Take Me With You

by Melyssa Winchester

  “Really? You don’t like a guy with a mean set of claws?”

  “Claws don’t really do it for me.”

  “What about magical cards?”

  “Those are kind of sexy, but it’s not as good as controlling the weather.”

  “Storm? If you have to choose one, you choose her?”

  The surprise in his voice makes me laugh and just like that, the sick feeling I had, it starts breaking away. He’s breaking through just the way he wanted to. The way only he can.

  “She’s badass! And her hair is sick.”

  “I like Rogue’s better.”

  “Of course you do. You a fan of Sookie Stackhouse too?”

  “What’s a Sookie?”

  If he wasn’t dead serious right now I would laugh and up until a few seconds ago, there wasn’t really anything to laugh about. He really has no idea that his precious Rogue is actually a vampire lover.

  Poor guy.

  “You don’t wanna know, trust me.”

  “If you say so.”

  Leaning my head back so I can see him, even though with how dark it is in here, it’s impossible to see him exactly the way I want, I smile weakly the minute I see that he had the same idea.

  The way he’s looking at me, his eyes so dark I can barely make them out, but his expression soft, I want him to kiss me again. It’s probably the last thing I should be thinking about right now, especially with how awkward it was the first time it happened, but I can’t help it.

  Right when I’m about to ask him to do it, he sighs and the moment is lost.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If that’s true, why are you sighing?”

  Running his hand across my cheek, feeling it shake against my skin, his nervousness in the moment sweeter than I expect it to be, he leans down and stops himself before he gives me exactly what I wanted before.

  “Will you teach me how to kiss you?”

  Nodding my head slowly, he moves closer until he presses his lips into mine. The rest of the world, the people in the theatre, my dad and even the movie fades completely into nothingness as I close my eyes and just allow myself to enjoy the way this feels.

  How right it is.

  Pulling away a little, looking at me, I smile before parting my lips, lifting my finger up and motioning for him to come back, to put his lips to mine again, but this time, in a different way.

  “Part your lips like me and then press them to mine and don’t overthink it.”

  Doing as I say, his lips part and the smallest burst of breath escapes, which just makes me want to kiss him even more. Even the small exhale of breath coming from this guy is perfect. Leaning up, I press my lips to his and before he can react, I slide my tongue out just slightly and run it across his bottom lip, a whispered moan escaping the minute my tongue makes contact.

  “Wow.” He says, his voice lower now, breathless, shattering me.

  “Yeah…wow.”

  “Do me a favor?” he asks, his voice still quiet, reactive after our kiss, the move I did with my tongue and the sound turning my insides to liquid.

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t ever stop kissing me.”

  Eric

  If we’re holding hands, sitting together with her body pressed tightly into mine, kissing and we like each other, does it mean that she’s my girlfriend?

  That’s all I’m thinking about after she kisses me, doing that little trick with her tongue, running it painstakingly slow across my bottom lip until my entire body goes numb. The only reaction a tingle from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

  I’ve never felt anything like it and even though it seems selfish and wrong, I want more. I never want to stop feeling the way I do when I’m with her. It doesn’t matter if we’re connecting through kissing or touching at all. We could just be talking and the way she is with me, the way her voice sounds when she answers me, especially when she laughs. I want to hold onto it forever.

  I also want to go out after the movies over and buy every package of gum I can find because the bubble gum scent that she has, it’s another thing I never want to lose.

  Amelia Evans has no clue what she’s doing to me. What she’s changing me into. I’m so caught up in her right now that I can barely put two thoughts together that make sense, my mind running back and forth between the way she smells, the way she looked when I got off the escalator earlier and the way she fits so perfectly in my arms.

  Really liking this girl is an understatement. I’m not sure what the heck this is, but it seems like a whole lot more than like.

  As soon as the credits start rolling, she finally moves and stretches out, completely separated from me and I swear the minute she does, it feels like something’s missing. I feel like she took parts of me with her, which just makes me wanna pull her back so I can put myself back together.

  “Thank you.” She says the minute we’re back out into the hall and just like every other time she says it to me, it stumps me. She doesn’t seem to get that she has nothing to thank me for. I feel like I’m the one that should be thanking her.

  “For what?”

  “Doing this with me. It was nice.”

  “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

  I want to ask her what this means, everything that’s happened since we got to the mall tonight, but before I can even form the words, stringing them together into a complete sentence in my mind, she beats me to the punch.

  “Can we do it again soon?”

  Her asking that is like music to my ears. I want to do it all over again right now. “Yeah. Anytime you want.”

  Flashing me the smile I like so much, we start walking down the hall toward the exit. After walking about halfway, her arm brushes up against mine and looking down I see why. Her hand, she’s slipped it around mine, our fingers now locked together. Seeing it, the way it looks to me, just makes me wonder even more if this means what I want it to mean.

