...in 19 years.
I didn't know since when I'd been asleep, especially I was lying next to Christen Press, but I had, and it's even more terrifying after realizing I has just done that.
I cleared my throat as it was a little bit dry, and without a second thought, I turned over to surprisingly see the most beautiful face that God has ever created.
- Christen Press. - the words spontaneously slipped right out of my mouth as a whisper as soon as I saw her angelic face, which of course was out of my control.
I exhaled as I could feel her breathing through her nose and slightly blown on my face since we're quite close to each other.
She was so beautiful. Has she always been this beautiful or leaving a place that contains so many memories of us made her more beautiful?
My hand reached out to delicately brush her cheek, but it hesitated for a few seconds before it did.
- How have you been, Chris? - my voice choked up which urged tears to burst out of my eyes.
- Gosh, I missed you. I still do. I... - words stuck in my throat as I compressed my own emotion to not make a noise of agony.
- You know, Chris... - my voice became miserably shaken.
If it took a moment of being a coward to be able to tell her what I had felt for her even though she could not hear it whatsoever, I still wanna tell her what kind of life I had to live without her in my life.
I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, wiped a drop of sweat on her flawless forehead as I recalled that kind of life:
- I never have had thought I would love someone for so damn long that I remember so vaguely about the rest of my life except for spending every single second of every day of my life doing something that relates to her. In fact, breathing is considered a thing that relates to her.
Slightly brushed her cheek with my thumb, I whispered as stinging feeling attacked my nose and my eyes built up another layer of water:
- I've felt like that about you for a whole damn life. - I smiled as tears flowed out of my eyes because I am glad that it was her.
- But Chris, it's never been your fault, so please, don't blame yourself on me turning out to this way. It was my fault and it's what I deserved or deserve. And you, you deserve the world.
I took a careful look at her face to carve every detail of it onto my heart. A bright and beautiful forehead, the symmetry of her eyebrows, those thick and long black lashes that curved so perfectly without mascara, that tan skin, the way my heart pounded every time her cute nose wrinkled, her thin and kissable lips, and last but not least, her goddamn magical holes that God created deeply in her cheeks every time she smiled, them dimples always got me mesmerized whenever I saw 'em. But the strange thing was I've never intended to engrave all of those details onto my heart before this moment, however, it seemed like they have already been there for a long time. I might have sleep-carved my own heart and didn't even notice.
The next thing I acknowledged was my lips had already been on hers since God know when. I got startled by my own action and pulled back.
My God, what the fuck did I think to pull out that pervert act? That was sexual fucking harassment! I did it without her consent, and without my own consent even!!Good Lord, what was I thinking?!
It was unintentional but it was still a bad action, however I felt so alive. In fact, I wanted to try it again, and tried it a little bit longer.
- I'm sorry, Chris.
I closed my eyes as tightly as I could and courageously and intentionally stole a kiss from her for the second time. The moment my lips touched her for the second time, I knew I wanted to do wrong at least once in my life for an important reason.
I smiled into my one-sided kiss and thought to myself that I would never forget about this moment ever. I would keep it in my heart, admire it, treasure it, and remember it every once in a while as a creepy as shit but bitter sweet memory.
As I was about to pull back and would tend to act like nothing ever happened, I felt a strong force against me and pulled me back into the direction that I just moved away from. I opened my eyes to see what happened and in front of me was Christen Press's lips and mine smashing against one another, which I wasn't the one that directing the whole situation anymore.
- You started it, so be responsible for it. - the way every word escaped her mouth took my breath away.
Fuck, I love her.
- Chris... ten... - I kissed her back, with the passion that I'd been keeping all for myself since the day I started to have feelings for her.
- Tobin Heath. - she whispered huskily between our kisses.
- Don't fucking call my name, because I will do something terrible if you do. - my body began to heat up, I wanted to take my shirt off at this point because it's honestly was too hot.
- Do it, then. - she bit my lips as she ran her hand down from my waist to my back and pull me closer.
- Stop before you regret about this. - I whispered while myself was running out of breath.
