Fight or Flight

No more Christmas in the sun.

I wanted snow.

I even used to ask Santa for it when I wrote him letters back when I believed in him. It sucks that he isn’t real, I moped. If he was real, and I was wishing for things, I’d ask him to abduct my parents and replace them with the kind that remembered parent evenings and taking me to dental appointments and, you know, feeding me and stuff. I started cooking my own meals at the age of seven.

A creak of the floorboards outside my room made me tense.

My pulse started racing so hard I struggled to hear anything over the whooshing in my ears. I saw my door handle turn. I saw the door open and the crack of light that spilled into my dark room.

Goose bumps erupted all down my arms and spine as a tall masculine figure stepped into the room, his head turned toward my bed. I couldn’t make him out in the dark, but I knew it wasn’t my dad. He was too tall.

Seeing I wasn’t in my bed, the man turned his head toward me and he grew still at the sight of me on the chair. After a moment’s hesitation, he closed my bedroom door behind him and then began unbuckling his belt.

Instinct made me jump up and lunge for the patio door. I was running barefoot across the backyard and climbing the stone wall into our neighbor Mrs. Munro’s backyard before I could even think about what was happening.

Tears burned in my eyes as I ran in my pajama shorts and tank, heading toward Nick’s house three blocks away. The streets were quiet, empty, as I ran faster than I did in my tryout for the cross-country team.

By the time I climbed the fence into Nick’s backyard, my tank was damp with sweat, my feet stung, and I was shaking so hard my teeth chittered together. I grabbed a pebble from the multitude of pebbles that made up Nick’s mom’s patterned landscaping, and I threw it gently up at Nick’s bedroom window. He didn’t hear it, so I threw another.

I saw his light come on and then his head appeared at the window.

Nick pushed it open. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Lately, ever since joining JV football, Nick had taken to half-nakedness. I was used to nakedness à la my moronic parents. But not Nick’s nakedness. And even though he was only a year older than me, he looked older than that. He had just sprouted this last year and filled out too. When he first moved on to high school without me and Gem, I thought he’d forget us, think of us as babies.

But he didn’t.

I put it down to history.

It had been the three of us since preschool. Even though he had guy friends, including his best friend, Judd, he still hung out with me and Gem.

“Ava?” he whisper-shouted, squinting at me under the moonlight.

“It’s me,” I acknowledged, my voice trembling.

He must have heard it, because he instantly disappeared and a few minutes later the French doors in the kitchen opened. Nick rushed out to me in a T-shirt and long shorts, as tall as my dad at five foot eleven already and still growing.

“What happened?” He took hold of my arms, concern in his soulful dark eyes.

And without meaning to and completely mortified, I burst into tears.

Nick enfolded me in his arms, his voice shaking as he said, “Now I’m really worried. Talk to me.”

I managed to calm, scared I’d wake his parents and have to explain why I was there in the middle of the night crying my eyes out. And then I whispered what happened. Nick’s hold on me tightened.

“He didn’t touch you, though?” He bit out.

I shook my head. “I got out of there.”

Gently prying me from his chest, Nick gave me a severe look, seeming so much more like a man than a boy in that moment. “We have to tell my parents.”

“No,” I whisper-shouted. “Nick, no, please. I don’t … I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, okay? My parents won’t care anyway.”

“If they won’t care about that, then they won’t care if you live here instead.”

“Your parents will never go for that and … look … I don’t want anyone knowing, okay? I don’t want to be the girl whose parents let a pervert into the house.”

We had a staring match. Something he and I had gotten good at from the age of four.

I always won.

With a heavy sigh, Nick kept a strong arm around me and led me toward the house. “Fine. But I’m putting a lock on your bedroom door. And anytime your parents say they’re having a party, you either stay here with me or stay with Gem, okay?”

I nodded in agreement, relief flooding me that I didn’t have to go home.

“You can sleep in the guest room.”

I grabbed his hand, not wanting to be alone. “Can’t I stay with you?”

He paused at the French doors, seeming to ponder it. Then he nodded. “But we have to be quiet.”

We tiptoed upstairs and down the creaky hall toward his bedroom, the smell of boy hitting me as soon as I walked in. It was a little musty and sweaty, but I didn’t care. I felt safe here with him.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Nick whispered.

I eyed his bed, which was definitely big enough for us both. We’d shared a bed before—not in a while, but still. “We can share.” More than comfortable around him and his stuff, I hopped up onto the bed and relaxed back against his pillows. I was so happy to be away from home and with someone I could trust. Still, my insides felt shaky and I couldn’t stop shivering. I wanted Nick near me to help abate the feeling.

My best friend, however, stood across the room and stared at me.

He seemed … uncertain.

“What’s going on?” I whispered, leaning forward. Uneasiness crept over me and I wondered if Nick was secretly sick of having me and Gem around. Was having me infiltrate his space, like, the last straw or something? “Nick?”

“You’re in my bed,” he whispered.

“Technically, I’m on it,” I joked stupidly, wanting to defuse the sudden tension between us.

Finally, he took a few steps toward me, and the chill the strange man had put in my blood suddenly dissipated under a wave of warmth. My cheeks grew flushed and my palms sweaty and I didn’t know why. Except … except Nick was looking at me … differently.

Like a boy looks at a girl.

“Oh.” I tensed in realization.

Nick threw me a lazy, almost shy, self-deprecating smile. “Yeah. Oh. I, um … I shouldn’t get on the bed with you.”

“Since when?” My breathing sounded a little funny. It felt funny too. Like I couldn’t quite catch a complete breath.

His eyes pinned me to the spot and he seemed so nervous I wanted to hug him. He swallowed hard. “Since a while.” He exhaled. Shakily, making the butterflies in my stomach spread their wings and come to life again. “I … I love you, Ava. And not like how I love Gem. I don’t want to kiss Gem.”

Wow.

Oh my God.

How did this night turn from the worst night ever to … well, kind of freaking epic?

I stared at him in total shock.

Nick was always the “boy next door,” but lately I knew my feelings toward him had been changing. I just wasn’t brave enough to admit it like he was. And I never, ever thought he would feel the same way back.

It wasn’t like I didn’t get asked out, and I’d been on a few dates. I’d even dated Michael Crawley in the seventh grade for eight months. But this was Nick. I never imagined Nick could love me romantically.

“What if I’m glad?” I whispered, my heart racing. “What if I love you too?” And I did. He was Nick. My protector and my best friend.

His eyes widened ever so slightly and then he rounded the bed, getting onto it beside me. I turned into him and he reached out to tentatively cup my cheek in his hand.

“It’s okay.” I sighed, nuzzling into his touch, amazed how the ugly shivers from a mere few minutes ago had transformed into excited trembling. “You can kiss me.”

When he did, it was the sweetest, softest kiss I’d ever been given. Boys usually just stuck their tongue in my mouth, wiggled it around a bit, and then grinned smugly like they’d accomplished something great instead of something yuck.

Not Nick.

My best friend could kiss.