tongue tied - jake kiszka

30.

He pulled away quickly.

"Charlie..."

Fuck. I felt mortified. He hadn't wanted to kiss me. To make matters worse, I kissed him first and he was the one who pulled away. I didn't do stuff like that. I'd never kissed a man first and I'd never had one not kiss me back.

I couldn't think of anything to say. He was looking at me, his eyes wide with surprise and concern.

"Charlie," He said again, his voice low. "I don't think we should do this right now." I wiped at my eyes- eyes filled with tears that were threatening to tip right over and tumble back down my cheeks like they were only moments before.

"You're right. We shouldn't do this at all." I said, turning towards the car door to get out. His arm reached out quickly, grabbing mine. "I didn't mean it like that. I just meant- Charlie, would you listen to me?"

I was trying to pull from his grasp on me, refusing to look at him as he spoke. "Please listen to me." He pleaded with me and I let my arm go limp in his hand at the sound of his voice.

"What?" I turned to face him, but I didn't let my eyes meet his. I stared at everything, anything, but him.

I'd fucking kissed him.

And he didn't kiss me back.

"After all this time and all that talk, I thought you wanted me. And now I'm here, giving myself to you and what? You don't want me now?" I sounded pitiful and I knew it and I hated myself for it.

Why did I kiss him in the first place? I couldn't stand this kid half the time and now here I was trying to throw myself onto him.

"It's not that I don't want you." Jake said, "I just thought that after the day you had this might not be a good idea right now. You were just crying Char. I didn't want our first kiss to be like that."

"Girls cry sometimes Jake. Why does it matter?"

"We went to the cemetery today."

I glared at him, anger beginning to build up inside of me. "You wouldn't kiss me because my dad died?"

Jake let out an exasperated sigh. "I never said that! I just meant that considering the circumstances, I know that you're vulnerable and fragile right now. I didn't want to take advantage of that."

"I'm not fragile." I said coldly. "You want to treat me like I am, first with Lee, now with this. But I'm not though. I'm not some broken object that you need to be careful with."

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I turned towards the car door again and stopped for only a moment, giving him a chance to say something. When he didn't, I pushed it open and climbed out of the car.

"Charlie, wait."

I turned to look at him through the still opened door. "Please just get back in. We'll worry about your car tomorrow. It's already getting dark and you don't have a spare."

I glanced over at my Impala, struggling with what to do. I could call a tow truck and maybe get an Uber back. Or I could get in the SUV with Jake and pretend like he didn't exist.

I was already pretty good at the latter.

I got back in the car with him and he let out a sigh of relief as I shut the door behind me.

"Can you take me back to my dorm?" I asked, crossing my arms across my chest. I wasn't sure if I was being difficult or not, but I was still embarrassed and upset. And he made me feel that way.

Things would never be simple with him.

Jake nodded slowly, turning his car back on. "Tomorrow we can come back and try to figure something out with your car." He said, but I was already shaking my head.

"I'll come back and figure it out. You don't need to do anything."

"So that's it." He muttered, "After everything we talked about today, you just want to shut me out again?"

"It was a lapse of judgement. You were right, I was vulnerable and emotional. I wasn't thinking clearly." I lied right through my teeth. Right after I said it I wanted to take it back. I wanted to tell him that I was thinking clearly and that I meant every word I had said earlier. But I couldn't.

Jake and I were doomed from the start. Maybe that's me being my typical glass half empty self. But even if the glass is half full or half empty, it still runs out at some point.

I could tell that I had hurt him. He didn't say anything to me the whole ride back to my dorm. He didn't even try to say goodbye.

But neither did I.