  Is this her way of telling me that she’s mine?

  I can’t do this. Sit here all night questioning what all of this means because I’m such a social virgin that I don’t have the first clue how to read the most basic cue from a girl. I have to ask her, I won’t be able to settle until I do.

  When we’re safely out of the theatre, standing on the curb, waiting for the cars to pass so that we can cross across the parking lot and back into the mall, I squeeze her hand and when she looks up, I motion backward to the wall.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’m confused.”

  “About what? The movie?”

  I know she’s serious asking me that, but I can’t help it. I laugh. The very last thing I’m confused about is anything remotely related to the X-Men. If anything, that’s about the only thing that makes sense.

  “No.”

  “Eric, you’re gonna end up confusing me if you don’t just say it. What are you confused about?”

  “Us.”

  “What about us?”

  “Are we an us?”

  Standing up on her tiptoes, she places her lips to my cheek, the brief touch having the desired effect and warming me on contact.

  “What do you think?”

  “I want to be—an us.” I choke out, the damn stutter hitting at the worst possible moment and making me want to kick myself.

  I’ve seen the way people are when they speak, especially when it’s about something serious the way this is. Any break in your answer and it doesn’t seem genuine and the last thing I want her to think is that because I stupidly stuttered like always that I don’t want this or I’m in some way playing a game with her.

  “Me too.”

  “Really?”

  She smiles before leaning in and kissing my nose, whispering the same pair of words from earlier when she steps back. “Really, really.”

  It’s official. I don’t want this night to end. I’m afraid that when we both go home tonight, I’m gonna wake up in the morning and realize all of th
is was just some sick dream my mind conjured up while I was sleeping and none of it happened.

  If I wasn’t so convinced of that, I would actually find the whole thing funny.

  Amelia is my dream girl.

  “Do you need to go home?” she asks, bringing me out of my thoughts and back to the one thing that I didn’t do earlier that I should have.

  Slapping myself in the head, which just makes her grab on to me concerned, I smile weakly before attempting to explain.

  “My mom told me I could come tonight as long as I met one condition and I broke it.”

  “What was the condition?”

  “I call when I got to the mall, before the movie so that she knew I was safe.”

  “Well what are you waiting for!” she exclaims before sliding her hand into the pocket of my pants and pulling out my cell phone. A move that happens so fast I have no time whatsoever to react to the fact that she’s done it until she’s sliding her fingers across the screen and typing out a message faster than I even thought was possible.

  Handing it back to me, she smiles right before I see her cheeks flush. Apparently I’m not the only one realizing what she just did.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s really not. I don’t know what I was thinking doing that. I just…I didn’t want you getting in trouble because of me. There’s been enough of that.”

  I’m confused again. I’ve never been in trouble because of her. Up until a few weeks ago we didn’t even speak to each other so there’s no way I could have been.

  “You’ve never gotten me into trouble.”

  “Yes Eric, I have.”

  “Explain.”

  She sighs and I hate it. There’s so much about her that I like hearing, but the way she’s sighing right now, it’s not a normal sigh. It’s a sad one and there’s no way I want her being sad, especially with the way the night has been up until now.

  “I’ve done nothing but cause trouble for you since you moved here. Think about it. The names I’ve called you, the way I’ve treated you, I’ve caused you nothing but trouble.”

  It makes sense now, but it’s still wrong. I don’t feel that way at all, at least not anymore. What happened in the past has to stay in the past. I’m never going to be able to forget everything that her and her friends have done to me, but she has been forgiven.

  She was forgiven even before I knocked her down in Thompson’s office.

  Before I can tell her all of this, the way I think so that the sad look in her eyes can go away and we can get back to being happy again, my phone buzzes in my hand and looking down I see it’s my mom responding.

  It’s okay Eric. Thank you for texting me and letting me know you’re okay. I’ll see you when you get home.

  Holding the phone out to her, watching as her eyes lift as she reads the message on the screen, I smile.

  “See? No trouble. If anything, you saved me from trouble. You’re like my hero. My very own Storm.”

  Two things happen the minute I make the joke and I don’t see either one of them coming. First, tears fall from her eyes and she lowers her head so that I don’t see them, but she doesn’t realize that wiping at them is a dead giveaway. When I’m about to reach out, touch her, tell her that she doesn’t have to cry, the second thing happens.

  She moves so quickly that I can barely keep up and she’s pressing her lips to mine, not like the first time and not at all like the way she was in the theatre. Reacting to her, putting my hands on her face almost instinctively, bringing her closer, I answer her need with my own, parting my lips just the way she taught me and deepening it, until I can physically taste the bubble gum scent I love so much.

  After a few seconds of being completely caught up in her, I feel her hand on my chest and she’s breaking the contact, again taking pieces of me with her the second we’re apart.

  “I told you,” she says, her breath catching. “You wouldn’t suck at it.”

