Chapter 8 - Good VS Great

I stood there, staring at Christian after he had slammed the front door in Trish’s face.  My mind was reeling from their heated argument, Trish’s interruption and whatever that was in the kitchen prior to all of this happening.

“Are you okay?”  I heard Chris say which felt like he was millions of miles away.  I nodded, still unable to speak.  His hands on both my arms were what snapped me out of my daze.  “I’m so sorry about that.”  He tells me as he pulls me in for a hug.  My arms instinctively reach around him as my face finds a comfy spot between his neck and shoulder, where my nose nuzzled the side of his neck.  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in.  My stomach began to churn nervously, my heart rate picked up and a hot flash of sorts began to roll in.  I released my grip around his torso and gently pushed myself off of him.

“I’m fine.”  I say as I take a few steps back and turn toward the kitchen, I headed out the back door.

“Mia?”  He called out to me.  I didn’t answer him.  I sat on the steps, trying to collect myself.  After a few minutes of deep breathing, I managed to cool my jets and got up to head back inside.  I had found him where I had left him.  The only difference was that he was now pacing.

“Would you stop that?  You’re going to wear a hole through my floor!”  I find myself saying.  Christian stopped on the spot and faced me.  “I’m sorry I just flaked on you like that.”

“Flaked?  Fine, if that’s what you want to call it.”  He tells me.

“What else would I call it?”  I asked him defensively as I stared at him waiting for my answer.

“How about doubt?”  He said and took a few steps towards me.  My feet, stuck to the floor below me as my body threatened to commit treason.  “Maybe curiosity.”  And he approached me skillfully like a tiger would its prey.  “Or maybe it’s just plain fear?”  And we were now back where everything was before his cell had gone off moments ago in my kitchen; only, with no chance of Trish busting in on us this time.  “How about you finish what you were going to say earlier.”  He tells me softly as I feel his fingers gently rubbing the bare skin of my arm in a soothing fashion.  No matter the thoughts that scrambled through my head, every possible out I could come up with always ended with one thing…  His lips pressed to mine.  Why would my body betray me like so?  “Mia?”  He whispered.  “Open your eyes.”  I hadn’t realized I had closed them.  As I opened, Christian now looked different to me somehow.  “I think I already know your answer.”  He tells me and then with his free hand, he grabs my chin, bringing his lips gently to mine for a few seconds before pulling away, to examine my reaction.

My reaction had been nothing more than ordinary really.  Yeah, like you’d believe that!  I slapped the silly out of the guy.

“Why did you do that?”  I yelled at him with tears welling up in my eyes.  “Are you looking for a reason to lose me completely?”

“What’s the problem?”  Christian asked, his tone getting louder.  “Is it the fact that I kissed you or the fact that you felt something when I did?  Which is it Mia?”

“I…”  I froze.  “Is there a difference?”  Seriously?  You know there is!  I found my head telling me.

“You’re seriously going to play dumb with me right now?”  He asked me.  I stood there, no answer to give.  “Let me answer my own question.”  He says, and taking the necessary steps, he wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me into his body and taking his other hand; he grabs the back of my neck and firmly pressed his lips to mine.  My senses under attack, he was firing what felt like remorse, passion, guilt, pent up sexual urgency, but most of all attraction and love.  I couldn’t deny that he thought of me as someone more than just a friend.  As I started to give and return his kiss, he pulled away and released me.  Turning toward my front door, he undoes the deadbolt, turns the knob and pauses.  “I’ve made my point.  It’s up to you.  I know you felt something just now.  It’s up to you to admit it to yourself.”  He swings the door open and pauses again.  “For the record, I think we’d be good together, but that’s just me; nothing but a rich spoiled boy who doesn’t know any better.”  And he walks out, closing the door loudly behind him.

I couldn’t believe the gall of him.  I was so mad at him for kissing me.  After a few minutes, I realized I was mad at myself more than anything.  I could have stopped it if I really wanted to and I knew that but what had me upset was the fact that I hadn’t wanted it to end.  Christian had been right.  I couldn’t deny that there was an attraction there.  I knew that yesterday when he brushed my hair away from my face as much as the tender moments we’ve shared in between.  My body wasn’t betraying me; it simply knew what my heart wanted without me intellectually realizing it.  I found myself debating going after him, letting him cool off, ignoring him altogether, and hoping that it was a temporary lack of judgment and weakness on both our parts.  Regardless, I owed him an answer.  I walked up to the front door and opened it, determined to face this head on.  I knew I had to find a way to find him.  My only option lay in speaking with his parents seeing as we hadn’t even shared our phone numbers since reuniting.  To my surprise, I didn’t have to look very hard or very far for that matter.  Christian was sitting on my front steps.

“It took you long enough.”  He mumbled.  He sounded hurt and I couldn’t help but feel guilty about it.  I sat down beside him, eyes forward as his hand found its way to mine.  My eyes followed our hands.

