scijessreads

Here is the next chapter from my WIP. The previous one can be found here.

---

By the time Drake pulled into the driveway, I was a pacing, nervous wreck. Moving the length of the porch and back, not even the gentle sound of the summer-slowed creek could calm me down. All the deep breathing in the world couldn’t calm me down at that point. I could admit to myself that I was spiraling. About Drake. About me. About Amy’s hurt and why I didn’t seem to have any truly deep friends, but a whole lot of decent acquaintances that I actually gave very little of myself to. My mom had panic attacks sometimes, and as my heart failed to settle into anything other than a rapid sprint, I was seriously thinking that I could be having one right now. 

Drake had barely stepped out of the car with our food when I flew down the steps, launched through the gate in the fence, and crashed into his body. I wrapped my arms around his thick middle, burrowing into his chest and gripping the back of his button-down over-shirt in my fists. He took a couple steps back at my sudden collision, and then wrapped his free arm around my neck, hand settling on the nape and pulling me close. I could hear him set the food back down on the driver’s seat, and then he put his other hand on my back, slowly dragging it up and down in a soothing motion. My glasses were smushed against his shirt, but I held on, letting his warmth seep into me. His head tipped down and I could feel the scruff on his chin as it met with my temple. 

“What’s wrong, baby?” The second I heard him call me baby, the tears started falling. He’s never called me anything other than J, short for my full name of Jade. And I had only ever called him Drake or D. This new level of sweet familiarity tipped me over the edge. All I could do was sniffle loudly and hold on tighter. He continued to run a hand up and down my spine, cradling my head and holding it to his chest and I heaved in breaths and tried not to sob. 

“I am so fucking scared, D. I don’t know what I’m doing, what we’re doing. And then Amy called earlier and said stuff that made me worry all over again about how I treat the people around me. I’m afraid I’m going to screw everything up between us, and then not only will I lose this relationship, I’ll lose the one person that means the most to me. You’re my person, you’ve become my only person, and I can’t lose that.” I say all this with my face still firmly planted in his shirt. I’m afraid to look up into his dark eyes and see what he’s thinking about us. About me. 

I could feel Drake sigh, his chest rising and falling, my rested head following along with the movement as if I were floating on a wave. His arms wrapped tightly around my waist, his heavy silver watch lending a slight pressure to the small of my back, where he clasped his wrists together, encircling me in his steady warmth. For long moments he was quiet. The only sounds were the occasional passing car through the neighborhood, and some very chatty birds in the oak trees that lined the street. We were standing in full sunlight, not having moved far from his open car door, the heat heavy over us. Drake’s lips came to rest on my head, a quick kiss pressed to my hair.

“There are never guarantees in life, J. Maybe we work, and maybe once the summer ends and we both are separated by distance, we fall away. I don’t think we will, but I can’t say for sure what our future holds. What I can say is that I want this, I want you, I want a chance for there to be an us. I want to try.”

“But, what…” 

“But nothing, J. I know what you want to say. And all of those words are bullshit. We –my feelings for you are in no way contingent on any arbitrary trait you think will turn me off. I care about you, and I would do anything to let you feel just how much you mean to me, how you’ve completely taken over my entire heart over the last year.” His hands continue to stroke down my back, petting me, and calming my nerves. 

“What did Amy say?” He asks after a few moments of silence.

I still in his arms. “She said that she and Tay are surprised we didn’t get together in high school. That you always watched me, were near me, and they didn’t know why we didn’t do anything about it.” I look up at him, unable to read the look on his face. 

“So, they all could see it and never said anything. I wonder why?” He holds my gaze. Drake’s eyes hide nothing. He feels so much. Not only his own emotions but mine too. An empath. He knows that I am this tightly bottled mess of feelings that is going to explode like a shaken can of soda the second I finally let everything go. We’re both 19, but he feels so sure. Mature and calm, an anchor in my storm. Drake is far more even-keeled than I am in navigating the tumultuous waves of emotion that keep washing over me. Over us. 

I close the sliver of space I had created between us, letting Drake fold me into his arms again. Part of my panic went beyond the obvious uncertainty I was feeling about everything. Not only was I an emotional wreck, but the idea of physical intimacy felt so foreign to me. I had never really had the crushes and infatuations and sexual desire to be with another person before. Not until I had gotten to know Drake, to feel comfortable with him. I was scared of my feelings toward him, yes, but also the unspoken expectations I felt to jump into a physical relationship now that we weren’t separated by thousands of miles. That’s what people did when they started dating, right? At least, that’s what everyone around me did. But I wasn’t wired that way. I had never had the instinct to kiss anyone before Drake. And now that I had, now that I wanted to do it again, I was still scared that he might want more than I was ready to give.