Book Worm

Chapter Five: To Want

"I want you" He said.

I sat there, eyes wide, lips parted, completely silent.

To want someone is like a disease you see. It's rarely curable. It's like a drug, so addictive, so lethal. To want is so dangerous, so risky because to want is easily affiliated with "to need" and "to love". But to want is all in the moment. To want is to crave the feeling that someone or something brings to you. To want sounds so desperate, yet it rolls of the tongue so effortlessly. To want. It sounds so much sexier. So much more romantic. Something we all want someone to tell us. When someone says "I love you" if you don't feel the same, you can just walk away. But if someone says "I want you" it's not as easy. You feel as if an invisible string is tied between you both. As if you're committed to them. You feel obligated to let them want you. To want is to be desired. And to be desired is to be adored. And to be adored is to be cherished. And to be cherished turns into being loved.

And that is why "to want" is so much more difficult, so much more challenging to walk away from. Because by being wanted, you have time before love and commitment are present. You only worry about the lust. During the "want" period all it is is stealing kisses and pulling of hair and the sound of buttons hitting the floor from ripped shirts. But during the "love" period, it's sweet pecks, sweet words, sweet gifts. The lust isn't gone per-say, but the excitement and the unknown is. It's all lost.

I stared at his lips, unable to speak.

"I've wanted you since the moment I saw you in class. You looked so proper, the way you crossed your legs with your toes pointed, how you'd push your glasses up further on your nose, how eager you were to get that front seat, your innocence is beautiful. You're so different than all these other girls I see here. They don't cross their legs, they wear those contacts now, some even wear colored contacts which bothers the living shit out of me because that's just so fake. I mean that's what all these girls are now a days. Fake. With their fake friends, fake smiles, fake innocence. They aren't real. Like you."

His words literally took my breath away as his lips came closer and closer to mine.

He closed his eyes, moving in, pursing his full lips.

"I can't." I panicked, pressing my body against the car door and swiftly opening it. I sprinted to the dorm entrance, leaving Chase in a daze.

***

I let my sandy blonde waves out of the bow clip and shook it out as I changed out of my school attire. I stole a glance at the clock, seven thirty on the dot. I slipped on a white flowy tank top and grey, light blue flowered leggings. I grabbed my copy of The Great Gatsby and rushed to the elevator, still in my bare feet. I didn't care about anything else but the cloudy weather outside I enjoy so much and the fact that a beautiful willow tree is right outside my dorm.

When I reached the lobby, I ran full tilt to the door, sprinting across the grass to the willow tree that looked so inviting. I sat down with my back leaning against it's tender bark and opened my book, reading the exceptional literature.

"They were sitting at either end of the couch, looking at each other as if some question had been asked, or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy's face was smeared with tears, and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.

"Oh, hello, old sport," he said, as if he hadn't seen me for years. I thought for a moment he was going to shake hands."

The words flowed effortlessly on the yellowing pages of the book. They kept me mesmerised.