Brandon

I've imagined her showing up in my room late at night so many times that I assume I'm hallucinating or dreaming when she appears in my doorway.

She quietly closes the door and then leans up against it as if by throwing her weight against the door, she's going to keep out the entire world and all its reasons that we can't be together. And for the first time in months, she looks at me and gives me that half smile that I adore.

She starts to make her way over to me. The attraction between us, the attraction that we've been denying for so long is so strong in this moment that I am sure there will be actual sparks when we touch.

"Callie...what are you...?" She crawls onto my lap and presses a finger to my lips. Without so much as a thought, I kiss it and then place it in my mouth.

"You're not the only one, Brandon," she whispers, "Okay you aren't. I'm not the songwriter or the one who can just come up with these amazing speeches out of nowhere. But it's the same for me, okay? I care about you. I want you. I have been dying to reach out for you just as much. And it kills me that you don't know that, that you haven't felt that. So I needed you to know. And I need to be close to you. At least for tonight. We deserve one night."

With that, she closes the tiny gap between us and her lips are on mine, warm and soft and eager, and we can't possibly get any closer and yet it's not remotely close enough for either of us. Forget sparks, I'm pretty sure I'm on fire. It feels right and familiar, the same way it did the very first time we kissed, except now how hungry we are for each other is heightened by the months we've been apart.

But as we're kissing, this annoying voice in my head is telling me that if this goes on for one more second, I'll become addicted to this feeling, to her. More than I already am if that's even possible. That this barely functional "sibling" relationship we have, the one she's insisted on, will blow up and this time there will be no going back and it will affect everyone.

"Callie," I moan unconvincingly as she's planting a trail of kisses along my neck and pulling at my shirt. "We have to stop, baby." She doesn't stop.

I lift her out of my lap and say a little more firmly, "We can't do this." It physically hurts to say those words. She recoils like I've slapped her and jumps up off the bed. "You're right, I don't know what I'm doing here, I'm an idiot. I should go." And in that moment I see the little girl who grew entirely too accustomed to people not wanting her. I think if things were different, I would spend the rest of our lives erasing any feelings of her being unwanted or unloved.

I reach for her. She's stiff and tense, miles away from where we were two minutes ago, but she lets me hold her. "You know," I start before lifting her head up and forcing her to look at me, "You know that it's not that I don't want you. I love knowing that it's still the same for you. I love you. But we can't do this tonight and then tomorrow go back to the way things have been. I won't be able to pretend anymore. Right? I mean is there something I'm not seeing, some way you see us being together? Because if there is, just say the word, Callie." I kiss her hair and wait for an answer that I know isn't coming.

And now she won't look at me anymore. She takes my hand, the one that Vico almost destroyed, and kisses it over and over. "I'm so sorry, B."

"You have nothing to apologize for."

And then she's gone and I'm alone in my bed, realizing that tomorrow morning is going to be excruciating. And that all of it has just gotten even harder now, if that's even possible. But holding her was worth it.

I can still feel the weight of her in my arms as I fall asleep.