Project Short: Story 4
“Just slow down for two seconds.” His voice was stern, different from his usually polite and carefully modulated tone. The way he said it, and not the words themselves, made me stop.
“What?” I asked, but the words that I had meant to come out confidently and rebelliously sounded tight and small and intimidated.
He must have been expecting me to be mad, because his face registered surprise at my cowed response.
“I…I just want to talk to you. Without you running off and pretending like you have the world to save.”
“But…”
He interrupted me. “The world can wait at least as long as I have for you.”
“What?” Seriously, was this the only word in my vocabulary? This time my response sounded bewildered. Why, oh why, and where, oh where, was my confidence and grace and strength and boundaries and carefully guarded inner world?
I looked up, and he was closer than I allowed any man to be. I stepped back, glaring the best I could.
“Would you please give me five minutes of your time? Please?”
I crossed my arms.
“Fine. But no nonsense or else you’re finished.”
“Okay. Fair enough.”
I saw him swallow, hard.
“Is it nonsense to say that I love you?”
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