She Gets What She Wants, and She Breaks What She Gets
Your Lips Are A Hot Flame, Baby, And Our Chemistry Is Kerosene
It was the summer of '04, and I had zero plans for it. I was gonna hang out with my friends, eat a lot, sleep, and maybe shower a couple of times. I had no intention on meeting a girl, or falling in love, but hey, what happens, happens.
Her name was Scarlett, and god, she was beautiful.
I was walking home from Jack's house, which probably wasn't the smartest idea, but I didn't have a ride or anything so I would have to. It was really hot out, despite the fact that it was 7:00 pm, it was still summer, and I still had a strong urge to take my shirt off.
And if Alexander William friggen' Gaskarth wants to take his shirt off, he will .
So I was walking around with my shirt tucked into my pocket, which again, wasn't a really smart idea, but at least I thought I looked really sexy.
I was walking by the harbor, and I noticed a girl sitting out on one of the docks. Her blond hair was up in a messy ponytail, one of the straps on her bright yellow tank top was sliding down her shoulder. Her shorts were soaked, and her chin was resting in her hands, propped up on her bare knees. I squinted to get a better look, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand, and I didn't even notice my shirt falling, and getting carried away by the wind.
The girl turned her head so all I saw is the back of the ponytail, and I turned to walk away, and shoved my hands in my pockets... that's when I realized my shirt was blowing away.
I looked around, trying to locate where the flying shirt had taken off to, but I didn't see it.
"God Damn it!"
The girl looked over at me with a confused expression, and I saw my shirt fly by her, and fall off the dock, and into the water.
"AH!" I ran over. "NOOO! That's my favorite shirt!"
The girl just sat there, and watched as my shirt slowly sink into the ocean's abyss. It was deeply horrifying and depressing. On many levels.
"GO GET IT!" I yelled, too caught up in my despair to realize I was potentially screaming at a very pretty girl. "THAT'S MY SHIRT GOD DAMNIT!"
"Excuse me!?" She looked deeply confused, and sort of angry, which kind of made me regret my thoughtless screaming.
"You're closer to it! That's my favorite shirt!"
"You go get it!" She snapped.
'No! You do it!"
"I don't even KNOW YOU!"
"I don't have time to argue! My shirt is sinking into the abyss!" Why I was using the word "abyss" so much that day, I will never know.
She just rolled her eyes, and I ran over beside her and stared into the water. My shirt was nowhere to be seen.
I sighed, and sunk down, and draped my arms over my knees. She looked over at me, and stifled a laugh.
"You alright?"
I sighed. "I really liked that shirt."
"Why? It's just a shirt."
"Don't doubt the sentimental value of my shirt!"
"Fine, fine."
We sat in silence for a little while.
"My name is Scarlett." She held her hand out, and I took it.
"I'm Alex."
She smiled. "Nice to meet you..."
I smiled back. I noticed then, she had the prettiest blue eyes... "Nice to meet you too... I'm sorry about that... whole shirt thing."
"Ha ha, it's okay. I know how it feels to lose something you like a lot."
I looked down at my feet, which I dipped into the water. "Yeah, well to be honest I don't really care about the shirt that much."
She laughed. "You just like causing a scene?"
"Pretty much."
"So how old are you? I've never seen you around."
"Fifteen. I'm here for the summer with my dad. My parents split up, and I usually live with my Mom..." She shrugged.
"Oh... cool."
"Yeah... What about you?"
"I live here... I have since I was like, little... I'm here all year." I shrugged. She nodded.
I really wanted to keep the conversation going, not just because I didn't want to go home, but because... she was really, really pretty. Which sounds decently shallow, but I was a teenage boy. It's natural. "So what are your plans this summer?"
"My Dad owns a restaurant here...So I'm waitressing there part time.. other than that, nothing..."
"Oh, what restaurant?" I was totally not plotting on making a random appearance. Really, I wasn't.
"That one, over there." She pointed, and shrugged. "It pays well, and it keeps me occupied."
"Oh cool..."
I looked up at the sky, and noticed it was kind of getting darker. "Hey, do you happen to know the time?"
She looked down at her watch. "Um, it's like 7:37..."
"Oh... damn it, I gotta go." I stood up. "I'll see you around?"
"Don't count on it."
I tilted my head. "Well, okay..."
