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"Now? What is it?" Autumn presses.
“You were having a good time, you should go back inside."
"You're right. Iwashaving a good time, until I realized you had disappeared."
"Don't let me ruin anything. I'll see you at the office."
She shakes her head adamantly.
"No, you don’t get to just leave again. I’m still pissed off that I haven’t heard from you all week, you’re not doing that to meagain." She grabs my arm. "Make it up to me. Let’s go back inside."
I plant my feet firmly. "Autumn."
"Unless there's another reason you're so desperate to leave." She must see something switch on my face because she starts to nod. “Talk to me, Miles. Come on," she pleads.
"I probably shouldn't," I whisper, silently begging her to understand why and let it drop.
She briefly pauses, inspecting me thoughtfully.
"You cansayanything.”
I hesitate for a while. She stands there and waits. I can’t say anything, but I can start somewhere.
"I know it's not fair…” I start. “I'm just having a hard time with our dynamic in there. You seem really close with that guy all night, and then you tell me not to touch you. It's too much right now."
I'm worried it's always going to be too much, but I don't say that.
"I'm sorry. That wasn’t okay." She looks down, but not before I notice the blush on her chest and neck. "I’m not interested in him. You know what the problem really is, right? I don't have to explain it?"
I look at her with as much astonishment as I can express. How could she think that I knowanythingwhen it comes to her? I've never been this clueless in my life.
"No,” I say with a shake of my head. “I don't. All I know right now is that I thought we had a moment, and then you shut down. You shutmedown when I tried to help you."
Before I realize what she's doing, her arms are around me and I’m melting into her. I rest my cheek against the top of her head, and I feel sane for the first time tonight. No one in the world could deny how perfectly we fit together.
"I like this too much," she confesses. Her voice is muffled into my shoulder, and she tilts her head slightly so that the next words come out clearer. "I'm not allowed to, but I do. When you grabbed me in the kitchen I felt like I had two options. The one I didn't choose was to throw myself at you and make a fool of myself."
I scoff. "You wouldn't have made a fool of yourself. You think you're not allowed to hug me? Friends hug."
She squeezes me tighter for a split second.
"That isn't what I meant," she whispers.
There it is. An admission that should make me feel on top of the world, but somehow it makes me feel worse. It changes everything and nothing.
This woman is going to be the death of me.
I don't respond, knowing that this is what she didn't want to do. She didn't want me to feel like this, but we're so far past that point now. I’ve felt this trapped since before she even told me why she wrote the book.
I can’t get over how much space I must have been occupying in her head back then, and I had no idea. Things would be so much different if I had, there’s no chance we’d be here. Whether they’d be better or worse, I don’t know, but a small part of me is glad for the way things are. In a weird way, it feels like pining over her is the right thing to do.
I’d rather have it than nothing.
We hold onto each other for longer than friends would. I don't let myself care, I enjoy the moment. I hug her like I have no idea when I'll get to hug her next, because I don't.
“You wouldn’t have made a fool of yourself,” I say again with ten times as much meaning.
I feel her muscles tense, but neither of us pull away.
