Fall from Love

Since I’m not ready to cross that line with him just yet, or at least I don’t think I am, I just settle on being with him.
    “So, I thought we could compromise,” Carter says as I throw my purse in the chair beside the couch. “I’ve picked out four movies, kind of a mix between chick flick and action... and I’ll let you choose which one to watch.”
    “That wasn’t our deal,” I say, shaking my head and smiling.
    The left side of his mouth lifts. “I said it was a compromise.”
    Glancing down to the table, I see his four choices laid out. “Hmmm... I don’t know about this. Die Hard one through four? How are those, at all, chick flicks?”
    “Hey, there’s some romance in them,” he argues.
    I’m just giving him a hard time. The truth is that it could have been any movie, another zombie flick even, and I wouldn’t have cared. I just want to be with him.
     
    CARTER
    Holly falls asleep about halfway through the movie with her head against the couch, knees curled up towards her chest and her hair falling across her face. When she falls asleep, it’s about the same time that I stop watching the movie, too.
    I’ve been watching her for the past hour, leaning back at an angle on the couch, studying her lips, watching her eyes flutter every few seconds and her chest rise and fall. As hard as I try, I can’t take my eyes off her. It’s a little bit of a creepy thing to do, but she looks peaceful and content; I’m not sure why, but it gives me peace, too. I’ve always thought she’s hot, though right now is the first time I see that she’s more than that, she’s beautiful.
    Her whole body jerks and, for a second, I think she’s going to wake up, ruining my tiny bit of peace. I relax when she licks her lips and starts her rhythmic breathing again. I want more time to watch her; I want just a few more minutes of peace.
    Then she does something that I don’t expect, but I kind of like. Okay, that’s a lie. I really, really like. Her body shifts and she stretches out her legs before slowly falling towards me. The sweetest and softest moan escapes her lips as she stops with her head on my chest. For a long minute, I can’t breathe and I don’t want to move because I’m afraid that I’ll wake her. Now, I feel even more like a weirdo staring at her. Now that she’s so close to me, I find myself smelling her hair and inhaling her sweet scent.
    It’s too much for me to resist and my hand raises up to lightly brush her face, slowly tracing her lips. Having her like this, similar to the night after the Halloween party, sadly brings me back to the first time I held her in my arms. The night at the hospital when I told her about Adam. In all of my twenty-two years of life I’ve never seen or felt so much pain as I had that night.
    After my brother died, it was my dad and I who held my mother and sister at his funeral. When Dad passed away last spring, I was left holding both my mother and sister all by myself. Even then, I had never felt so much pain as I had that night with Holly. It could have been magnified with the guilt I was feeling, but the pain was so horrible it felt like she was tearing my heart right out of my chest.
    Tonight is different. Just like the night after the Halloween party—when she asked me to stay with her and I held her—it was one of the best feelings of my life because, that night, there was no pain, no tears, no sadness.
    The minutes pass and I continue to stare at her until my eyes feel heavy. Even though my back is starting to ache at the angle that I’m sitting in and my left arm is starting to fall asleep, I don’t move since I’m scared of disturbing her. I’d lie like this forever if I had to.
    The next thing I remember is seeing a bright light spilling in through the living room window. When I open my eyes, I see Holly still lying across my chest, still fast asleep. Without trying to wake her, I move just a little and feel a familiar pain shoot up through my lower back. Damn couch . I really think Josh has a point; we should totally burn this thing. A few moments later Holly finally stirs and, when she opens her eyes, confusion is spread out across her face.
    “Morning,” I say, smiling at her.
    “What? I fell asleep over here?” she asks, looking around.
    “Yeah, when we were watching a movie.”
    “Did you say morning? Morning!” she screams and pushes herself up off my chest. “Oh, my God, what time is it?” She hops off the couch and begins