I tried to read White Fang on the way back to Halsey, trying to sink into the story I’d read a billion times over and get caught up in Kiche and One-Eye and the awesome White Fang himself. I failed miserably. My mind was too tangled in knots, life spinning around through so much of it, and I shouldn’t be thinking about that corridor conversation in the slightest, but I was.
My mother really likes elephants.
I wondered what his mum was like. I wondered if she looked like him, with the same dark eyes and awesome cheekbones, and if she read books too.
It was a whole new load of wondering on top of wondering if this whole flutter of want I had for him was a hope about nothing that could ever be. Because that’s what it was. Want. I wanted him. I wanted him so bad I couldn’t stop thinking about him in bed at night, especially not now Liam was gone.
Last night had been quite… intense… in a bed on my own…
The whole what if thing was weird for me, because some little part of me felt I already had the answers, whispering in the shadows. I knew nothing about Dr Hall’s life, but that didn’t stop these whispers tickling deep. It was barely conscious, and based on nothing sane at all, but somehow I knew this wasn’t completely crazy, and this wasn’t just me being a crazy girl with crazy dreams, going crazy over a man I didn’t know. Because if I wasn’t supposed to know him, I wouldn’t be walking into a life with him in it every single day, right through the day.
Most people would say I was out of my mind.
Maybe I was.
It didn’t stop me smiling all the way home, though. It didn’t stop the bounce in my step all along Bridge Street and across my parents’ front lawn, even though my feet were grumbling all the way. It didn’t stop the smile on my face as I sat down at the dinner table, with Beano wagging his tail at my feet, and talked about my day with Mum and Dad, and asked about theirs right back.
They’d had good ones, just like me.
I got in bed that night and tried reading White Fang again. I failed. Again.
I settled down to sleep, trying to get an early night for once in my life, but failing at that too.
I pictured him. Dr Hall with his deep, dark eyes, and that beautiful smile – even though it only showed in flashes. I pictured his hands on novel covers, his fingers flicking the pages, and I couldn’t help myself… my own fingers slipped their way under the covers, until I felt how hot I was. How wet I was…
Want.
I wanted to step closer and feel him up close, too close to be cold. I wanted to feel his breaths on my face, lips too close not to kiss.
I wanted his fingers teasing their way up my thighs, gentle enough to drive me wild. Not like Liam and his rubbing without care.
Oh, how I wished the fingers between my legs belonged to the stranger on the train and not to me tonight. My circles were tight and fast, teasing my clit just right. My breaths were tight and fast to match, quiet as could be with my parents asleep just through the wall.
He was right there in my mind, up too close to ever ignore. Everything about him was right there calling deep, so hungry to taste.
I came for him, but this time there was no shuffle under the covers to make sure Liam didn’t stir. This time I was free to ride the explosion all the way, and then to starfish and catch my breath and stare at the ceiling.
Please, universe. Please one day make this crazy girl crazy happy and get me up close to Dr Hall. Just for a minute. Just to feel him against me one little time.
I believed in the universe. I believed in how it sprinkles the right amount of life and lessons into your path ahead, and had done since I was old enough to believe in unicorns and wizards, and gnomes defending their secret kingdoms from evil frogs. Only the belief in the universe had never failed me. Never shrivelled up to nothing, scoffed at by everyone around until I realised there was no fairy tale world hiding away amongst our own.
No. I’d never been sold out by fate. I believed in the universe with every part of my soul.
It was just a shame I didn’t believe in myself to match.
I rolled onto my side and pulled my knees up to my chest, and I felt that horrible little lurch in my heart. The one that could never imagine a man like Dr Hall feeling that amount of want for a girl like me.