  “It’s my teacher. My storm.”

  I know it’s a risk, repeating my words from a few seconds ago but I like the way it sounds. I’ve heard other guys call their girls baby, sweetie, sexy and other names that are some way attached to their looks but for me, the last thing I focus on when I’m with her is how she looks.

  It was a joke when I called her it the first time, but with the way it sounds coming out the second time, I know it’s what my mom calls a term of endearment. She really is my storm. My phoenix. She could easily become my everything if the way I feel all torn up inside means anything.

  The tears, they’re there again and this time I need to know why.

  “Why does calling you that make you cry?”

  “If you think about it, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

  “I probably could, but I want you to tell me.”

  “It’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” She says before sighing again. “And because it’s also the most accurate name you could have called me too.”

  “How is it accurate?”

  “What is a storm Eric?”

  Not thinking that she might mean something with a deeper meaning, I give her the only answer I have. The literal definition.

  “A violent weather related disturbance in the atmosphere.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “A violent disturbance in the atmosphere, so basically a gigantic mess.”

  Seeing where she’s going with this, but not agreeing, I just shake my head.

  “Are you ever going to agree with anything I say?”

  “Not when it’s bullshit, no.”

  “Well if you didn’t mean it that way, how did you mean it?”

  “A storm for me is unpredictable, an enigma really. Something that can strike at any moment and turn everything upside down and inside out. It’s also one of the most natural and amazing things in the world.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “What?”

  “You.”

  “What about me?”

  “Just when I think you can’t say anything else that can mean more than the last thing you said, you go and do it.”

  “Do something for me.” I say, hearing what she said, her words affecting me but an idea coming into my head so quickly that if I don’t get it out now, I’m pretty sure I’ll forget it and not wanting to forget. Not when it’s something this big.

  “What?”

  “The next time there’s a thunderstorm, watch the sky when the lightning hits. Don’t go out in it or anything, but wherever you are, look up and watch it. The way one long strike can light up the entire sky.”

  “Why do you want me to do that?”

  “Because when you see it, you’ll know why you’re my storm.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Amelia

  It hasn’t rained or so much as dripped in a week.

  Three weeks ago, the shit was pouring out of the sky, pretty much turning everyone in town into drowned rats, and now, when I want the sky to explode, there’s nothing.

  That’s not the only thing that’s different this week. Time has also not been on my side. It’s moving too quickly and before I know it, it’s Sunday night and I’m preparing for the reality of going back to school tomorrow.

  Knowing it was coming, there should have been a buildup or some kind of countdown considering how sick and tired I’ve been staying home alone every day, but there was nothing. The excitement I should feel at getting a second chance to finish out my senior year, graduate with the rest of my class and actually get the hell out of this town, it’s just not there.

  The only thing that means something going back is that he’s gonna be there.

  Eric Carmen. My boyfriend.

  It doesn’t matter how much time passes, there’s just no getting used to that. Sometimes, when we’re not together, which lately hasn’t been all that often, I’ll think about everything that’s happened since I dragged Hann
ah into the bathroom and went off on her. It’s gotten so heavy, me thinking about it so much that I’m actually kind of thankful that I did it because if I didn’t do it and get caught, I know I wouldn’t be here now.

  I wouldn’t be dating this amazingly unique guy, the one doing everything he can to make me believe that I can really have a happy ending. The guy that knows all of my secrets and likes me despite it, without question, his loyalty and caring never once wavering.

  The guy I could easily fall in love with if I had the first clue what real love is.

  He’s not just my boyfriend, he’s my best friend too.

  Going back to school, I can’t shake the feeling that when I do it, it’s going to change everything. That as soon as I walk through the doors, I’ll fall back into the safety that comes with my old routine and the events of the last three weeks will complete evaporate, become nothing more than a distant memory or even cease to exist all together.

  That’s the real truth. I’m scared of going back because I don’t want anything to change.

  It took eighteen years to achieve it, but this past week has been the best of my life and for me to be able to label something the best, it’s gotta be pretty monumental. It’s a word that until Eric literally knocked me on my ass, I never thought I’d have the opportunity to use.

  He really did become my lifeline.

  ~*~*~

  “So I sketched something last night.”

  It didn’t take me long to realize that with Eric, he’s always drawing something and lately, it seems that it’s always for me, which if I’m perfectly honest, is the best thing ever. Every single one he gives me is even better than the one before it. He’s crazy talented but when I tell him that, he just blushes and tells me I’m bias.

  I guess I am, but he’s still got more talent in one finger then I have in all ten of mine.

  “What did you draw this time?”

  Unzipping his backpack and sliding a sketchbook out, he flips page after page of drawings, some he’s let me see and a whole lot that he hasn’t until he stops. Ripping the perforated pages slowly until it’s completely separate in his hands, he passes it to me.