Page 107 of In Pieces

I smile wistfully for the young girl I used to be, and for my perfectly happy, giddy present-day self.

“I love you,” David whispers suddenly, and I gape at him. He’s never said that before.

“What?” I breathe.

“I love you,” David repeats more insistently. “I’m in love with you.”

Anxiety floors my pulse. “How?”

“How?” he repeats, incredulous.

“How do you know?” Because his confession summons one of my greatest fears. How can he possibly know that? How can he be sure the feeling he thinks is love isn’t distorted by the affection of having been like family our whole lives? How does he know with any certainty that it’s really even the romantic kind? What if his emotional vision is just blurred by our mutual attraction? Or something? Something to explain away what he’s just proclaimed. Twice.

Because David March is not in love with me. It’s just not possible.

His brow furrows so deep it casts his dark-hazel eyes in shadow, and he blinks at me.

“How do you know?” I ask again through trembling lips, much softer this time. “How do I know?” That’s what I want to know more than anything. How do I know? How do I know what’s real? How do I know if what I feel for him is love, or just another manifestation of my crush?

David’s frown deepens even more. “Are you asking me how you know my feelings? Or your own?”

“Both,” I admit.

He stares at me for a beat.

“It’s just—David…I’ve always—”

He cuts me off, his frown imploding into a mask of determination. “You’ve always what?” he demands, but it’s rhetorical. Not that he gives me an opportunity to respond. “Thought about me way too much, or stared at me too long, or felt it in your chest every time I walked into a fucking room?” His eyes rake my body and his mouth pulls into a vaguely wolfish grin. “Or pictured me naked more times than you could count.”

A blush heats my cheeks, creeping downward over every exposed inch of me David’s eyes just helped themselves to.

“Because I’m fucking familiar.” His knuckles follow their path, barely grazing my skin, leaving goose bumps in their wake. “Do you know why I call you Bea?” he asks out of nowhere, and I blink at him.

“Because I asked you to stop calling me Bits?”

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “But why Bea?”

I shrug. “I thought it was B at first—as in the first letter of Beth…”

David chews his lip to bite back an amused smile. “Nope. B-e-a…” He whispers a kiss just under my ear before breathing, “as in b-e-a-utiful…”

I slap playfully at his chest. “Stop it,” I laugh.

But his eyes are deathly serious. “Stop what? You asked me to pick a new nickname for you on the spot, and even in that shitty moment, all I could think of was how beautiful you were.”

I stare up at him, stunned.

“I know, beautiful girl, because I’ve always known,” he says, answering my original question. “Even when I wasn’t conscious of it. I know because I was willing to sacrifice the kind of love you think I’m mistaking for love—my friendship with your brother—in case you’ve forgotten. I know because not only would I do anything for you, Bea, but because I couldn’t stand to see any other man in my place. Not now, not ever.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, hazel eyes imploring me to hear him. “I know, because I know.”

Wow.

“So the question is, Bea,” he emphasizes my nickname, stressing its origin, and I melt. “Do you know?”

“Do I know if I love you?” My heart swells so epically it’s as if it’s trying to tell him itself.

David smiles. “Do you know that I love you?” he corrects me, like it’s not as important for him to know how I feel as it is for him to make sure I know how he feels. And if that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

I nod.

David exhales his relief and brushes his lips over mine.

“And I also know that I’ve loved you since I first saw you.”

David laughs. “I was like five.”

I smile. “Exactly.”

The End.