- I've been waiting fifteen years just for this fucking moment. - she slipped one leg between mine and made them apart. Shen then wrapped her leg around mine and finally hooked her feet between my two ankles while her lips slid from my lips down to my neck and started to tease around my sweet spot.
- Stop, Christen Press. There are... - I closed my eyes and bit my bottom lips so hard that I thought I'd made it bleed, because she just deadass fucking slid her naughty hand down to my abdomen so suddenly.
- There are what? - it turned me on and made me wanna scream when she just casually whispered in my ear like that.
- There are people lying next to us, Jesus Christ! - I half whispered and half shouted at her reckless ass while pressing my hand against her hand that was on my abs to stop it from going any farther above.
I was angry, but was pleased at the same time.
I could feel her evil smirk somewhere around my neck, which helped me instantly sense the bad thing that she's gonna do next, so I stopped her:
- Don't fucking do it, Christen Press.
She lifted her head up to look at me while still having that devious smirk on her face, then the next thing she did was pulling my neck closer to her mouth and...
My whole body went mushy in her arms. I frowned my brows at her furiously and asked her with all the aggression that had built up inside me until that moment:
- What am I supposed to do with this fucking hickey in the morning?
- Just tell them it's dog ghost bites. - she said, then leaned in and gave me a little smooch.
- And they'll believe that? - I asked after rolled my eyes at her.
- Yeh. - she nodded shamelessly.
- I feel like a whore right now. - I spoke my true feeling to her at that moment.
I really did. I felt like shit. I felt like Vivian in Pretty Woman after Edward fucked her, made her feel all the love in the world and then had a heart to say he couldn't give her any guarantees that he would be back or share his whole life with her. I felt like I was being toyed around, especially by the woman I love the most, and it fucking killed me.
It hurt so fucking bad.
She shook her head and leaned her forehead against mine while holding my hands in hers.
- Don't. You are a Queen. - the shakes between her words made me emotional.
If we couldn't be together, then don't do this to me, or I would die, Christen Press.
- I've said it.
- Said what? - I asked.
- I love you.
I closed my eyes as she leaned in to give me another kiss on the lips.
- Holy...
Wait.
That wasn't me.
That wasn't Chris.
Who said that?
Chris and I looked at each other, then looked up at wherever the voice came from.
I don't know about Chris but the first thing I saw the person, I mean the people, my mind immediately went: "Oh shit. Oh fucking shitty shit shit shit. I'm fucking doomed."
- Did you see anything, Melvin? - Alyssa pretended that she was blind and looked away after she saw us doing the thing that we're not supposed to do in a million years.
- Nope. Not at all. - Melvin also played dumb very cooperatively.
- It's too dark in here, I guess. - Lyz will never learn that she is a shitty actress.
- Yeh, right. - Melvin followed her wife's terrible lead.
- Oh wait, do you hear what I hear?
I had to shake my head at how she acted so awkwardly by popping up a random, very random question all of a sudden.
- Yeh. - Melvin was concreted by the question because she didn't know what to react from the top of her mind, but then she finally found one after wandered her eyes around the dark room except for where Chris and I were.
- One of our little ones is crying again. - and she came up with this excuse, which wasn't all that bad.
- We better come to the rescue. - Alyssa tried to hold the play together.
- Yes. Let's go, honey. - Melvin quickly pulled Alyssa's hand, and with the speed of a thunder, they were nowhere to be seen.
We looked at each other and burst out laughing while our foreheads were leaning against each other's.
To not pull any of our friends into an awkward situation like such anymore, Chris and I took a blanket with us to lay it out on the grass in Ali's and Ashlyn's garden. We lied down next to and facing each other to only look at the way each other's eyes, nose, and lips were also doing nothing at all, without saying anything.
- Tobin, I have to... tell you something. - she broke the silence.
- No. Don't.
She was going to talk about how we would never be together. I knew it and saw it in her eyes. I just wanna pretend like everything was fine and did not give a fuck about tomorrow so just let it be like that for just a short moment and I couldn't risk to ruin it, so just let it be like this, let me live in a fantasy for just tonight.
- But it's necessary.
- I'm too old for necessity, Christen. I don't care for it, so just... just let me look at you and let's... say nothing to one another until there's something happy that pops up in one of our minds and we wanna talk about, then we'll talk about that. Uhmkay?