"I'm kidding." She looked up at me, smiling. "I'd love to see you again."
I grinned. "Cool."
As I said, I had no intention of meeting a girl, or falling in love that summer. Things changed that night. Now my whole summer, I vowed to dedicate to making that girl fall in love with me.
Of course, I never thought it would work.
--
I didn't tell Jack, Zack, or Rian about Scarlett. I didn't tell them why I was blowing them off the next day to go find her and possibly get to know her better. In complete honesty, "getting to know her better" wasn't all I had in mind when I wanted to find her. I was a teenage boy with hormones, and I didn't really expect to really actually like her or anything. She was my conquest, and I didn't want anyone to know about it. I wanted something that was mine, for once. No one was ever gonna know.
It was around 4:00, when I went on my restaurant hunt. I didn't exactly remember the exact restaurant she pointed to, so I went to all of them, asking the same question over and over.
"Hello, does a girl named Scarlett work here?"
I was turned down god knows how many times, before I finally found the right one. I had just finished asking, when Scarlett walked out, with her blond hair in curls falling around her face, and her blue eyes wide and confused. She looked really, really pretty, even in her uniform.
"Um, hi...?"
"Hey." I was started to regret my reckless decision of going to find her. "I'm that guy that tried to make you jump in the water to get my shirt."
"And I'm the girl who turned you down." She smiled. "What's up..?"
"Um, well... I was just wondering... when you get off... "
"I get off at six. Why you wondering?"
'Oh God... did she possibly like me?' "Well, I kind of wanted to maybe hang out. We could go to the mall and look for a new shirt or something." I joked.
"I would like that."
"Cool." I grinned. I actually did kind of like her. She seemed cool. "Well, I'll come back at six."
"Alright awesome."
I turned to go, with an accomplished smile on my face, and a feeling higher than the clouds.
-
I went back at six, and she insisted we went to mall, which I was originally kidding about. She also insisted I didn't buy her anything, even though she didn't have her own money.
We actually did find a shirt that was just like the one I had lost to the water. We bought it, and left.
We ended up sitting on the same dock, talking until a little past midnight. We talked about everything, nothing, lay down and looked at the stars. She mentioned she was cold, and I grabbed the shirt from the plastic bag it was in.
"Here. Put it on."
"Huh? It's your shirt..."
"Put it on over top... It might warm you up a bit."
She looked at me hesitantly, before taking the shirt, and slipping it over her head. I still thought she looked really, really pretty.
Before we both left to go home for the night, she tried to the give the shirt back to me.
"No, keep it. Then I'll have an excuse to come find you again." I winked. She laughed.
"You don't need an excuse."
"Oh, but I do." I insisted. "Keep it."
She smiled, and maybe it was just the lighting, but it looked like she was blushing. "Goodnight, Alex."
"I'll see you soon?"
"Don't count on it." She stuck her tongue out, and I pouted. "I'm kidding. You know where to find me."
Then, she walked away.
"Hey... Scarlett?"
She turned. "Yeah?"
I walked up to her, with a gentle grip on her wrist. I was just a little taller than her, not a lot. I looked down into her blue eyes, and all I could hear was the sound of our breathing, the wind, and the waves hitting the dock. I leaned in almost impulsively, without thinking, she was shaking, her breathing was shallow, and finally I stopped the aching moments in between skin contact, and held onto her tightly, in the most heart crushing kiss I had ever felt.
I pulled away, and her eyes slowly opened, and she smiled.
"I'll see you tomorrow." I kissed her forehead, and walked away.
The thing about young love, is that it happens fast. Really fast, and you don't really know what to do about it. Maybe, it's not love, just a lot of hormones or something, but it still hits you hard. Maybe it happens so quickly because there isn't anything to hold you back, no fear, because there's no experience. Your heads to caught up in the butterflies to realize that it might hurt it in the end, and if you have nothing to compare it to, you aren't scared. You're too naive to realize that things don't always go the way you want, and you're just too caught up in the way the light hits her hair, and the way her eyes sparkle when she smiles ...
You don't realize that you're falling to fast, until you hit the ground.
--
The whole summer, my friends never heard anything about Scarlett. I didn't mention her, or a girl in general. As far as they knew, I was single, and just doing odd jobs to earn money when I wasn't hanging out with them.
