I Hate Love Stories Because I'm Never in One.

"You? Jealous?" I gasped. That was so...normal. It was so...imperfect. Kieran had flaws after all, like anybody else. He’d shown me that he could be immature with that stupid vampire joke as well as envious...but it didn’t make me love him any less.

"Yes, I was insanely jealous." he informed me with a small smile.

"Why?"

"Because love is a strong thing, Teri." he said seriously.

What? Did I actually hear that right?

"Um, pardon?" I asked, leaning forward a little to see if it could help.

"Love is a strong thing?" he repeated, as if it were a question so he could check that it was what I wanted to hear.

Love. There it was again. It seemed as if it had been cropping up in my life more times lately than I'd had hot meals. But for Kieran to bring up the subject? It was something that was so personal and Kieran wasn't exactly open. I mean, love!

I was never interested in love but maybe that was because Love was never interested in me. Me and Love, we never seemed to agree with anything. It was as if I liked chocolate ice cream whilst Love enjoyed strawberry. Not quite on the same page. We were two things of the opposite nature...possibly world threatening if we could ever somehow manage to see eye to eye.

That was probably the reason why I was so astonished when he placed his hands flat against the sides of my face, his eyes intent and burning with determination. I could see his mouth moving though I had no clue to what he was talking about...I was in my own little world where streets were named after catastrophic happenings and cars ran purely on shock. All because he was touching my face!

Seemingly stubborn on pulling me from my reverie, he then uttered the three most unexpected words that anybody could ever say to me. The words alone left me speechless and vulnerable; I couldn’t quite seem to grasp the concept of it.

‘I love you.’

In exactly those three words, in those three syllables that he whispered to me so surely, he had managed to render me completely and entirely defenceless.

He...he loved me back? But...he was so...so...

"Teri, did you hear me? I said I loved you." he said again, his face moving closer to my own as I tried to make sense of what was happening.

"You...love me too?" I finally managed to spit out.

"Yes, I love...hold on. Did you just say 'you love me too'? As in, you love me back?" he asked, astounded.

I felt my mouth fall open. Seriously, it could have probably hit the floor, I was that shocked. He thought that I wouldn't love him back?

"Of course you idiot! How could I not?" I gasped, shaking my head slightly. It was sort of hard though, he was still holding my face.

That didn't matter to me though, not when his own face split into a wide grin. For a moment, I thought I couldn't breathe.

Then he kissed me.

I was so caught off guard, I froze for a second as my brain tried to work out what exactly was going on. His lips moved against mine slowly as his fingers brushed back the hair from my face, so lightly that it felt like his hands were barely there. When I recovered from the shock of it all, I kissed him back roughly. It was hard to believe that I was actually kissing the boy I'd practically stalked.

When we finally pulled apart, I was pretty much gasping for air. Kieran seemed a bit breathless too, just not in a 'Oh-my-God-I-feel-like-I'm-drowning!' sort of way, like I was. Still, I felt his thumb grazing against my cheek softly.

"I love you." he told me again, just to make sure I knew.

I smiled weakly and leaned my forehead against his. "I love you too."

After that kiss, it felt like my mind had finally decided on who I loved more. After all, Kieran was the one who had ran after me...he really did care about me. I just felt awful thinking about Matt though...he didn't deserve to be rejected after all of this.

Which left me in a predicament, still. Love was so bloody confusing!