She nodded and slightly smiled.
- Wanna hear a fun fact? - I clicked my tongue and stupidly grinned.
- Uh huh. - Chris was interested.
- You are the first girl I've kissed in 19 years. - I bit my bottom lip because I was embarassed by it, not gonna lie.
- Yep. It's a fact. I can approve of that. - she nodded and wasn't surprised like what I expected her to be.
- I've been knowing. But thank you very much for sharing though. - she laughed at me for thinking that was something secretive.
- What?! You knew?! - I couldn't believe in my ears, that's why it was way too loud to be spoken in a quiet night like this in one of your bestfriends' garden and a lot of your other bestfriends sharing the same house with.
- Turn that damn voice down, Jesus. You said you didn't want them to hear. - she put her finger at where my lips were, which made the both of us giggled at the same time.
- Shush! - I did the same thing to her and it just made it way harder for us to compress the giggles.
The giggles fade but the smiles were still there with us. I laid my head on my own arm to look at her a little bit more carefully. She's even more beautiful under the moonlight. Jesus does bless this Earth with this woman's appearance, huh?
- The first time I looked at you, little did I knew that I would love this girl more than anything in the world. Little did I knew that life would never be the same again since you're in it.
- The first time I looked at you, I thought to myself "Wow, that girl has nice legs, I wish mine are that impressive." Not to be mean, but I just wanna punch you in the face every time you wore a pair of shorts to literally every party we're invited together. - she rolled her eyes and said it in a tiring way just like she was so sick of my behavior of choosing to wear shorts to every event in my life.
She tried to be funny again and it worked on me like magic.
- You were just jealous, Christen Press. - I chuckled.
- Yeh. I was very jealous, and you...
She gently pressed the tip of her index finger against the tip of my nose, and continued:
- You were just showing off.
- No, I was trying so hard to impress you and you didn't even notice. - I told her the truth.
- No way. - she laughed because she found it unbelievable.
- Oh, yeh. - I nodded.
- I heard it from ARod that you complemented my legs, so I thought that was your weak spot; therefore, I just kept attacking.
I was so stupid back then. But isn't that the whole point of being young? Is being stupid.
- You know what urged me to ask you out?
She then laughed and shook her head:
- Not them legs though.
I crackled.
- It was the way you treat the ball.
I shyly smiled at what she said.
- I was young and was such an idiot so I was really into that type of romance when it's like... like you love whatever you do, and I'll love you as much.
Her shy chuckles brought happiness to my heart and added sugar to my plain soul.
She hid her gorgeous face behind her hands as she got embarrassed by what she actually said out loud, which I found so pure and adorable.
- No. - I pulled her hands out of her face while not being able to stop smiling until my cheeks got hurt.
I shook my head:
- No, you were not an idiot. That was such a good line for a romantic story or truly any genres at all. You know what? Those Hollywood people should use it in one of their movies even.
- You think I should trademark it, and then will sue their ass for fun if they use this line in a movie or a series or whatever?
I love her sense of humor. I always do.
- Ok. You sue them for fun, and I will get the punish money.
- Ok, let's do that.
We laughed like today would be forever and tomorrow would never come. How I wish that would happen despite the logic of the universe.
Christen looked at the dark sky while holding my hand in hers as she revealed:
- Every time when I do something, I always look at the clock and then subtract it by 9. I did it when I first came to Paris because I missed everyone, but gradually it became a habit, or an unwholesome habit.
She softly smiled as she turned her head to look at me, who was fascinated and captivated by her wholeheartedly, happened to look at her this entire time, and never intended to look at anything else but her.
- When I have lunch, I will think about you waking up in the morning, totally annoyed by the sunlight, wanting to sleep in but can't because your crave for coffee is killing you. I sometimes just cracked up so suddenly while shoving a whole fork of salad in my mouth, or got choked on water because of remembering the face you always make when you drop your egg sandwich.
It's funny but all I could feel was pain.
She missed me that much and how dared I sit my ass here and did fucking nothing about it?