I don't know why I didn't tell them, truly. I think I didn't want those two worlds together. When I was with Scarlett, I was her man, and I was happy, gracious, and a good "boyfriend". When I was with my friends... I was a plain old Alex. I didn't want both of those things together.
We spent almost every day together, at some point or another. She was mine. I told her I loved her. I bought her pretty things, and flowers, and I treated her nice. I swore I loved her.
I was sitting at home alone, when my phone rang.
"Hello?" I answered after the third ring.
"Hey, Alex."
"Scarlett." I immediately started smiling. "What's up, babe?" I loved calling her that. I had known her, at this point, for about a month. It was early August, and we had meant either the very end of June, or really early in July.
"So, my dad is actually going out for like, two days, and I don't really know this city well enough to be home alone for a couple of days..."
I grinned. "Oh yeah? Well, I could you know... protect you if you want..."
"I would love that." I heard her giggle.
"I'll be there ... in half an hour?"
"Sure!"
"Kay, see ya soon..." I went to hang up.
"Don't count on it." She waited until she heard me sigh. "I'm kidding. I'll see you soon. Bye."
I hung up, grabbed a piece of paper, and scribbled down a note to my parents, saying I would be at Jack's house for the night, and left.
I got to her house, and she instinctively jumped into my arms.
"Alex!"
"Hey, baby." I smiled and kissed her. We went and sat down on the couch, and talked in between kissing.
Hey, we were kids. What more did you expect?
God, I loved kissing her. I loved the way I could hear her gasping in between kisses. I loved the way she tasted, and the way she clutched my me, running her hands from my neck, to my hair, to my shoulders, and lower. I loved the way the curve of her waist felt under my hand. I loved everything about her.
As it got later, the conversation started getting lost in the kissing, and the touching, and the hard breathing and the way the heat rushed to my head, making me sweat.
When it started getting dark out, she pulled me to her room.
Things went by really fast after that.
I was kissing her neck as the buttons were coming undone, and it was dark, hot and hazy. The lust was hitting us both hard, and it still wasn't fast enough. I didn't even think about it, and I don't think she did either. I was too turned on to care about consequences, and she was too hot for me to turn down.
Her nails were digging into my back, and her eyes were wide. Her body pushed up on the sheets, while her fingers laced through my hair. Her breathing was rapid, and shallow. I just let the feelings take her, and before I knew it, it was over.
--
'Alex....Meet me at the dock at six tonight, okay?'
Scarlett left that message at about noon. Something in her voice didn't sound right, and it scared me. All that was running through my head was all the possibilities of what could be wrong. Like, we hadn't used protection that night. Maybe she was pregnant. Or maybe her dad found out and was going to come to house with a shot gun or something, but if he had found out, it would be about a month too late.
It was the very end of August, and she was still my dirty little secret.
So, at six I went to the dock. I saw her sitting almost exactly where she sat when we first met. She looked upset, but gorgeous, as always.
"Hey, Scarlett..." I said quietly, and she looked up at me, smiling weakly.
"Hey, Alex..."
I sat beside her. "What's up? You okay?"
She shrugged, and turned to me, running her fingers through my hair, her thumb tracing my cheek bone, then my jawline. "Alex, I love you."
"Yeah, I know that..." I looked down. "I love you too. What's going on?"
"I was only here for the summer, remember?"
"Yeah..." Something hit me hard. Not in a good way. It was like someone punched me in the chest.
"Summers almost over, Alex." She looked down into the water. "I'm leaving tomorrow."
That hurt.
That tore me apart.
I had grown so used to seeing her everyday, I didn't want to have to know what it would feel like to be without that. She was like the sunlight. She was my girl. She was my first, I was hers... I loved her.
"L-Leaving...For good."
She nodded slowly. "I probably won't be back for a long time, Alex. I'm talking years."
I shook my head. "But, we'll still keep in contact, right? Like, phone, email, letters...I could come visit you maybe...We could.."
She laughed. Ouch. "Alex, I'm not doing that whole long distance relationship thing. That would hurt more. You have to move on. I mean, I will. This was just a summer fling, right?"
"But, god, Scarlett...I love you."
"I know.." She looked up at the sky. "But we're young. We have so much time. Maybe someday, I'll see you again though...maybe."
"Can I still call you at least? When you leave? I want to be a part of your life, Scarlett." I was trying really hard not to cry, and I bet it could be heard through my voice.
