Laurie imagined her first kiss with Ben Tramer to go a little like this:
A tender touch about her waist; his palm might have molded against her cheek, locked eyes a minute lost to oblivion, before reality tore them apart. And then their mouths would meet, awkward and timid, two minds bridged by a touch, gateways of their souls closed over the other...
That's how it would all faze out; it didn't matter where— behind the old annex of the music room, under the oak by the lake, in front of her sister's grave…
Laurie isn't picky in that sense, she just doesn't want to be treated like a wanton whore. She has been raised more thoroughly and she can't stand being groped at, or fondled, or pawed at… It's the most disgusting thing and her mother would be ashamed.
And funnily, it's not the thought of her mother that snatches her from Michael's firm lips, wet and curious, yet dominating her inexperienced flesh.
It is the weight of her relation to Michael, which finally brings Laurie to her senses.
And while it might have only been a moment, Laurie is set with shame, and she might as well have been kissing her brother in front of the school auditorium with all her classmates watching because Laurie starts to imagine their judgements like a riot in her head.
This is her brother.
Michael is her brother.
And while he doesn't advance, no hand about her waist, no palm against her cheek to hold her in place— Laurie is scared that if Michael did, she may have let him. She may have done nothing.
But, because it isn't his will to keep her there, it is neither in her will to stay—
And the sensation of him becomes a ghost on her lips after she steps away and her face crumbles with tears as she realizes Michael is not Ben Tramer. And no amount of tenderness, and no amount of care, no amount of effort she puts into cooking for him, cleaning after him, sharing her day with him, will ever draw out of her brother the very thing that made Ben special to her.
Humanity.
Because Michael's eyes are ever as dark, ever as filled with that thing that makes her feel old and glum. Where there should be warmth, there is only cold. Where there should be a soul, there is only the void of what might have been had Smith's Grove not stolen him from her.
Yet, it is so uniquely Michael to be so distant, to be unhuman— the allure of a shadow so dark that can still exist in broad daylight.
He is the closest stranger she has ever known.
And she loves him for it.
Even as he stands there, observing her dispassionately, Laurie loves him. Even after he has kissed her for her first time, taken from her what she expected would be for someone else, someone more akin to Ben Tramer, Laurie loves him.
Because it's all Laurie deserves. She doesn't deserve Ben Tramer.
She deserves someone who is much like her; an outsider.
Laurie sobs harder until her cries turn into muffled coughs, and she shuffles past Michael, who rotates, black eyes following the path she wearily treads through the gravestones.
"I want to go home," she cries.
And Michael follows her.
Ever as close like the shadow on her heels.