Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 82271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“I’m going to try something.”
“What?” I’m suddenly confused.
She stands up on her tiptoes and presses a soft kiss to my cheek then my mouth and I part my lips and let her in because why not at this point… I’m so lost. I’m so done. I let her in because she feels safe and I need safe, and I’m angry and sad, and everything in my life is out of control—but this. not this moment. no one can tell me who I can kiss right now. No one. I realize I have no feelings for her other than this moment. Do I feel guilty? No. She wanted this. she instigated this kiss, I’m just reciprocating—she knows I’m in love with another woman. She guessed it. so I feel no remorse—maybe we both need this. It’s one small moment that I’m not allowed to get in my daily life, granted it’s one that could ruin me, but I’m already there… how did it get this far? How am I kissing a woman in front of cameras and the world?
Where did the sensible Sookie go?
I’d been so careful this entire time and then it just hits, I’ve lost my censor, my measure of everything, my mind.
Who the hell am I?
She pulls back after my tongue slides against hers, after I tug her top lip and remember how she didn’t ask for more. With a laugh she pulls further away and crosses her arms over her black trench coat.
“So we getting out of here or what?”
“Do we need to discuss?” What just happened? We just kissed? We just broke every rule to break, and she knows I’m in love with someone else, and what? How is she acting so cool and unaffected? Why am I the one who needs to discuss our feelings?
“Meh, sexual repression happens to everyone, just like fear, I was present, you were present,” She lowers her voice and waves her hand in the air like it’s no big deal. “I know you don’t care about me, but also thanks for making my last few months worth it.”
I stop her and try to pull her away from any cameras in the hallway. “What? You can’t kill yourself, no, don’t—”
She starts laughing and looks at me like I’m crazy.
“I’m not killing myself! Don’t be so dramatic… myself is killing itself.” She pulls me out into the hallway where all the hidden cameras can see us. “Thank you, genuinely, thank you. I’ve been following you for years and you’ve always been my favorite idol, I’ve always wanted just one weird fan moment with you before I die and you gave that to me, so thank you.”
“Die?” I repeat shaking my head in disbelief, I’m immediately overcome with emotion and can feel the tears in my eyes as I grab her forearms trying not to shake them, because I don’t know how fragile she is now. But she can’t just die.
“What are you saying?”
Hell is going on around us, hauntedness, darkness, the clown’s probably coming back, but all I see is her as she steps up on her tiptoes and kisses my nose, like it’s something she’s done a thousand times before. It’s a well-known rule, you don’t let fans touch you like that and you must always remain pure in front of the public—as far as they know, you don’t touch a soul.
Her touch is soft, safe, it feels nice. I like it a lot. I like her, but she’s not mine and I’m not hers. And my heart… my damn heart belongs to someone else—the woman who plagues my every waking moment. I realize you can want someone in different ways—but the connection you feel with the one who has your heart is unlike anything else.
“I wanted one moment with someone like you,” she tells me giving me that adorable smile of hers. “And you know what’s so freaking great Sookie, you proved me right.”
“How did I prove you right?” I wonder.
“You are everything you say you are, everything you pretend not to be, everything they want you to be.”
I shake my head at her in confusion.
“I don’t understand… you don’t even know me.”
“But I do. You’re a good man. A gentle man. And you sure know how to kiss for being so innocent.”
I can feel myself blush when she says that last part and she’s smiling at me in a mischievous way so I know she said it for a reaction.
“So thank you,” she says. “I might even try to kiss you some more.”
I’m trying not to freak out, as I process everything she’s just said to me. We’re literally in front of cameras, they can use any of this and she’s talking about death one minute and how I’m a great kisser the next. I can’t even keep up with this conversation without knowing that I’m going to have to write an apology letter on top of telling Rae and he doesn’t even know the worst of it. But death, she’s dying so focusing on myself isn’t my point, it’s nothing. It’s her.