The Exception

Kayne hasn’t had a lot of boyfriends.

She is young still, only sixteen, and beautiful, but she still hasn’t had many boyfriends.
She isn’t one of those crazy Catholic girls that aren’t allowed to date, or one of the weird girls that every guy likes but is afraid to go out with for fear of their reputation.

Kayne is gorgeous and popular and a star soccer player. She is extraordinary, by extraordinary standards.

But Kayne has this speech she gives; she calls it her “serious” speech. It comes around the fifth date, when it’s almost time to become official. It scares a lot of boys off, even though the speech is only the truth.

She doesn’t let herself get close to anyone until after they’ve heard the speech. She keeps her distance because she knows most of the boys run off. It stopped hurting her when she became weary.

Ransom is the exception. She’s falling for him and she’s scared. He stirs up all these feelings that she’s not used to and she’s thinking about him outside of the dates, when she’s supposed to be focusing on other things, like soccer or homework or a friend’s rant about how bad their boyfriend is in bed.

It’s only the third date, it’s not serious yet, no need for a speech, she thinks.

But Kayne feels like she needs to, because she’s actually falling for this kid. He knew about her reputation of scaring other boys off with her honest confessions and he had asked her out anyway.

Not to mention, the fact that Ransom is beautiful. He’s not hot, or built, or sexy, like most seventeen year old guys she knows, he’s beautiful.

His hair is short but curly and a mix between brown, blonde, and auburn. His eyes are the most brilliant green and they glow. His teeth are sort of crooked, which makes his smile shine like no other. There’s a scar on his lower jaw from where he fell off the jungle gym when he was seven on rocks and it stretches up toward his ear. It creates an empty streak of white up through the scratchy scruff on his chin and jaw. His nose is pointed and sharp, but small and cute. His lips are thin and pink, usually set in some sort of an amused non-smile.

Ransom is free. He does what he wants, he speaks his mind, he does crazy things that intimidate most people. He’s different; he’s no one but himself. He doesn’t follow trends, doesn’t follow much of anything actually.

He speaks softly, his voice is always just above a whisper and there is a faint southern twang to his words. It creates an irresistible attraction in most girls, makes them itch for Ransom’s small mouth whispering words against the sensitive skin on their necks. But Ransom doesn’t just whisper against any girl; he’s selective and smart.

Kayne has to stop herself from staring a lot, usually when she gets lost in Ransom’s eyes and his stories about English novels and other things that most seventeen year olds don’t talk about. He’s really deep and Kayne and he usually have incredible conversations that last for hours, but she loses herself sometimes.

She knows it’s about time to give the speech because she knows she can’t hold it in anymore.

-

They’re in a diner, a fifties dinner with greasy tables and greasier food, but it’s quaint and nearly unknown, leaving them almost alone to eat their onion rings and strawberry shakes.

“I like you. A lot. More than I usually allow myself to like someone, Ransom,” she says as she watches his slender, pale lips wrap around the bright blue straw of his shake. His thin eyebrows raise and Kayne places her chin her palm, studying his face as she begins to speak the words she’s practiced in a mirror a thousand times and actually spoken to a small number of boys.

“I don’t shave my legs as often as I need to and I drool when I sleep. I’m impatient and a smartass. I don’t fall in love quickly and I don’t trust people because I’m easily hurt. I won’t cheat and I don’t like liars. I’m brutally honest and I take my bad mood out on others. I’m shy. Too many people make me uncomfortable. I’m not having sex until I’m eighteen, and I won’t suck your dick, ever.”

Kayne pauses because she knows that’s usually where she loses guys, but when Ransom doesn’t do anything but tilt his heart-shaped face slightly to the left, she continues.

“But I’m a good girl and your parents will like me. You won’t find anyone that can treat you better than I can and I can make you happy.”

She knows it’s not a big deal and it doesn’t usually make her nervous because the words are something that she has to speak, but Ransom just makes the butterflies harboring in her stomach flutter and flap their brightly-colored wings.

She’s been hurt before and she doesn’t like the feeling of people that she spends a lot of time with not knowing important things about her. She doesn’t like the pressure of having to gradually admit the things she just admitted when she can simply state them before they come out in a relationship. It doesn’t make Kayne weird, it makes her smart.

Ransom is quiet for a moment and he’s just thinking, pondering, processing Kayne’s speech. He understood it all, she didn’t speak in a rush and she talks clearly. He knew some of the things that Kayne just said; he knew them before the two even started speaking. He still has to act like he’s thinking about what Kayne said because speaking too quickly will make her suspicious of him for no reason, just because that’s the way she thinks.

“I’m okay with that,” he says, finally after a minute’s passing.

Kayne grins and the hard rock that had been building in her throat passes.

She was frightened of his reaction because Ransom was impulsive and you never really knew what he’d do, but she knew that he would accept her, all of her flaws and rules and everything. Her heart melts a little and she’s happy.