I Found Myself Falling...Not For the Right Thing Either

His words hit me like a ton of bricks. I had heard those words before, but they didn’t hold the same strong meaning as they did this time.

My green eyes got lost in his icy blue ones as I stared back at him, motionless. I wanted to tell him ‘no’, that he was wrong that I wasn’t cute and how what he said wasn’t true, but my mouth went dry and my heartbeat picked up. I tried to remain calm, but my stomach did flips as I blinked slowly making sure this wasn’t a dream that I had been having.

When I saw the same handsome face as before, I knew it was real.

Somewhere between our laughing and everything our faces became mere inches apart, our noses almost touching. Both of our breaths were mingling with one another’s. The room was dead silent between the two of us making our situation unavoidable. It was just the two of us in the whole house. This god of a guy and I, alone, with our lips so close to each other. I couldn’t resist the urge, the urge to feel his amazing lips against mine and neither could he by the way he leant in, barely brushing his lips against my own.

I wouldn’t have even known it had happened if I had just closed my eyes a second earlier. I could’ve missed it all. We both would’ve pulled away knowing that he wouldn’t do it again and that I wouldn’t have had the courage to do it all by myself. We probably would’ve both gotten up, cleaned up our mess and went on like we had earlier in the day, in the week.

Both of us would’ve kept playing this game of emotions and we never would’ve found out how each other really felt. Craig and I would’ve gone back to our awkward conversations or tension filled silences, but I didn’t close my eyes.

We didn’t have to go back to those past months that we had kept pressing our feelings down and down, trying not to let them out. I saw it and let me tell you this… I couldn’t just take a brush.

So, I pressed my lips firmly against his soft ones creating the contact that was so desperately needed. Our lips locked together, his and mine, moving in time as one, each of us giving as much as the other was. We kissed as if the world was going to end tomorrow.

My hands ran up and along his chest, feeling every muscle in it, getting my fix of one muscle and then moving to the next. My heart was beating faster than it had seconds before when his hands gripped my head, holding me in place as we shared a kiss that ignited a raging fire within.

Every single time I kissed him I got the same feelings. The same feelings that no other guy I had ever kissed gave me, no matter how soft or rough. They were always the same…

Fireworks

I don’t know how long we savored the moment, delving into each other’s embrace, but once we couldn’t handle going another second without air we pulled away slowly, catching our breaths. My hands still gripped the damned popcorn, butter stained dress shirt that started this whole chase that ended with us toppled over each other on the kitchen floor, kissing our hearts out.

His hands were still holding my face so I looked into his beautiful eyes. Craig was the first to speak, disrupting the silence that had fallen between the two of us after we had pulled our lips apart.

“I don’t know when or where it happened, but Rae…” He paused, his thumb stroking my cheek affectionately, “I think, no I know I’m falling for you, harder than I ever have fallen before.”

I bit my lip, listening and taking in his words. He had pretty much summed up whatever the hell I had to say, which wasn’t much other than I was falling, falling hard.

“You beat me to it.” I told him, smiling lightly, which caused one of his pure and genuine smiles to cross his lips. The velvety lips that had just danced with mine that were slightly swollen from what had just happened. When they pulled back they showed his unnatural shiny white teeth.

“Whatever happened to those days when we were little and how we’d mess around and torture each other? The days that I’d pull your hair or throw you in a pool?” My lips twitched upward into a smile of my own as I closed my eyes and remembered that day that I told myself I’d never like Craig Moore ever again. The day I said he would never lie upon my heart again.

“We were eight years old, playing around like kids did.” I mumbled, opening my eyes again to look up at him.

“We didn’t have a care, we could sit around and say we hated each other and got along great the next day or told someone that we were best friends and then get in a fight two seconds later.” I laughed at Craig’s words.

“We still do that.” He chuckled for a second, kissing my lips quickly, but softly. As soon as he pulled back he rolled onto his side so we were at the same level, staring eye to eye.

“Our minds changed so quickly. They still do, but there’s one thing I know I’ve had on my mind for a while and it’s you Rae.”

I swear my heart stopped beating for a second or so as I thought about Craig’s words.

“Kent and I broke up for a reason. It wasn’t because neither of us liked each other anymore because we’re friends, probably better than ever, but there was one guy on my mind that I couldn’t get out of my head and it drove me to the point where I couldn’t stand being in another guy’s embrace and see the guy that was on my mind 24/7 have feelings that I couldn’t let him express.”

I didn’t know if my words made sense as they came out of my mouth, but I did know what I wanted to say the most.

“You’ve taken over my heart. I don’t know when in the past months that you did, but it happened and I can’t stand a day without seeing your face or hearing your voice, a day without being in each other’s presence. I can’t stand a day without listening to your crazy words or cocky remarks, a day without getting into a fight or just sitting around and catching our sly glances.”

The words I had been afraid to say for a while just came to the surface, taking over my mind and soul, finally letting loose.

I hadn’t expected any of these things from Craig. I kept pretending that none of this would happen and that I was just the one with the crazy feelings or thoughts. I was the one imagining the fireworks that we created, but when Craig leaned in again for the third time tonight to kiss me, I was assured that it wasn’t just me with these outstanding feelings that couldn’t be held back.

So there we sat for the rest of the night. Both of us kissing, talking, laughing, just sitting in silence at times, taking in one another and letting the feelings we had kept tucked inside for so long come out to be shared with more than ourselves. We both expressed how we felt as the night went on and the snow stopped coming down, as the streets were cleared and our phones rang saying how we’d be joined with the others the next day.

When it was well into the night I remember closing my eyes and falling into the darkness of sleep, but Craig’s words stayed with me into the next day,

“harder than I ever have fallen before.”