Page 111 of How We Began

“You look confident.” His breath brushed across the exposed skin of my throat, and it was like Heaven and Hell in one whispered wisp of air.

Even though we weren’t touching, I could feel every contour of his body against mine. The space between us sang with electricity.

“It’s not real though, Ben. It’s just an illusion, someone that I could be if I were brave enough.”

My words are a whisper, my lips getting closer and closer to his jaw.

“Be brave, Lilah, with me.”

I met his dark gaze. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to be friends.” An eyebrow arched. “Friends is something hellish and torturous that I’m not sure it’s healthy to feel.”

“I thought you liked being friends, that it was easy for you.”

He stepped back a little at this, cool air rushing between us.

“Easy? Fucking easy?”

“It’s not?”

“Do I look like a man finding things easy, or do I look like a man burning?”

I couldn’t answer honestly. How could I? He had made it look easy, easier than I’d found it all. I’d lived for his fingers to touch mine. For one look, a glance. It was pathetic and unhealthy, and not normal in the slightest.

“Ben.”

“Lilah…”

The way he said my name, the way only he does—half whisper, half wish—a single tear slipped down my cheek. He stopped its tracks with his lips, and my willpower crumpled. I gave a shudder as I leant against him, his arms sliding around me and pulling me in tight.

“Ben, you know this is not the real me. I’m obsessive and negative and worry about everything.” His lips trailed my throat, hitching my breath. “You deserve so much more than that.”

He leant down so he could look right at me, the pressure of his body pushing me back against the tree, long, hard lines moulding against mine. “I only see the best in you,” he said, “you need to see that, too.”

I just stared at him. His face so close I could see his freckles illuminated in the moonlight. “I can’t stay away from you.”

He gave low groan as he crushed us together, his lips on mine. The moment he touched me, and the familiar sensation of his mouth slipped against mine, I knew it was right.

This morning in the cold light of day, I still know it’s right. I can’t keep fighting this chemistry between us. It is exhausting and distracting me from all other aspects of my life.

“So what does this mean?” He broke his mouth from mine to ask, and I grasped onto his face with my fingers, unwilling to let go.

This was where I went wrong nearly a month ago on Valentine’s Day when I didn’t say the things he wanted me to say.

“We are not fuck buddies.”

Okay, not the most eloquent start.

He grimaced, sheepish, and I chuckled. But then what I had to say bubbled up inside me and killed the laughter on my lips. I put a finger against his mouth. “You’re so much more to me than that. But no matter what I feel for you, or where we are in a few months, I still want you to go with the band in the summer, Ben.” I stared up into his wonderful face. “You truly are one of a kind, and you’re so damn talented. I can’t believe you haven’t made it already, and to think that you’d not, just because of me…”

He pulled my hand away from his mouth. “Lilah, why can’t I do both? Jesus, just because I’m in a band doesn’t mean I can’t have a girlfriend.” His eyes flashed but I didn’t know what it meant. “Why can’t I be with the band and do you at the same time?”

We both cracked up at his choice of words and the air in my lungs started to move a little freer.

“Because I have to do this, you know I can’t fail, can’t back out,”—I waved my hand at campus—“and you have to do your thing. I want to be with you, but I don’t want to hold you back. At the end of summer term you need to go the States for your record deal with Dave and the others, and I’ll stay here to work with Big Baz and come back to uni.”

I kissed him to soften my words a little. “This is the best choice, Be—”