" I..."

As he started to talk the doorbell rang and we immediately look at my door then each other in confusion. I take my hand from him walking towards the brown old door. I put up my hand stating that he should wait in the room, I walk downstairs wondering what that all about, opening the door to a little girl selling Girl Scout cookies. He bought some cookies and we went back into the room, taking out our books and eating cookies. For a while, I noticed that Christian wasn't paying attention, he just gazed up at me with a confused smile. After a few minutes of trying to get his attention, I close my books and set them on the floor.

" Christian is something wrong, you've been acting strangely...?" I ask as I pull on his wrist.

" I'm fine, what's wrong?" He says as his usual response. We start to go back to studying when I start to feel tension between us.

" You know you don't have to be here," I say breaking the silence. He nods, as usual, not looking up at me.

"Is it my imagination or am I getting smarter...? I think the glow from your electric personality must be energizing my brain as well as my heart. I aced my statistics test on Monday--even after we were out so late on Sunday night... " he starts to say.

" You are getting smarter because we've been studying so hard." I interrupt.

" I've noticed something recently--I'm happy. My attitude at work has improved. My attitude about life has improved. I smile most of the time and sometimes I find myself humming as I walk down the street. Other people have noticed it too and asked me what's different now and what has made me so much happier. The answer...?" He added some more.

" Because of your retarded retard, but that's why I like you. You should definitely know this by now." I interrupted again. He starts to turn red as he pulls my wrist towards him.

" I..." he says quietly.

" You, need to study because we both know that you didn't ace the statistics. So, let go of me." I say trying to pull away from his grip, he pulls me onto the ground crawling on top of me. My heart starts to race, I consider his mild brown eyes. Unexpectedly, his hand drifted to her hip. It settled there and pulled me closer. I inhaled sharply. I was against his warm chest, chiseled to perfection. I played my hand against it, intending to push him away, but instead I left it there. His breathing quickened as did mine. He began nuzzling her neck with delicate kisses. So, faint as if they were whispers. I urged myself to push away, but couldn't. My limp body began to tremble uncontrollably. His head was angled slightly to the side as his lips came closer and closer to mine. I block the kiss by turning my head away, feeling my chest tighten.

" I'm sorry." He says as he blushed deeper, shuffling off me. He starts to stand up but I grab the sleeve of his shirt, looking up to him.

" Stay, or you're going to fail," I say. He looks down at me, with embarrassment written all over his face. I let him go as he takes his books, and shoves them into his bag. He starts to pack and leave in silence until he stops at the door.

" I'll text you tomorrow..." he says as he leaves. Outside the window, I hear a heavy downpour. I get up and was about to run after him but he was nowhere in sight.

Saturday morning slowly and reluctantly, I uncover my face. I blink, close my eyes, and blink again. Streaks of sunlight penetrate the window and blind me. I sit up, drag my feet off the bed, and rub my knuckles onto my eyes. I stretch my arms above my head and yawn. I watch my legs dangle above the off-white polyester carpet. I reach over to my phone finding a text saying.

" 'I'm sorry' doesn't begin to express my regret for acting badly. What I did was wholly inappropriate. I think I have exhausted the choices in the thesaurus, calling myself every name in the book ("stupid" and "jerk" stand out above the rest). I've tried to think what I could have done to have messed up even more, but I can't think of anything. I could get tickets to that football game you wanted to see on Saturday night. Let's go have fun and forget that this ever happened. I'm hoping I can pick you up at 5. Will you please give me that opportunity? I'll call you Friday night. Please say you'll go."

" Christian, you just had to pick the football game, ugh!" I yell aloud, rolling over starting at the ceiling. I continue my day thinking about his text. After dinner, I take a hot steamy bath in my claw foot tub, I get snug in my sweats and tank top I go to the kitchen looking for something sweet. Hot milk, cocoa, sugar - sometimes the simplest of things are the best. Standing over the pan I watch the small curls of steam rising into the wintry air, though the fire is warming the room quickly. I stir a little, letting my mind wander. I bring my hot cocoa to bed with me laying under the covers, I started to write 'Okay' but I feel asleep before I sent it.