- This one time I was in a subway full of people, one person accidentally dropped ketchup on his brand-new shoes, and he acted like the whole world had collapsed, or we were all dying somehow, or the Earth had come to an end. All the pain was clearly shown on his face, he just wanted to go home and had a good cry was what I felt when I looked at him. All of what I saw on him is all of you whenever the tiniest thing happened to your beloved kicks. I swear to God I burst out laughing so loud and couldn't stop no matter how many eyes were staring at me as if I was a crazy woman and they were absolutely disgusted. I believe one of those people almost called human resources because I saw them pulling their phone out while giving me the look that people usually give a singer when they are too pitchy.
She shook her head and laughed at it so gladly because it was over.
- Hands down, that was the most embarrassing day of my entire life.
- Your most embarrassing day ain't got nothing to compare to my most embarrassing day. - I raised one of my brows proudly.
- Oh really? Let's say it and we'll be the judge of it then. - she was being all competitive and challenging me.
- So this one time I went shopping by myself because it's holiday season so Megan and Sky took Kai went visit Rachael and her wife in Miami, and Ash and Ali went to visit Kyle in Orlando.
She was about to laugh at how uncool I was for being this lonely old ass lady that only have four friends to hang out with, however held it in respectfully.
- My stomach suddenly fought battles and battles in there with the food that I ate at lunch, so I had to go poop in the mall's toilet. Because it was an emergency, I just quickly entered a random cubicle and freed myself. I didn't check how much toilet paper it had left like I usually do, so...
I looked at how her face brightened up, so I rolled my eyes at the unnecessary happiness on her face.
- You know where this is going, right?
- Uh huh. - she crackled and showed all the interest in the world to my smelly story.
- So after finished, I searched for the toilet paper with the satisfaction on my face since I'd freed myself so thoroughly. When I called for help, no one was in the restroom except me. After sitting in their for half of a hour waiting, I couldn't wait anymore and decided to pull my pants up and then bend over to hopeful get the least amount of shit on my clothes as possible. And as I was walking weird from my cubicle to another cubicle with no one watching, there was suddenly a lady stepped inside and saw me standing and walking in that posture, she walked right out without a word or a second look even.
- She walked right out on you?
- Yeh.
- Oh my God, that's hilarious.
- That's it. That was the shittiest moment of my life. Thanks for listening.
- The shitty crown is yours.
She just mocked me, didn't she?
- My God, that's hilarious. You should write a book just for that part.
- Stop it already, Christen Press. - I squinted my eyes at her to show just how unbothered I was.
- What else did you think of, Christen Press?
- About you loving on someone that's not me, holding her hands, laughing at her lame jokes, smiling over everything she said, eating her food, sharing the same cup as her, saying you love her every day. It fucking annoyed me deadly, I desperately wanna kill that imaginary girlfriend of yours so so badly so many times, you have no idea.
- You're stupid, you know that? I would never ever ever love anyone besides you. - I rubbed her head as I was weirdly satisfied with how childish her jealousy was.
- What about you? What do you do when you miss me? - she asked.
- I uhm... do chores. When I run out of chores, I paint the walls, or build stuff around the house.
- Paint the walls? - she frowned curiously.
- Yeh. The walls at my house are like 78-layer- thick. Also, Alyssa helped me build a doghouse and I don't even have a dog. Actually, there are three of them doghouses that we have built. She and I also built a child-play house together which is nice when I have nieces and nephews over. We built a few bookshelves as well, but Pinoe has thrown all the books out and uses them for her shoes collection instead. - I rolled my eyes at how Pinoe's lame ass.
- That little shit even forced me to not tell Sky that they were hers, because Sky would chop her head off if she knows Pinoe doesn't stop buying shit. I also have a garden so Pinoe and Sky helped me with that, because the Rapinoes loooooooves gardening. Sky buys small trees over all the time because her garden isn't that spacious so she takes advantage of mine instead.
Chris kinda nodded and smiled. She was jealous even. She honestly had missed a lot of fun stuff here. It's all because of me, it's all my fault, so I would have to do a lot of things to help her catch up.
- So you've been taken advantage of while I wasn't here?
- Yeh. They bullied me so badly. - I faked crying which made Chris laugh.
