Stay.

6.

        *edited*

            The two of them sat on the kitchen floor eating their cookies and drinking milk. She smiled as the chocolate bits melted on her tongue and he looked on, calculating each of her movements. A blushed crept onto the apples of her cheeks when she caught him staring.

            “You’re so special.” His face went an awful shade of red as he realized what he had just let slip. He had not been thinking again, which seemed to happen quite a bit when he was around her.

            She shook her head “No. I’m rather ordinary.”

            “I don’t think so. I think you’re special.” He gave her a loving smile, “I just, I wanted you to know that.”  

            He knew it wasn’t going to be easy letting her go but he knew that if he tried hard enough he could. Something he wouldn’t be able to do was forget her; he could never forget someone like her. No one could, even if they tried.

            He was afraid that she would be the one to forget. He was so terrified of her letting the memory of what they did and stories they shared just vanish from her mind like they never happened.

            He stared at her while she smiled down at her cup of coffee. She was too afraid to look up at him. She knew that if she did, her cheeks would heat up again and she didn’t want to take that chance.

            She was going to miss him, she knew that and it was slowly starting to hurt her. She wished she didn’t have to leave but she did. He was too good for someone like her.

Her heart lurched once she looked at the clock; they had only two more hours left between them and that made her want to cry. This was a dream; everything that’s happened in the last few hours had been nothing but a fairytale. He was like a prince and she just wasn’t cut out to be a princess. That’s why she had to go, she didn’t have a choice.

            The next two hours were filled with laughter and kisses and cuddles and old record crackles. And for a short while they seemed to forget about the goodbye that laid waiting before them.

            He told her all about the little adventures him and his brother used to go one when they were younger and how Thanksgiving had always been his favorite holiday because his grandma always made the best turkey. She listened to him go on with this light in his eyes and she just fell into him more and more.

            She wanted to be with him and love him like she knew she could but he deserved so much better than her. He deserved someone who knew what they wanted out of life and woke up every day ready to take on the world. He needed someone who could speak the simplest words but make them sound like music, not someone who stumbled over them. She wanted him to meet someone who had dreams that were out of this world and her only dream was to wake happy every morning and that didn’t seem good enough.

            She looked at him with such admiration. She hoped someday he met someone who loved every little bit of him and more. Someone who could make the sun shine on the cloudiest of days and write a novel on the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. She wanted to be that person for him so badly but she was inadequate.

            Though she had worked out all of these reasons in her head, leaving his embrace was the hardest thing she had ever done. 

            “It’s time for me to go.” She couldn’t even look him in the eye and God, she wished he begged her to stay.

            “Oh, it is. Isn’t it?” But he didn’t and God, did he wish he had. See, he wanted to list every single reason he had for her to stay but he couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth.

            He was a coward and she deserved so much more than him. Asking her to stay would be selfish of him.

            He disappeared into his bedroom to grab her dress and shoes. When he came back she stripped in front of him not feeling embarrassed in the slightest. He seemed to have had that effect on her, like there was never anything to be shy about. Besides, by telling him about her troubles at home she had basically stripped herself naked emotionally. She went to hand him back his t-shirt but he told her to keep it with a lop-sided smile. She didn’t argue, secretly glad she was able to take a small piece of him with her. So she slipped off the small leather bracelet on her wrist and held it out to him.

            “I can’t take that from you.”

            “Yes you can.” She pushed it into his direction.

            “No, I can’t. Your dad gave it to you. You can’t just give it to a random stranger.”

            “You aren’t a stranger. Well, you are in the sense where you’re still nameless to me, but you aren’t. Too much has happened for you to be a stranger. So take it, please.” It had only occurred to her then that she never learned this man’s name. She thought of how crazy that was but it seemed they were so caught up in everything that they skipped all formalities. They had already fallen into each other so far that names didn’t seem important.

            He took the bracelet from her small hand, loosened it a little and then slipped it onto his wrist. He knew there was no way he would ever be taking it off. That’s when he realized that this was really it; this was the only moment they had before they went their separate ways. He didn’t even have to think twice before pulling her into a kiss, his hands gripping her hips as though they were the life raft keeping him afloat. In a way, they kind of were. She made him feel so safe and so sure of himself. He knew he wouldn’t be the same once she was gone.

            Her fingers went straight to his mess of blond hair, her fingers twisting and pulling. It was by far the most passionate one they had shared, but it was a goodbye, and goodbyes were meant to be that way.

            They broke the kiss and before she could take back every reason she had for leaving him she slipped out the door. She made it half way down the long corridor before she heard him yell for her to wait.

            “Luke.” He sighed.

            “What?”

            “My name is Luke.” He told her with a shy smile.

            “Luke.” She breathed. “That’s perfect.” She turned around and started on her way once again.

            “Hey! Wait!”

            “Yeah?” She turned to see him only a few feet away from her.

            “I still don’t know your name.”

            “That’s okay.” And with that, she was gone.