Page 61 of Searching for Beautiful
Slowly, he leans forward, and I know he’s giving me time, and my heart is leaping and I want to feel his lips. This is Christian. The boy who asked me to dance. The boy I used to tell
Mom I loved. The first person who has made me feel normal since everything happened.
But I’m so scared. Scared of messing it up. Scared he’ll decide he doesn’t want me. Scared of losing him. Of getting hurt.
He gets closer and I smell his sweet, sugary scent. See his mouth and wet lips and that hair I want to touch.
See the one person besides Emery I have. The one person I can’t lose. “Wait,” I say, and Christian stops moving. He’s still close. So very, very close that his lips are only an inch away from mine. “I’m scared,” I admit.
“I won’t hurt you. ”
And I swear a part of me believes him. Maybe all of me. But how do I know if that’s the right decision or not? And kissing always leads to touching and I don’t know if I can do more with a boy ever again.
He runs his hand down my face and touches my hair. I love that he’s not nervous to do it the way I am with him, and I watch his fingers, brown against my red hair.
“Go out with me, Bryntastic. Let’s go do something this weekend. Don’t keep running. I won’t even try to kiss you again unless you tell me to. Or I’ll wait for you to do it. Just let go. Live. ”
His words are what I want. I want them so badly and they sound so perfect that it’s hard not to just scream Yes! right now. “Why?” I ask him. “Why are you so nice to me?”
I love his strength. Love that he doesn’t even hesitate before saying, “Because you were my first crush. Because I used to watch you follow your dreams with your pottery and listen to you laugh with your friends. You were happy, and I loved your smile. Because I had to work up the courage to ask you to dance and I did. Then we had to move and the one thing I missed was that smile. I watched my sister lose hers and watched my family fall apart and when I came back here? I wanted to see your smile again. Because you’re beautiful when you smile and you’ve lost it, too. I want you to conquer this because what the hell is the purpose in it all, if the first girl I ever danced with loses her smile?”
I don’t realize I’m crying until Christian wipes my tears. “You think I’m beautiful?” Mom called me beautiful. Dad called me beautiful. Jason did, too, but it had been a lie.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter unless you think you are. ”
“Hey, Brynn. I was thinking—” Dad pushes open the door to my pottery room, and Christian jumps away from me. I see Dad’s face twist. See the wheels running in his head, but all I can think of is what Christian said. Do I think I’m beautiful? Hell, what is beautiful? Not just looks, but love is beautiful, right? What Mom and Dad had. Pottery. Christian playing the guitar. Sally and Brenda. Smiles.
“What are you doing?” Dad asks.
Christian pushes to his feet and holds out his hand. Before he can introduce himself, I jump up and say, “Dad, this is Christian Medina. He’s going to stay for dinner. ”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Now
We order pizza. I’m a little embarrassed about this because it feels so cliché. Girl and Dad living alone after Mom dies and no one cooks. They order pizza.
Christian rolls with the whole dinner thing the way he rolls with everything. He doesn’t know why I asked him over. Dad does. I can see that he’s glad to officially meet Christian so he can size him up, but he’s also not happy about it. If I’m letting them get to know each other, it means I want to spend more time with him, and I don’t think Dad wants me to spend time with a boy ever again.
For my sake or the guy’s, I’m not sure.
We’re sitting at the kitchen table. The pizza just arrived, and it feels so different from when I sat at the table with Brenda and Sally. It’s much more strained, but Dad doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t notice much of anything because all he’s doing is eating and staring at Christian.
Author: Nyrae Dawn
Me, I notice that and more. It’s the first time we’ve had someone else at our dinner table in a long time. It’s three again, only the other person isn’t Mom, and it feels okay and horrible at the same time.
“You lived here when you were younger?” Dad asks Christian.
“Yeah, Dad. I told you that, remember?”
“It’s cool, Bryntastic. I can talk,” Christian says.
“I know you can talk. That’s not what I meant. ”
He doesn’t reply to that. Only looks at my dad. “Yeah. I was born here. I went to elementary school and part of middle school with Brynn. We moved during seventh grade. ”
Dad clears his throat. “That’s nice. Where did you move?” They go on and on about things that don’t matter. Things that don’t really tell him anything about Christian and are just for looks.
