55
My lips touch hers and it feels like moments ago and a lifetime before, all at once. Familiar, long-forgotten, exciting and holy-shit-what-the-hell-am-I-doing? terrifying.
There's hesitation on both parts; I move, she retreats, she shifts toward me, I back off.
And then she runs her tongue along my lip and all coherent thought vanishes.
We're timeless as we sink, clinging to one another.
"Izzy!" The high-pitched yell from the backyard brings us shooting back to the surface. Our mouths fall away from one another as I sigh and rest my forehead against hers.
"I guess this was never going to be straight-forward," I say.
"I guess not," she says, a far-away look on her face. "I'd better go see what he wants."
In an unapologetically cheesy gesture, I hold her hand until our arms are at full stretch. They finally break apart as she pulls away, shaking her head as she walks out through the door into the backyard.
I wander back to the window and watch her as she crouches beside Jimmy and brushes the sand from his hands. She's talking to him, but her words are lost to my ears. Finally she leans in to kiss his head and stands. I find it incredible that she turned her whole life around just for him. That has to deserve a huge amount of kudos, especially when your course was as skewed as hers.
"He was wondering where his drink was," she says as she re-enters the kitchen and moves to pass me.
I reach out, feeling reassured enough to be bolder. Backing her up to the refrigerator door, I lean down.
Her hands come up to my chest and hold me off.
"Edward." Her eyes refuse to meet mine and my stomach plummets.
She's pushing me away.
~S~