Page 78 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“I do but I just thought you liked me the same way you liked Connie.”
He frowned. “I do like you like that but I also like you the way Theo likes Mia.”
“You want me to be your girlfriend?” I smiled.
“We’re a bit young for that, aren’t we?” He shrugged. “We can still kiss, though, can’t we?”
I shook my head. “Nu-uh. Freddy told me you should never kiss a guy who just wants to be friends.”
He groaned. “But we’re not only friends—I mean, we are friends—I just like you in other ways, as well.”
“Oh,” I frowned. “She didn’t say anything about that so I guess we could?”
Arthur and I haven’t stopped kissing since.
Even all these years later when I have a boyfriend, we’re kissing because there’s something just so magical about it. Maybe it’s because I spent my entire childhood with my lips locked on his so it reminds me of those times. When it was all just special and magical and wonderful and grown up—and ours.
“Shit,” Arthur pulls back with a smile, racks a hand through his hair. “We shouldn’t have done that, really.”
I roll my eyes. “Get over yourself. It’s not the end of the world.”
Raises his eyebrows, blinks a couple times, looks at me with an uncomfortable face. “Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
He swallows, looks away from me. “Why did you and Bliss fall out?”
I pull back. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“No, nothing. It just came to me and I haven’t asked you about it.”
I stare at him. “You were thinking of Bliss while we were kissing? Do you know what? I might go back home and tell Digby all about your lips.”
He laughs. “No, obviously not. But when I came back, the boys told me not to bring it up but I feel like I should?”
“It was so long ago, Arthur. I can’t even remember.”
It’s a lie so obvious that even he picks up on it.
“It must’ve been bad. You two were like sisters.”
I throw my hands up. “We were on holiday—the first year you were away—and we just had too much to drink. She was drunk, so was I and we said stuff.”
He raises one eyebrow. “You haven’t spoken to her in two years because of a drunken brawl?”
“It was not a brawl,” I scoff, offended. “I’d never ‘brawl’.”
He takes a few steps toward me, reaches for my hand but I pull back.
“What did she say, then?”
I shake my head, turn away from him. “Nothing.”
He says nothing but he’s still standing there, imposing, prying, opening me up, taking my clothes off and I need him not to.
I loved him before the drugs, during the drugs and after the drugs but I’m just not sure if I loved myself throughout those years of loving him and the deeper he crawls inside of me, the comfier he’ll get. When he inevitably walks back out, it’s going to hurt so much more than if he was just sitting on the edge of me.
I don’t say bye, I don’t feed him a lie, I just leave. I walk off and back into the hall full of the people I don’t want to be around right now.