And by bully, I mean they love me and take care of me while depression hit me brutally.
- So what do you do when you miss me? - I kinda asked her in a teasing way.
- Nothing. - she flattened her lips.
- Huh? - I opened my mouth slightly as I lowkey was hurt.
- Or maybe one thing. - she looked over my shoulder as she said in a much lower tone.
- What is it? - I whispered.
- Look through our team's photo book with Heather. - she responded smilingly.
- But Heather told me you guys do that everyday. - I said.
She smiled under her breath as she was wanting to tell me to stop being a fool.
- I missed you every day.
- Even before Heather was born, I still looked through those only pictures that I have of you every single day, because if someone saw me while I was doing it, I wouldn't be misunderstood for owning them because there are other teammates in those pictures as well, so that makes them appropriate, and... I was by myself missing you every single day.
I didn't miss her enough. How dared I not miss her enough when she was out of her mind missing me in a fucking foreign country all by herself and a husband that she didn't even love? How dared I try to distract myself from missing her since it was such an honor and privilege to be in pain for her? How dared I only paint 78 layers of paint on my walls when I could definitely do more than that.
- I will miss you every day until the day I die. I will miss you every second of every minute. I will miss you even when I have Alzheimer's and can't remember a thing, because I believe that I will still miss you like a habit.
She burst out chuckling and asked:
- You're feeling bad because you think I missed you more than you missed me, don't you?
I nodded, scooped myself closer to her and buried my face in her neck. I hugged her back as she wrapped her arms around me and gently caressed the back of my neck.
- It's ok, Tobin. As long as you missed me, I'm grateful.
My heart almost exploded as it understood that it didn't deserve such a perfect woman like her.
- Can I ask you something personal? - she asked.
- Yeh.
- What did you tell Ben at the end of the ceremony before you left?
- Uhm... I told him... to not break your heart... like I did.
- ...
- No, he didn't know anything farther. I did immediately leave right after.
- It's ok, Tobin. I don't mind, so go easy on yourself, ok?
- Did he treat you well? Because I needed him to treat you like a Queen that you are.
- He treated me like an equal life partner as he should. But I don't feel anything about him, so to be honest I don't really weight how much he cared about me all these years. And I also crushed his heart shattered, so I obviously didn't deserve it anyway. - she softly smirked along with a sigh that even Chris herself couldn't sense its spontaneous existence.
- You really didn't love him at all?
- I love him as Heather's father and I think that's everything I can offer.
- I feel like I owe him everything, Chris.
- No, you don't. I hurt him, I lied to him, I set the marriage into this big lie out of my own childish rage just because I couldn't be with the person I truly loved, so I am the debtor, it got nothing to do with you, Tobin. Don't feel bad about yourself. Ok?
- Ok. - I promised her through a whisper.
Christen stared at me for a long while before she broke the comfortable silence between us:
- What am I to you?
My lips allowed a smile crack them open as there was one special word that popped up on my mind:
- Everything.
I continued as my nose started to get stingy:
- You're everything, everything that keeps me alive.
She beautifully smiled, then softly told me:
- And you're everything that pushed me to prove to myself that I deserve to be Heather's mom but not a foreigner ghost in Paris.
It's a sad thing to say but I laughed because she was funny to me, and I laughed to celebrate this one time that I was genuinely happy since a long time I had not.
- There were so many times that I was so close to giving up on everything, including my own daughter. I just hated myself so much.
I wiped a drop of tears that just escaped her right eye, and it killed me badly seeing her being vulnerable like this.
- You know, I used to hate myself for loving a coward.
I nodded, tried my heart out to fight back the tears that I didn't deserve to shred.
- But not anymore, because loving that coward has actually given me a reason to be alive.
The way she smiled so brightly when she showed how proud she was to love on one useless lesbian like me.
- And also, being attracted to bad things is just one of the human's tendencies. - she laughed about herself.
She was so cute.
She was supposed to have everything she wanted at whatever moment she wanted. She had always deserved the world but instead of offering her everything that she deserved, I ruined it.
- Like French fries? - I joked while trying to hold myself together.
