Older

by Jennifer Hartmann

I loved more than I should have.

Aroace thoughts

Father didn’t love me; Mom didn’t love me enough. I guess that was why I loved too much. I had a lot of loveless holes to fill.

Realest

I was a late walker, a late talker, a late learner in so many chapters of my life.

My gaze slowly panned down his body like I was checking for weapons. But I knew well enough that a man only needed two capable hands and a sharp tongue to inflict harm. Sometimes less. A single look could do me in.

Men

“I suppose I could swim.” My back was facing him, but his voice sounded closer. “Swim to where?” “Anywhere.” I shrugged. “Everywhere.” “Mm,” he mused. “Bad night?” Bad day. Bad night. Bad life.

Acts of kindness were a far-fetched concept to me, especially when it came to the opposite gender. It was hard to imagine this man offering me a ride home with no strings attached.

Chewing on his bottom lip,

STOP IT

I think the thing I love most doesn’t really have a title. Doesn’t fit into any sort of box, you know?”

More aroace thoughts

I chewed on my cheek

STOP IT

And somehow…our toes touched. My naked, wet toes

What am I reading

I licked my lips that were sheathed in my favorite color of lipstick—Copperglow Berry.

Thanks for the useful information

five-foot-seven

Still dont know how tall this is, talk in cm pls

“Are you going to join me on the shore?” He leaned back on his palms and tipped his face skyward, squinting at the stars. “Nope. Are you going to join me in the water?” He shook his head. “No.”

“Relationships are overrated. Love is nothing but a building block for collapse. A stepping stone for tripping and stumbling into a black hole you can’t climb out of it.”

Five years old, fifteen, fifty. Doesn’t matter. Once you’re caught in the funnel, you never stop spinning out.” God, I was depressing. My black hole was a reach away from snatching him up and taking him down with me. I needed to pivot. “Do you like peanut butter?”

“So, you hate peanut butter, house parties, and love. What do you like?” “I like you.”

“You don’t know me well enough to like me.” “Yeah.” I stared at him, held his gaze. “Maybe that’s why I do.”

Real

Two strangers on a lakefront, destined for nothing. No good story ever started that way.

“You’re still wet.” His gaze flitted down my body and met with my soaked-through denim skirt that touched mid-thigh. “Hazardous side effect of sitting in a lake.

I racked my brain for more words, something to break the silence, something to keep him talking. To keep him interested in a broken, directionless girl like me.

No one had ever given me a sweet nickname before. Father called me a brat. A waste of space. A disease, a low life, a worthless nobody. Even my mom never referred to me by my first name. I wondered if maybe she’d forgotten it. But Reed had just called me Comet, and that was exactly what it’d felt like as the name soared past his lips. A bright, cosmic phenomenon lighting up my insides and colliding with my heart.

Our palms locked. Warm, tingly, transcendent. Reed didn’t realize it, but as I took his hand and he tugged me up from the ugly brown carpeting of Jay Jennings’ bedroom floor, he took my whole life in his.

I’d only been with a few guys, mostly as a way to try and siphon the poison out of my blood, but it never worked, only serving as a small comfort at the time. A short-lived purge.

dimples popped on his cheeks

And I'm going to ignore this, they dont ALWAYS have to have dimples

Hands in position, we slammed our fists to our opposite palms twice before we both shot out two fingers on three, making scissors. We tried again. Scissors. We tried again. Scissors!

Lesbianism

“No more scissors. Let’s try again.” One, two⁠— Scissors.

He’d left without a backward glance. Without a goodbye. I stood rooted in place, even though every part of me wanted to run after him, apologize, and beg him to wait for me. After all… I would only be getting older.

I was desperate to sprinkle a little magic into my life.

I fell down the stairs. We didn’t even have stairs, but what else could I say?

Reed ran his tongue along his upper lip, studying me.

No he didnt

I wasn’t sure what to say. My internal thoughts were a web of apologies, conversation starters, and more apologies. I went with something dumb. “Do you like pierogies?”

“I love them. My mother was Polish, so when I was a little kid, my Nana would make pierogies every Christmas Eve.” I blinked, catching myself. “I mean, she’s still Polish. That doesn’t ever go away.” I was rambling and we both knew it. “Anyway…she died, so it’s been a while since I’ve had pierogies.” My cheeks puffed with a full breath. “Nana died. Not my mother.” I was a mess.

Me trying to talk

Then you can help me pick out a gift,” he said. “It’s for a girl. I already got her a purse, but I felt like I needed something else…maybe a gift card?” All I heard was girl.

My heart wilted pathetically. “Okay, sure. That would be cool.” It wasn’t cool.

The food was good. My heart was lonely.

“Dad’s really cool. You’ll like him.”

Oh you have no idea

Part of me wasn’t surprised. Part of me wanted to die.

I’d never liked being in pictures, and it was a feeling I semi-regretted as I panned my gaze around the canvas-laden walls, feeling like a ghost in my own memories.

Me

Shit. This was a nightmare. She was seventeen, completely out of the question by default, and now she was the temporary foster kid of my ex—and my daughter’s new best friend. I was a serial killer in a past life.

Yes you were

And I understood. She’d probably been beaten for dropping a plate before, and the thought was like acid to my veins.

My brain was failing me. Everything was failing me.

“But…maybe it could’ve meant something. If I’d been older…and less lost.”

“Yikes. I guess I’m the romantic.” The laughter fizzled out, and Reed blinked at me before ducking his head. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.” “Feels like it is sometimes. It makes a person soft and hopeful in a world that’s hard and painful.”

“Let me help.” I scooted closer to him. “No.” Reed inched away, shaking his head. “I’m good. Not a big deal.” “Don’t be stubborn. I may be down a hand right now, but it’s an effective hand.” He glanced at my hand when I held it up and wiggled my fingers. Then I thought about those thirty seconds when that same hand was gripping his denim-sheathed erection. “For a massage,” I clarified, neck breaking out into a flush. “I used to give my Nana massages when I was younger. She said I had magic hands.” Dammit. Nothing was coming out right.

I wasn’t his daughter. Fate had made it so I’d never be his anything.

I was a shadow, not a light.

your ‘I-don’t-give-a-shit’ attitude.” “I do give a shit. I give an infinite amount of shits.”

A group of guys passed us with a whistle, one of them checking us out. Tara beamed. I scowled. The oldest guy with reddish hair puckered his lips at me and made a kissing noise, rattling off a crass comment about the way my ass looked in my jeans. “See?” Tara glowered after they’d whizzed by, sounding bummed out that she hadn’t been on the receiving end of sexual harassment.

We stood together beneath the veranda lights and half-moon, my arms dangling at my sides because I was too afraid to hold him back. Too afraid that my hands would never loosen their grip once they curled around his waist or pressed along the hard planks of his chest. I would never want to let him go.

Age of consent was beside the point. Halley was eighteen, so, legally, I could pursue her. But morally?