Page 52 of Artfully Wild
“You’ll see.” He flashes a sideways grin over his shoulder and I swear his perfect teeth glint in the moonlight. My stomach swoops and I can feel myself falling into him.
One thing about Jacob is he has very few flaws. He has perfect grades and rarely slips below a 4.0, he is popular at school, and has a talent for hockey that really shouldn’t be real. It’s criminal we don’t have a rookie league around for him to play in.
He has a smile he doesn’t have to hide behind and a personality that draws people to him. Like when the staff sings happy birthday to someone at a restaurant, all conversation gets pushed to the side and their attention is automatically drawn to the person trying to shrink down to nothing in their chair wishing to disappear under the table. Except Jacob is the opposite. He basks in it. He is good at being the center of attention, which is also why he is completely wrong for me. Where he is loud and outgoing, I am quiet and reserved. I keep to myself and the only friend I really have is him and I don’t really know why. He insists it’s because I make him laugh and we have fun together, but there’s always that voice telling me otherwise. That he talks to me out of pity, the weird girl who would rather go on hikes or spend time with family than go out to parties or be with “my peers.”
If Jacob is the sun, bringing light and sunshine and barf-inducing happiness to a room, then I am the dark cloud that looms overhead,daunting and menacing until the clouds open and downpour on the world below. But I don’t. I stay firmly closed. Always.
Except with Jacob, which is the only reason I am risking frostbite to follow him wherever it is he is going, my breath now coming out in quick, short puffs.
“Why are we running?” I manage in between breaths.
“Almost there,” he calls back.
A few minutes later, we come to an open field with a lake neighboring it that by the looks of it is completely frozen over.
My eyes go to his and to the pair of ice skates he is now holding out to me.
I put my hands in front of me. “Oh no way, uh-uh. Nope.”
“Skyyyy,” he draws out. “Don’t make me beg. I’m not above begging.”
“Jacob, not only is this insanely stupid,” I grab the skates from him and slip off my shoes. “But if we fall in, we’re dead.”
He flashes another smile in my direction. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there to save you.”
I feel his eyes on me and there’s tension in the air that wasn’t there a moment before. Something about his tone when he said those words has me frozen in place. And it has nothing to do with how cold it is.
I meet his gaze and the joking glint that was there before is gone now. It’s replaced with an intensity I’ve only ever seen from him a few times, once being when he told me that his dad was gone traveling again. Jacob isn’t a serious person, but you know when he is and something tells me now he is more serious than ever.
I clear my throat and stand, wiping my hands on my sweats.
“What are we doing sitting here?” My voice shakes and I reach out my hand to his, begging for it to stay still and not follow my voice. “Let’s skate.”
So we do, leaving the words he said before in the grass we sat in. They burrow in the dirt and stay there, hibernating until I am ready to face them, which is probably never.
We skate well past the time where our fingers and toes are numb.Our faces are flushed with cold or embarrassment or a mix of both. By the time we call it quits, the sun is starting to rise and we decide it’s time to head home. We walk in silence, his hand now on my lower back and I am very aware of the warmth his hand is leaving there.
I climb the tree just under my window, Jacob following me to make sure I make it safely through.
Once I’m secure in my room, I turn to thank him only to find him closer to the sill than I expected, practically ready to crawl into my room. Part of me wishes he would. I wonder what would happen if I let him. I take a small step back, putting a few inches of distance between us.
“Thanks for the skating.”
“Anytime,” he says, the cold flush deepening on his cheeks and creeping down his neck.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“You mean today?”
“Today.”
“I’ll see you today, Skylar.”
There’s not many people that call me by my full name, but the way it sounds on his lips does things to me that I don’t want to admit.
Before I can say anything, he leans in closer, the faint smell of his familiar cologne invading the air in front of me, and plants a quick kiss on my cheek.
His lips barely touch my skin and I remember questioning later if it ever happened at all or if it was just a really vivid dream.