- Like French fries. - she nodded after a sniffle as her nose started to run.
I pulled her head towards me so delicately and placed a long kiss against her beautiful forehead. It was supposed to last a bit longer in my mind but I suddenly got pushed by her.
I opened my eyes widely as I was surprised by her action.
- Why didn't you come to say goodbye on the day I left?
She pulled out that childish facial expression that only she has which I couldn't help but laughed at.
God witness this, I fucking love this woman so much. Please!
I softly smiled and pinched her face.
- I did. - I told her.
- You were there? - she was flabbergasted.
- Yes. - I nodded.
I thought it was just a small piece of our past and she probably had gotten over it for a long time, until the emotions in her eyes switched so fast which made me scared shitless. As if it wasn't enough, Christen Press's tears started to stream out of those gorgeous eyes.
- Christen... - I didn't know what to do for her or for myself, but only dumbly stared at her crying self instead.
- I was waiting for you. - she said through layers and layers of tears.
- I almost missed the fucking flight because I pretended that I had to go to the toilet so many times to procrastinate. I didn't wanna check in because I wanted to see you for the last time.
Finally my limbs started to move as my instinct urged them to hug her and comfort her.
I thought Chris was gonna shove me off of her but she immediately hugged me back and even dug her fingers in my back.
What had I done to this woman?
She had never ever cried this much and showed her vulnerability this transparently.
What the fuck had I broken her into this miserable but still beautiful because she's Christen Annemarrie Press kind of mess?
- I was afraid of not being able to let you go. I was afraid of being the kind of person that I hate the most, the kind of person that holds back someone from their willing to escape and free themselves.
Forced her face into my chest, hugged her so tightly with everything of a woman that I am to provide her warmth and the feeling of trusting and being trusted.
- Being a coward until the end. - she punched my back but refused to let me go.
Every word of hers came across my chest, right through my heart. I have never been shot but why did it feel like this moment was as close as that, because I don't think there will be another kind of pain that is more hurtful than this?
I wanted to loosen my embrace on her because I thought she couldn't breathe properly while burying her face into my chest, but the second I was going to do that, she pulled me back which crashed her face into my chest and it was just enough to make me smile.
- I know. - I rubbed her back in circles to comfort her tender self.
- You may not know this but I hate you so much, and I even hate us more. And I will forever until the day I don't walk on this Earth surface anymore.
We had never been "us" and she knew that. What she wanna say was she hated me but she hated herself more because she was included in "us."
The pain that this woman had to suffer without anyone sharing it with her, while I was here trying to prove to myself that I was the miserable one but having Pinoe, Skylar, Ali, Alyssa and everyone else for myself.
- Do whatever you feel right, Chris. - I kissed her neck and felt her body shook under my touch.
- I hate how none of us fought for each other. - she literally breathed out every single word at this point as the tears took all her strength away.
- I hate how I was just giving all of mine to challenge your patience instead of just telling you for the second time that I loved you.
I could feel the self-blaming energy from her as her fingers dug deeper in my back, so kissed her head and whispered to the woman that had almost been mine "You're ok, Chris. We're ok."
- I hate that I didn't have a heart to lose my pride for us but expected you to do the same.
- Chris, please. - my voice started to shake as I couldn't hold in the tears any longer.
But she seemed like she didn't wanna listen to me, because she continued to rip my heart in pieces with the same method as she did just a few seconds earlier:
- I hate that I hated you as much as I hated myself.
- I'm sorry, Chris. I owe you. I-
The way I couldn't continue my sentence because the tears had flooded the rest of it to somewhere so far that my brain wasn't able to chase after.
- Tobin, I hate us.
She then bit my chest so hard out of frustration that she had been carrying around for years and finally had a chance to take a revenge back at me.
- Ouch. - I slightly groaned and it was just 0.1% of me that whined because the rest of my potential was biting on my bottom lip to endure the sudden sharp pain that she physically caused.
Fuck! That hurt.
- Come on, boobs are for the s word, not the b word.
- Shut up!. - I felt a shy smile down there around my chest level after that slap straight on my back that almost caused me lungs damage.
I smiled that I finally could make her smile.
- But I love us, I've always.
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