"...Don't count on it."
That time, unlike any other time she said that, she didn't say "just kidding", she just got up, kissed the top of my head, and walked away.
And that was the last time I ever saw her.
Her name was Scarlett, and god, she was beautiful.
I was walking home from Jack's house, which probably wasn't the smartest idea, but I didn't have a ride or anything so I would have to. It was really hot out, despite the fact that it was 7:00 pm, it was still summer, and I still had a strong urge to take my shirt off.
And if Alexander William friggen' Gaskarth wants to take his shirt off, he will .
So I was walking around with my shirt tucked into my pocket, which again, wasn't a really smart idea, but at least I thought I looked really sexy.
I was walking by the harbor, and I noticed a girl sitting out on one of the docks. Her blond hair was up in a messy ponytail, one of the straps on her bright yellow tank top was sliding down her shoulder. Her shorts were soaked, and her chin was resting in her hands, propped up on her bare knees. I squinted to get a better look, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand, and I didn't even notice my shirt falling, and getting carried away by the wind.
The girl turned her head so all I saw is the back of the ponytail, and I turned to walk away, and shoved my hands in my pockets... that's when I realized my shirt was blowing away.
I looked around, trying to locate where the flying shirt had taken off to, but I didn't see it.
"God Damn it!"
The girl looked over at me with a confused expression, and I saw my shirt fly by her, and fall off the dock, and into the water.
"AH!" I ran over. "NOOO! That's my favorite shirt!"
The girl just sat there, and watched as my shirt slowly sink into the ocean's abyss. It was deeply horrifying and depressing. On many levels.
"GO GET IT!" I yelled, too caught up in my despair to realize I was potentially screaming at a very pretty girl. "THAT'S MY SHIRT GOD DAMNIT!"
"Excuse me!?" She looked deeply confused, and sort of angry, which kind of made me regret my thoughtless screaming.
"You're closer to it! That's my favorite shirt!"
"You go get it!" She snapped.
'No! You do it!"
"I don't even KNOW YOU!"
"I don't have time to argue! My shirt is sinking into the abyss!" Why I was using the word "abyss" so much that day, I will never know.
She just rolled her eyes, and I ran over beside her and stared into the water. My shirt was nowhere to be seen.
I sighed, and sunk down, and draped my arms over my knees. She looked over at me, and stifled a laugh.
"You alright?"
I sighed. "I really liked that shirt."
"Why? It's just a shirt."
"Don't doubt the sentimental value of my shirt!"
"Fine, fine."
We sat in silence for a little while.
"My name is Scarlett." She held her hand out, and I took it.
"I'm Alex."
She smiled. "Nice to meet you..."
I smiled back. I noticed then, she had the prettiest blue eyes... "Nice to meet you too... I'm sorry about that... whole shirt thing."
"Ha ha, it's okay. I know how it feels to lose something you like a lot."
I looked down at my feet, which I dipped into the water. "Yeah, well to be honest I don't really care about the shirt that much."
She laughed. "You just like causing a scene?"
"Pretty much."
"So how old are you? I've never seen you around."
"Fifteen. I'm here for the summer with my dad. My parents split up, and I usually live with my Mom..." She shrugged.
"Oh... cool."
"Yeah... What about you?"
"I live here... I have since I was like, little... I'm here all year." I shrugged. She nodded.
I really wanted to keep the conversation going, not just because I didn't want to go home, but because... she was really, really pretty. Which sounds decently shallow, but I was a teenage boy. It's natural. "So what are your plans this summer?"
"My Dad owns a restaurant here...So I'm waitressing there part time.. other than that, nothing..."
"Oh, what restaurant?" I was totally not plotting on making a random appearance. Really, I wasn't.
"That one, over there." She pointed, and shrugged. "It pays well, and it keeps me occupied."
"Oh cool..."
I looked up at the sky, and noticed it was kind of getting darker. "Hey, do you happen to know the time?"
She looked down at her watch. "Um, it's like 7:37..."
"Oh... damn it, I gotta go." I stood up. "I'll see you around?"
"Don't count on it."
I tilted my head. "Well, okay..."
"I'm kidding." She looked up at me, smiling. "I'd love to see you again."
I grinned. "Cool."
As I said, I had no intention of meeting a girl, or falling in love that summer. Things changed that night. Now my whole summer, I vowed to dedicate to making that girl fall in love with me.
