forget-me-not, neil

Everything just feels so right

I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, having just ran for my life away from Neil, when the door swings open, and who enters but Neil fucking Perry. He looks at me, then at his hand still on the door knob, then back at me. He closes the door, and slowly advances to his bed, where he sits directly across from me. He shifts, then places his hands under his thighs, then brings them up to his head, grabs a handful of hair, and huffs. I want to say something to him, but I can't think of a single sane thing to say. Neil is the first to break the silence.

"I thought I'd made it pretty clear, you know, about how I felt?" he stands up suddenly, taking a step closer to me. "I guess-, I guess I thought it was mutual, maybe?"

"It is, Neil. And I think you know that."

"I don't think I really know anything any more."

"Neil please, just listen-"

"Then what's going on, Todd?" I stand up so we're face to face.

"I'm afraid Neil, all right? I'm scared."

"Scared of what? Scared of me? Scared that I would hurt you or something?"

"That they would hurt us."

"Todd, what are you talking a-"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about Neil, you know what they'd think about a-, about a thing like this." I wave my hands between us, trying frantically to get it across to him.

"But they might not,"

"But they would!"

"You don't know that!"

"Yes I do, Neil! Do you really think I fell off my bike?" I say pointing at my almost healed black eye. "This," I wave my hands back and forth again, "This isn't normal, okay, this isn't something we should even be talking about, God, I can't believe I'm even talking about this." I turn away and walk towards the radiator, shoving my face into my hands and griping onto my hair tight, hoping that maybe if I squeeze hard enough, Neil will just go away, and it'll be like this never happened. But my hopes are short lived.

"We shouldn't be talking about this? Or you don't want to talk about this. Because I'm starting to get the feeling that we want different things, Anderson." I turn back to face him.

"Neil, you have no idea what I want. What I've wanted. But it just can't happen, okay. It can't, an- and it never will, and you just need to accept that."

"No."

I look up, and am met with Neil's intense stare, crossed with the slightest hint of a smirk.

"What do you mean,'no'."

His slight smirk grows into his stupid grin he gets. That stupid, beautiful grin. "No." he repeats, and before I know it, he reaches out to grab a fist full of my sweater and pulls me towards him. With the other hand, he catches my cheek and connects his lips to mine. And suddenly, I don't feel so weighed down anymore, it's like all those butterflies that have been tearing apart my stomach lining for weeks, have all just migrated. He pulls away, and takes a step back, eyes low like he's realized he's done something he wasn't supposed to do. However I fill the space he just made, grab his cheeks and kiss him back. He wraps his arms around me in response, and we're just standing there, holding each other, in our room, kissing, and everything just feels so right.