Okay. I'll make it short. It wasn't at all like that, Jonah. I've liked you for so long and I never knew what to do since you weren't the easiest person to approach. But I couldn't—I couldn't stop liking you even though we never talked to each other and I didn't even understand why."

He listened patiently, teeth chattering and shoulders shuddering. I quickly continued.

"I tried,—to stop liking you, to get over the crush. But I couldn't. Before I knew it, it was senior year and I still liked you as much as I did when I first saw you, and I was tired of not doing anything about it so I—" I cut myself off and shook my head. It sounded ridiculous to say out loud. I continued quietly, "It's stupid, but maybe I was desperate. I—I don't know, Jonah. I was just—trying to talk to you. Get your attention. It doesn't—it's not something malicious."