Page 8 of You Found Me in the Dark
The silence between us stretched; it was electric. And when he gently took my hand, stopping me from tugging at the frayed cuff of my hoodie, I felt it everywhere. Like a pulse of warmth that started in my chest and spread outward, tingling at the edges of my fingers.
My eyes finally met his, and my breath caught in my throat. The distant noises from the video game faded, replaced by the sound of the rapid beat of my pulse.
He didn’t say anything. Just looked at me, and something in his eyes made my stomach twist, like I was standing at the edge of a cliff.
For a second, I imagined him kissing me. The way his hand might slide to my jaw. The way time might fold in on itself if he did.
The thought struck so gently it hurt.
I refused to be the one to close this distance and kiss him. So, I waited for him to kiss me. I wasn’t breathing. Honestly, I don’t think either of us was.
“Hey, Reed!” Cam’s voice boomed from the living room, loud and clueless. “Grab me a water, man!”
Reed blinked, like the world had slammed back into place. He glanced toward the sound, then back at me. His lips curved into the smallest smile. It was soft and apologetic.
He backed away and grabbed a second bottle out of the fridge, leaving me standing alone in the kitchen like I’d just imagined the whole thing.
I spun back around and pressed my palms against the counter, trying to ground myself, but my thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning. They tripped over each other, loud and fast and messy.
What are we even doing?
What am I doing?
What is this feeling all of a sudden?
I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Not with him. Not now. This was crazy, right? Maybe not? Because he had seen me at my worst. And instead of turning away, he stayed. He chose to.
But what if that was all it was? Pity. A moment. A fluke in the middle of a breakdown. I hated that I wanted to ask. Hated that I wanted more.
I know we’re not kids anymore, and realistically, we hadn’t been for a long time. But I’ve known Reed since I was twelve. Fourteen years of shared history, memories, inside jokes, and unspoken rules. Even after my shitty ex-boyfriend practically ruined me and everything I believe in, Reed swooped in.
My previous boyfriend had broken up with me right before my twentieth birthday. When he came and sat next to me at the beach, on the day of my birthday, it grounded me immediately. It had meant everything to me that he came to check on me. But when he kissed me and reminded me how strong I was and that I would be okay, our dynamic changed. At least I thought it did, but we never mentioned the kiss. At this point, I doubt he remembers it happened. And yet… Here we are again, but now it feels like I’m seeing him for the very first time.Really seeing him. Not the boy I grew up with. Not my brother’s best friend. But someone entirely different. And something about that feels dangerous.
Harper is my best friend. Hislittlesister. She trusts me with everything, but I never got the courage to tell her about the kissthat happened all those years ago. I don’t know what she’d say if she knew that part of me is looking at him like he’s something I want. Like he was someone I could trust wholeheartedly, knowing he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that trust.
I think the worst part of all of this is how easy it feels. It was terrifyingly natural. Like it had always been there. Maybe before last night, I was just too loyal to our siblings or too scared to notice.
I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a long breath through my nose. No more unraveling. Not in the middle of my kitchen.
Not when my brother was just in the other room, unknowingly sipping water handed to him by the same guy whose lips had hovered over mine twenty seconds ago. The guy whose eyes dragged over my skin like a secret. Whose hands hadn’t even touched me, but still made me feel like I was already his.
Every time he looked at me like that, like he knew exactly how to ruin me, I felt my pulse stutter, my breath go shallow. I hadn’t even slept with him, and still, my body ached like it remembered how he felt on top of me. And God help me, I wanted him to come back into this kitchen, press me into the counter, and make me forget if we were supposed to be hiding anything at all.
I took the longest breath of my life and reached for a mug instead. I needed something to do with my hands, so I made tea in hopes it would calm me down. Tea and a good sketch. Yeah, this wasn’t going to work.
7
WREN
Iwalked back into the living room with my hot matcha in my favorite mug. It was a black mug with white writing that read“full of anxie-tea”.Lena bought it a few years back for me as a joke, but I love it. I clutched the mug like a lifeline, wrapping both hands around it, willing it to absorb the shaking in my fingers.
Cam barely looked up. He was deep into whatever game they were playing. There was something comforting about how oblivious he was.
Reed, though… He looked.
Just a flick of his eyes when I stepped in. No smile this time. Just holding his gaze for a second had me feeling like heat was rolling over my skin and settling low in my stomach. I tried not to breathe too deeply, not to let it show that his glance alone did that to me.
I dropped into the armchair across from the couch and curled my legs under me. I set my mug down, picked up my sketchbook, and opened it to a clean page. I couldn’t even pay attention towhat my fingers were doing. My whole body was tuned to him. I grabbed a pencil and began sketching a field of my favorite flowers, cosmos. I cannot remember the last time I picked up a graphite pencil to sketch, but this felt effortless.