Of course, I never thought it would work.
--
I didn't tell Jack, Zack, or Rian about Scarlett. I didn't tell them why I was blowing them off the next day to go find her and possibly get to know her better. In complete honesty, "getting to know her better" wasn't all I had in mind when I wanted to find her. I was a teenage boy with hormones, and I didn't really expect to really actually like her or anything. She was my conquest, and I didn't want anyone to know about it. I wanted something that was mine, for once. No one was ever gonna know.
It was around 4:00, when I went on my restaurant hunt. I didn't exactly remember the exact restaurant she pointed to, so I went to all of them, asking the same question over and over.
"Hello, does a girl named Scarlett work here?"
I was turned down god knows how many times, before I finally found the right one. I had just finished asking, when Scarlett walked out, with her blond hair in curls falling around her face, and her blue eyes wide and confused. She looked really, really pretty, even in her uniform.
"Um, hi...?"
"Hey." I was started to regret my reckless decision of going to find her. "I'm that guy that tried to make you jump in the water to get my shirt."
"And I'm the girl who turned you down." She smiled. "What's up..?"
"Um, well... I was just wondering... when you get off... "
"I get off at six. Why you wondering?"
'Oh God... did she possibly like me?' "Well, I kind of wanted to maybe hang out. We could go to the mall and look for a new shirt or something." I joked.
"I would like that."
"Cool." I grinned. I actually did kind of like her. She seemed cool. "Well, I'll come back at six."
"Alright awesome."
I turned to go, with an accomplished smile on my face, and a feeling higher than the clouds.
-
I went back at six, and she insisted we went to mall, which I was originally kidding about. She also insisted I didn't buy her anything, even though she didn't have her own money.
We actually did find a shirt that was just like the one I had lost to the water. We bought it, and left.
We ended up sitting on the same dock, talking until a little past midnight. We talked about everything, nothing, lay down and looked at the stars. She mentioned she was cold, and I grabbed the shirt from the plastic bag it was in.
"Here. Put it on."
"Huh? It's your shirt..."
"Put it on over top... It might warm you up a bit."
She looked at me hesitantly, before taking the shirt, and slipping it over her head. I still thought she looked really, really pretty.
Before we both left to go home for the night, she tried to the give the shirt back to me.
"No, keep it. Then I'll have an excuse to come find you again." I winked. She laughed.
"You don't need an excuse."
"Oh, but I do." I insisted. "Keep it."
She smiled, and maybe it was just the lighting, but it looked like she was blushing. "Goodnight, Alex."
"I'll see you soon?"
"Don't count on it." She stuck her tongue out, and I pouted. "I'm kidding. You know where to find me."
Then, she walked away.
"Hey... Scarlett?"
She turned. "Yeah?"
I walked up to her, with a gentle grip on her wrist. I was just a little taller than her, not a lot. I looked down into her blue eyes, and all I could hear was the sound of our breathing, the wind, and the waves hitting the dock. I leaned in almost impulsively, without thinking, she was shaking, her breathing was shallow, and finally I stopped the aching moments in between skin contact, and held onto her tightly, in the most heart crushing kiss I had ever felt.
I pulled away, and her eyes slowly opened, and she smiled.
"I'll see you tomorrow." I kissed her forehead, and walked away.
The thing about young love, is that it happens fast. Really fast, and you don't really know what to do about it. Maybe, it's not love, just a lot of hormones or something, but it still hits you hard. Maybe it happens so quickly because there isn't anything to hold you back, no fear, because there's no experience. Your heads to caught up in the butterflies to realize that it might hurt it in the end, and if you have nothing to compare it to, you aren't scared. You're too naive to realize that things don't always go the way you want, and you're just too caught up in the way the light hits her hair, and the way her eyes sparkle when she smiles ...
You don't realize that you're falling to fast, until you hit the ground.
--
The whole summer, my friends never heard anything about Scarlett. I didn't mention her, or a girl in general. As far as they knew, I was single, and just doing odd jobs to earn money when I wasn't hanging out with them.
I don't know why I didn't tell them, truly. I think I didn't want those two worlds together. When I was with Scarlett, I was her man, and I was happy, gracious, and a good "boyfriend". When I was with my friends... I was a plain old Alex. I didn't want both of those things together.
