The Safety Pin Affair

t w e n t y-s i x - i'm not asking for much

"This weekend was so much fun... and that scares me. I don't know what to think of us now, you know? What's going to happen? We have to go home and everything will go back to normal, and what are we going to be?" I spilled my thoughts to him. My eyes connected with his at the end, and he looked to be in deep thought.

His eyes were narrowed a bit and his forehead wrinkled, his lips twitching. I stared back with a grimace and worry heavy in my eyes.

He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. I didn't want to go on with my incessant babbling, so I chewed on my bottom lip to keep from talking. My heartbeat raced with every second he didn't speak.

"That's what you've been thinking about?" He finally said something.

"Yes, Josh," I spat. "This isn't like me – you know that. I fuck a guy, and I move on. That's me."

He flinched a little at my outburst, like I actually hurt him. "But it's different with us," he murmured.

"Of course it is," I scoffed at the fact that he'd think anything else other than that.

"So then why do you have to overthink it? Why can't we just let things happen?" He knit his eyebrows at me.

"Because I don't do this," I snapped, spelling it out slowly for him.

My jaw tightened and I stopped myself from letting anything else come out. I shoved it into the back of my mind and forced it away. We stared at each other for a minute or two, silence filling the room, eyes cold and hard.

He tried to find something in my gaze, but I didn't know what he could be searching for. There was nothing there.

"What are you so scared of?" He whispered the sentence that I've heard so many times before. From my dad, from Blair, from everyone but Josh.

And now my fear was right in front of me. With glossy brown eyes and curly hair.

"Everything," I whispered back, but my voice broke.

No. You're not going to cry right now. Hold it in.

I clenched my teeth a little tighter when I felt my eyes well up with tears. One was threatening to fall down my cheek any second now. Part of me was so frustrated that I couldn't contain my emotions and was about to break in front of a boy. The other part just wanted to let go and give in.

I did what I could until it spilled over, and Josh's eyes went right to it.

He knelt up a little and put his hands on my cheeks, holding me carefully. His thumb stroked over where the tear was, and he shook his head.

"I'll show you it's not so scary," he spoke in a hushed tone. I felt comforted by it, honestly.

"I can't do a real relationship. It's too much, you know I can't," I mustered up an answer in a raspy voice. His skin on mine had my heart all over the place in my chest, not helping my current confused state. "I just want..."

And I couldn't finish the sentence because I didn't know where it was going. I don't know what I want, and I guess that's what scares me most.

Another tear fell. Josh traced it away.

"Just be with me," he said, and I barely heard him. My eyebrows furrowed a bit, and his eyes roamed around my face for a second. "I'm not asking for much. We don't have to be an exclusive thing; we don't have to be anything. I just want to be with you, period. We can figure it out. But what we have is sweet, and I don't want to give that up. And you shouldn't either."

I nodded because it felt like my throat closed up. More tears were on the way, and not because I'm scared. But because of what he said.

I didn't know how to react since no one has ever said anything like that to me before. But I do know that I loved it.