“I’m sorry.”  I finally say.  “I simply can’t right now.”  And I knew that I was breaking his heart.  “I’m not saying, never.  Just not right now.  There’s too much going on.”

“Yeah.”  He mumbled lightly.

“Look at me.”  I urged him and he did.  I was right.  I had really hurt him.  “I need you to give me a bit of time, Chris.  I feel it, you’re right about that.”

“But?”  He added, sounding dejected.

“But, what if I don’t want good?”  I looked at him and his eyes were clear again.  “What if I want great?  Why can’t we leave things the way they are for now and really get to know each other again?”

I went to bed shortly after dinner, drained of all energy from the day’s roller coaster of events.  I lay there, my bedroom window open with my curtains flowing in the night breeze.  It was barely nine o’clock.  Sure, my heart wanted Christian but I knew I couldn’t give myself completely to him as of yet.  I might have forgiven him, but I still had a few things to get past regardless and as much as he might not have been ready to admit it, he had his own ordeals to deal with; mainly, that of Trish.  My past with Adam was what it was, the past.  As soon as Christian came back into my life, my haunting memories about Adam and his deceit had begun to fade further away.  My mind wandered on the kisses we had shared.  The first one had been sweet, the second, filled with fire.  My body began heating up and tingling at the mere memory of its feel.  As my mind began to slow down, sleep was finally arriving to claim me as its victim; and I obliged.

As with every other time, I was confronted by the icy presence that kept me glued to the floor I stood on; with the ever so old answer to my question that ‘it’ wanted me.  Like usual, I begin to run down the hall, past the doors and towards my grandmother and parents.  Only, this time, it’s only my grandmother.  As I reach out my hand to her, I can almost feel the faint contact of our fingertips, almost.

“Trust him.”  She tells me.

“Trust who Granny?”  I ask and she fades, only to be replaced by a mirror image of myself.

I woke up in the middle of the night, or what felt like it only to look at my alarm clock and the time read ten fifteen.  I took a deep breath and stared up at my ceiling before getting up and taking a seat on the bench by my open window.  I leaned my head on the window frame, taking a deep breath of the salty ocean breeze and smiling to myself.  I heard rustling down below and thought it was some critter that snuck into the yard from the woods out back.  That was until that critter started talking, scaring the living daylights out of me.

“Chris?”  I asked out loud.

“Yeah.”  He answers.  “Did I wake you?”

“No.  I can’t sleep.”  I confess.  “Nightmares.  Why don’t you come to the front door.”  I got up, threw my silk bath robe on and hurried downstairs.

“Hey.”   He said softly, almost at a whisper.  “I was just in the neighborhood and figured I’d stop by.”  And that warranted a laugh from me seeing as his car was in my driveway instead that of his parents, next door.

“Sure.”  I rebutted.  “Come in.”

“So, I was thinking.”  He began.

“Oh dear!”  I said exaggeratedly.  “Nothing could come of you thinking.”  I teased.

“Be nice now.”  He smirked.  “I could really use a sleepover like we used to have.”  And I took his hint and pulled him to my room.  He ran to my walk-in closet and pulled the blankets and extra pillow that he needed.  Oddly enough, they had never budged.  I guess Granny had always thought that a friend would somehow show up to sleep over.  Either that or she was scared that I’d be cold one night.  As he began making his bed on the floor beside my bed, I grabbed his arm to stop him.

“You can sleep on the bed, Chris.”  I tell him.

“But where are you going to sleep?”  He asked and I had to laugh at his obliviousness.

“In the bed too.  We’re two adults and it’s a queen sized bed.  I’m sure we can control ourselves; or can’t you?”  I chuckle.

“Oh.”  He says, sounding like he was still trying to figure it out.  I shook my head at him as I went to my side of the bed and took my bath robe off, quickly sneaking under my sheets, wrapping them so my arms and shoulders were above the blankets and that the rest of me was covered.  I averted my eyes as he stripped down and got on the bed beside me, above my sheets.

“Okay, I’m good.”  He tells me after he noticed me trying to keep my eyes away from him out of respect.  I found myself lying on my side, same as him; we were facing each other.  “So you mind telling me what these nightmares are all about?  Maybe we can chase them away together.”  He made me smile.  It was something he used to say when we were little.  He’d always wanted to be the hero.

“How do you do that?”  I asked him.

“Do what?”  He wondered aloud.

“You make me smile, even under the grimmest of circumstances.  You take the smallest of my fears and smash them to nothingness.”  I tell him.

“I’d like to think it’s because I know you.”  He paused as he yawned into his elbow that was folded below his head.  “And I don’t always make you smile.”  I knew he was referring to our past and even today, he had managed to make me cry.  I found myself reaching out for his free hand.

“Still.”  I say.  “No one’s been able to do what you do.”

“Score one for Chris!”  He blurted out humorously.  I had to giggle.  “Goodnight Mia.”

“Goodnight, dork.”  And my eyes closed as I fell in a deep sleep; one that wasn’t disrupted by any nightmare nor a lawn mower, the following morning.