Well, Actually

by Mazey Eddings

“I just didn’t know you could read,” I reply sweetly. “Lea Michele is shaking.”

I legit screamed.

“You think my glasses are slutty?” he says, smile huge and voice hopeful. “We both know your glasses are slutty,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Men don’t pick tortoiseshell frames like that without being a little bit of a ho.”

Being an angry crier is the world’s greatest curse.

“I like listening to you. I like never knowing what out-of-pocket thing you’re going to say next. I like hearing about your ideas and your thoughts and then reading how you piece them together. I like that you’re a little bit feral and that sometimes you let me get away with teasing you.”

“I’m here to check on you, you contrarian witch. I’m here to see if you’re okay.”

“Listen to me,” he says, voice low and leaving no room for argument. “For once in your goddamn life, listen to me. This was never a stunt for me, Eva.” His eyes flash with anger. “Never. You were never a stunt. Why can’t you get it through your thick skull that I fucking like you? Not past tense. Present. I liked you then, and, despite the desperate pleading of my sanity and your every attempt to push me away, I like you now. All of this is because I want to know you, be around you. Because I fucked it up once and I saw a second chance. Because now I’m so deep in this I would crawl through hell on my hands and knees over a bed of broken glass before I let you go again.”

“Eva, I’m an idiot with an alarmingly extensive ironic crewneck collection and a denim comforter. There is literally nothing you could say that would drop you down to my league. I want you contrarian and difficult and keeping me on my toes. I want your sour moods just as much as I want your sunny ones. I’m not asking you to change. You can call me any name you want, as long as I can call you mine.”

I reach for him with the grabby hands of a toddler within seconds.

I legit do this - so I cackled.