His Gold ✓

28| Going out

    "You know what I mean."

      My words are low as I speak them in the library. The implications, though, are quite loud.

    Bryce squats down in front of me. His expression is dark. "Which part did I hurt you, Goldie? You mean when you left me alone in my car? Or was it when you said I'd crossed a line?"

He twists my words, causing my mouth to drop. "I said we! We crossed a line!"

and anyways...

    "That's not what this is about." I steady myself. Bryce blinks slowly.

     "It is to me."

     What? Is he-

    It hits me.

    Is Bryce *mad* at me?

    "You're angry," I suddenly understand him.

   That explains it all. He didn't speak to me when I came in. He didn't talk to the group. He disappeared and then stole my book. Here I thought I was the only one with stuff to work through from last night.

    "What?" He narrows his expression.

     "You're mad at me. Say it, you are." My eyes are wide as I gaze up at him.

    "What do you think?" He mumbles.

    "I think it's ridiculous!"

Why is he mad? It's not like I didn't let him kiss me!

     "Yeah?" He snaps, "well I don't, Caroline. I think it's pretty effing fitting that I'm upset about what happened last night. I'm not surprised you haven't given it a thought!"

    "What?"

  He can't seriously believe that.

   "You couldn't be further from correct," I shake my head, "I've been going crazy all morning!"

    He takes a step back. I continue, "I'm not even sure what happened last night. I definitely thought we could be mature about it."

    Bryce's whisper breaks as he leans towards me. "Why did you leave like that?"

    I feel my heartbeat begin to pace quicker. I shift my eyes, "Bryce-"

    "You said we crossed a line. And then you left. You left me."

   I blink up to him. His gaze is a magnet to my eyes. I still can feel his lips in my memory. My head hurts.

    "I just feel like I let my guard down when maybe I didn't have to." I purse my lips, "why did we kiss, Bryce?"

    He rubs his face in his hands.

   "Seriously," I press, "we could've just talked and kept it simple. Why did we-"

     "Caroline, I- I think we need to talk about this somewhere else." He moves his hands away from his face so that he can look at me, "if you haven't noticed, you and I seem to keep coming back to the same place to argue." He gestures to the library we're in.

He's right. What a weird coincidence.

"I'm tired of bookshelves being the only scenery."

   I agree with him. We're supposed to be working on our assignment, not having confessions on the library floor.

    "Where should we talk instead?" I ask, he perks up at my question. I continue, "It's no secret Meghan doesn't like us interacting."