We spent almost every day together, at some point or another. She was mine. I told her I loved her. I bought her pretty things, and flowers, and I treated her nice. I swore I loved her.
I was sitting at home alone, when my phone rang.
"Hello?" I answered after the third ring.
"Hey, Alex."
"Scarlett." I immediately started smiling. "What's up, babe?" I loved calling her that. I had known her, at this point, for about a month. It was early August, and we had meant either the very end of June, or really early in July.
"So, my dad is actually going out for like, two days, and I don't really know this city well enough to be home alone for a couple of days..."
I grinned. "Oh yeah? Well, I could you know... protect you if you want..."
"I would love that." I heard her giggle.
"I'll be there ... in half an hour?"
"Sure!"
"Kay, see ya soon..." I went to hang up.
"Don't count on it." She waited until she heard me sigh. "I'm kidding. I'll see you soon. Bye."
I hung up, grabbed a piece of paper, and scribbled down a note to my parents, saying I would be at Jack's house for the night, and left.
I got to her house, and she instinctively jumped into my arms.
"Alex!"
"Hey, baby." I smiled and kissed her. We went and sat down on the couch, and talked in between kissing.
Hey, we were kids. What more did you expect?
God, I loved kissing her. I loved the way I could hear her gasping in between kisses. I loved the way she tasted, and the way she clutched my me, running her hands from my neck, to my hair, to my shoulders, and lower. I loved the way the curve of her waist felt under my hand. I loved everything about her.
As it got later, the conversation started getting lost in the kissing, and the touching, and the hard breathing and the way the heat rushed to my head, making me sweat.
When it started getting dark out, she pulled me to her room.
Things went by really fast after that.
I was kissing her neck as the buttons were coming undone, and it was dark, hot and hazy. The lust was hitting us both hard, and it still wasn't fast enough. I didn't even think about it, and I don't think she did either. I was too turned on to care about consequences, and she was too hot for me to turn down.
Her nails were digging into my back, and her eyes were wide. Her body pushed up on the sheets, while her fingers laced through my hair. Her breathing was rapid, and shallow. I just let the feelings take her, and before I knew it, it was over.
--
'Alex....Meet me at the dock at six tonight, okay?'
Scarlett left that message at about noon. Something in her voice didn't sound right, and it scared me. All that was running through my head was all the possibilities of what could be wrong. Like, we hadn't used protection that night. Maybe she was pregnant. Or maybe her dad found out and was going to come to house with a shot gun or something, but if he had found out, it would be about a month too late.
It was the very end of August, and she was still my dirty little secret.
So, at six I went to the dock. I saw her sitting almost exactly where she sat when we first met. She looked upset, but gorgeous, as always.
"Hey, Scarlett..." I said quietly, and she looked up at me, smiling weakly.
"Hey, Alex..."
I sat beside her. "What's up? You okay?"
She shrugged, and turned to me, running her fingers through my hair, her thumb tracing my cheek bone, then my jawline. "Alex, I love you."
"Yeah, I know that..." I looked down. "I love you too. What's going on?"
"I was only here for the summer, remember?"
"Yeah..." Something hit me hard. Not in a good way. It was like someone punched me in the chest.
"Summers almost over, Alex." She looked down into the water. "I'm leaving tomorrow."
That hurt.
That tore me apart.
I had grown so used to seeing her everyday, I didn't want to have to know what it would feel like to be without that. She was like the sunlight. She was my girl. She was my first, I was hers... I loved her.
"L-Leaving...For good."
She nodded slowly. "I probably won't be back for a long time, Alex. I'm talking years."
I shook my head. "But, we'll still keep in contact, right? Like, phone, email, letters...I could come visit you maybe...We could.."
She laughed. Ouch. "Alex, I'm not doing that whole long distance relationship thing. That would hurt more. You have to move on. I mean, I will. This was just a summer fling, right?"
"But, god, Scarlett...I love you."
"I know.." She looked up at the sky. "But we're young. We have so much time. Maybe someday, I'll see you again though...maybe."
"Can I still call you at least? When you leave? I want to be a part of your life, Scarlett." I was trying really hard not to cry, and I bet it could be heard through my voice.
"...Don't count on it."
That time, unlike any other time she said that, she didn't say "just kidding", she just got up, kissed the top of my head, and walked away.
And that was the last time I ever saw her.