Maybe In Another Life

Chapter 22

"Soren Masalis!" Mavis exclaims, leaning forward in her seat. "I don't believe you." She whispers through a seductive smile.

He gulps, staring into her brown and blue eyes.

"Hmm, that sounds like a you problem." He taunts her after regaining his composure.

"Are you saying you kissed me out of will, and not just to shut me up?" She raises an inquisitive eyebrow at him.

"Is this your forth question?" He smirks watching her falter at the mention of the 21 questions.

"You sleazy bastard. Yes it is." She challenges.

"Maybe I did. Would that be hard to believe?"

Their flirtatious banter settles and a seriousness replaces it.

"You're just fooling with me." Mavis waves him off, her smile long gone.

"Do you think so poorly of me?" He inquires.

"No but you do, so I find it awfully hard to believe you'd kiss me because you wanted to." Her voice was void of emotion, which sends a pang to Soren's chest.

He'd said mean things to her in the past. It was dumb of him to assume this would end well.

"I'm sorry for what I've said and done. It wasn't fair of me to give you mixed signals." Soren exhaled.

"So was it or was it not voluntary?" She deadpans.

"I don't know. It was spontaneous." He excuses.

"Okay then one last question." Mavis says standing up, and though she didn't portray what she felt, Soren could tell she was offended.

"How did it feel to you?"

He had pondered over that question ever since the kiss happened. Dissecting what he felt. Trying to make sense of it. After a while he thought he'd finally understood the sensations, but now that she was right before him, he wasn't so sure anymore.

"It felt forbidden. Electric, but I'm not sure it was the type of electric others describe. It was like two magnets of the same pole forced close to one another, but there'd always be this resistance that would repel them, keep them apart, if that makes sense."

"It was in a sense thrilling wasn't it? Shocking, I don't think any of us was prepared. Sort of like it wasn't meant to happen." Mavis softly falls back into her seat, turning over the words he'd said.

But there's always this resistance that would repel them, keep them apart.

Their confessions sent them into a world of contemplation, both pondering over the unspoken feelings coursing through them.

"Soren do you believe in love and relationships?" Mavis was the first to break the silence.

He looks up at her stunned, but the conflicted look on her face and the furrow of her eyebrows reassured him she wasn't trying to proclaim her love to him.

"I think I do... believe in love. Relationships I'm sure I do, but just not now. Teenage relationships are a waste of time, they are almost never successful and more of a show off than an emotionally bonding experience." He voices his never before admitted thoughts to her. "Do you?"

Mavis vehemently shakes her head no.

"Why not?" He asks, then immediately regrets his stupid question.

Mavis only chuckles dryly.

"Well, my father once claimed to love my mother too. We all know how that turned out." She says.

"I can't begin to understand what you're feeling, but I can see where you're coming from. A lot of bad things happen in this world, and people live in a-lot of fear. If we hold on to other people's experiences and live in their fears though, we won't have room to live our own. You don't see people giving up driving because someone close to them got in a car crash. Thousands die in accidents, yet millions continue to drive. One individual's experience doesn't define all others'."

Mavis listens to Soren speak, choosing his words carefully. She's never heard him say so much at once. She was baffled by his rawness, and by the fact that they were having an actual conversation. She'd never thought this would happen, but it is happening.

A weird sensation settled in her stomach.

"Can we try again?" She blurts out in a hurry before she could change her mind.

"Try what again?"

"Try it again... to see if it would feel as forbidden and wrong as it did the first time."
Her confidence wavers under his bewildered gaze.

The answer that came was not the one she'd expected.

He nodded. Slowly.

"Let's try it again."