AFTER HIGH SCHOOL

Chapter thirty three

AARON HERNANDEZ

I want to run as soon Cassandra's gaze falls on me and she withdraws.
The same fear that always gets the best of me and makes me run away from my problems, makes itself like comfortable in me as I stare back at her.

I can't talk to her.
I...can't.

But I stopped caring about myself when Lucy shoved me out of the lobby and to our rooms. I didn't understand what she did until Cassandra and I are walking upstairs to our room and it hit me.

I realize she forced us to be alone to talk so that I wouldn't run away.
It's a couple more hours till dinner and I know I can't be hidden away like a loser in my room while Cassandra faces her emotions alone.
It is now or never.

I look at her, I pause my crazy, lousy thought as we are walking upstairs, and just appreciate her.

Cassandra is a beautiful woman, she is classy and elegant at first glance but taking your time with her, her calmness and simplicity shines deeper from her. She is art without even trying hard. I hate that I am not artist because if I were, I would have loved to draw her masterpiece body on a canvas for my eyes to appreciate my whole being.

With no second thought about what I am doing, I move closer to her and hold her wrist.
I can't let this heaven-sent angel befall me from my grasp just because I was a coward who could not face my emotions.

So I spill it for her.
I serve my feelings to her on a plate.

"Maybe to not diminish your fire and light, I should just for once be an honorable man and just feel for you at a distance. Maybe...I... I should just let you go." My voice gets lower at the end sentence. They lower to almost a whisper but I know she hears them because she pulls her hand from my hold and falls to her knees, piercing my heart with her broken sob.

I feel frozen as I look down at her crying her heart out.
This is what I am to her.
A dimmed sad thing that always tears her up.

This is what I bring and looking at her scares me that I might just do the worst thing that I do not want.
But could be what is right,
Look here. See for yourself.
Misery and tears are all you bring.

But is it?

"You can not let go of me and the baby Aaron." Cassandra voices with her broken voice cutting through my thoughts.

She gets back on her feet and turns to look at me. "You need to stop being hot and cold with me. You are either in or out Aaron. You keep confusing me with your mixed signals but I can not do this anymore." She wipes her tears out of her eyes with an attitude in her action.

"Stop with the novella drama. And stop trying to be a fictional character convincing yourself to be heroic and think you are going to love me by letting me go because I promise you I am not going anywhere. I have feelings for you and you might want to cross the country to get away from me because, I am not letting you go and neither am I going anywhere. We are doing this my way and that is accepting each other's feelings. You like me Aaron, I see it and I feel it." My heart skips a beat.

She has feelings for me.
Did I just hear right? Or am I hallucinating?

She wipes the rest of her tears away and look so deep into my eyes for a moment before she attempts to turn on me and walk away.
I say attempt because I don't let her.

I lean in and crash my lips on hers.
She responds violently back because I attacked violently and in no time we are kissing one another bruising kisses.

I throw her books down and lift her from her feet, she encircles her legs around my waist. I tilt my head for a perfect angle and she does the same while cupping both of my cheeks and we both dive and devour in one another's taste.