Chapter 14: VI. Connection-3

I unlocked the front door and let Shea into my house. I was immediately a little embarrassed. We hadn't tidied up from last night or this morning. There were dishes on the counter, my mom's blender was still half filled with green smoothie, and in addition to the boxes everywhere, we didn't look the neatest. "Sorry about the mess," I murmured. "Sara, I don't care about that," Shea replied, the worry evident in his shaky voice. "You need to tell me what you're feeling. I want to help you." I dropped my bag at my feet as I turned around to face him. "What I'm feeling?" I repeated. "How can I tell you that when I don't even understand it myself?" I exclaimed. "All I know is I met you three days ago, and suddenly my life has gone to crap." I threw my hands up in the air. I felt my drama was justified. "I am not this person," I informed him firmly, gesturing to myself. "I don't catch feelings. I don't get jealous. I don't Facebook stalk! I don't have boys in my room in the middle of the night! And I certainly have never had a damned panic attack before!" I could feel the tears coming. I hated that I cried when I was angry. It made me feel as though people didn't see the justification in my arguments. They only saw the hysteria. Shea was taking it, though. He was listening to every word. I took a few deep breaths, attempting to calm myself and to keep the tears away. "I don't understand why you're so important to me, Shea," I whispered. "But you are. And it scares me. It scares me so much because I am not the kind of girl someone like you would go for. I am not like Zoey, or any other girl so confident in herself that she can have casual relationships. And I'm scared that when you realise this, that you will dump me and run off with one of them. Which is why I feel so stupid and ridiculous because we're not even together." I practically collapsed into the sofa. "Three damn days. How is this happening?" I felt like I needed some ice on my forehead or something. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. "Can I talk now?" Shea asked quietly, sitting down beside me on the sofa. "Mmhmm." I nodded, not opening my eyes. "Sara, do you believe in love at first sight?" My eyes shot open and I was suddenly sitting bolt upright. My posture had never been this good. I stared at him like he had just announced he was an alien, or that he was from the future. He had to be an alien or something. Why was he saying such a thing to me? Shea's brown eyes were so comforting. So warm, and so full of truth. There had to be an explanation that helped to make sense of all of this. "No…" I replied, though my answer sounded more like a question. His face fell a little. "Well, I do," Shea insisted. "I have a belief that there is one perfect person out in this world for everybody, and when you see them, you just know. And when you meet that person, nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing but them. The world is a mess, but you make everything better. And it can feel crazy, and sudden, and completely foreign. It can feel like you're literally having an out of body experience. Logic and reason have no place in matters such as these. You've got to stop panicking with your head and listening to what your heart wants. It's called falling in love for a reason. You fall right out the life you knew and into a newer, better one." Call me crazy … which I had done multiple times today … but it sort of made sense in a weird way. Love at first sight … was that what this was? I mean, I had never been in love before. I didn't know what it felt like. I only had movies and books as my reference material. But maybe it was like this. Maybe it was like literally falling. Falling out of your old reality and into a life led by two. Love at first sight. Could this really be it? I stared at Shea. He never wavered. I did have such strong feelings for him. Feelings that I couldn't explain. Feelings that shouldn't be there after only three days. Was I falling in love with him? But why? Why me, and why him? What made us special? "Why me?" I managed to ask. Shea smiled. "Because you're perfect. I don't understand it exactly either. I guess the fates, or God, or chance, whatever it is that exists, decides just who our perfect half is, and when we find them, we need to realise just how lucky we are." Shea pulled me close and I found myself snuggling into his chest. It was crazy how safe I felt. Crazy was my new favourite word. Shea rubbed my back soothingly. "You aren't some fling for me, Sara. This is serious. I've got a history. Everyone does. But what I want to focus on is my future. Ourfuture." I felt the screens of the multiplex in my head shutting off one by one. The warm feeling of security filled me, and it was this feeling that carried me off to sleep, right there in Shea's arms. I awoke suddenly to the sound of the front door opening. I jumped, fully awake, and realised that I was alone on the couch. Shea was gone, and my mom was home. She looked at me strangely. "Were you napping, hon? Big day?" "You could say that," I murmured to myself. I wondered how I was going to tell my mom about this. How could I tell her I had a boyfriend, let alone that I was falling in love with him after three days of knowing him. My mom launched into telling me about her day as she started to pull a few random things out of the refrigerator to turn them into something edible. I half listened as I saw the clock and realised that it was a few hours later. I quickly looked out the front window to see that Shea's truck was gone and my Jeep was in the driveway. The key, which had been in my pocket, was now hanging on the hook by the door. How had he managed to get the key out of my pocket without waking me up? "Sara?" "What?" I asked, spinning around at the sound of my name. Mom was smiling. "I just said thank you, hon. It's always nice to come home to chores being done that I don't have to do." She winked. I then noticed that the kitchen was spotless. The dishes were done, Mom's blender was clean, and everywhere else was straightened up. Shea was a regular house elf. "Hey, Mom," I called out. "I'm not feeling that great. I might head to bed early. I'm not hungry." Mom immediately came towards me from behind the kitchen counter, a look of concern on her face. She placed her hand on my forehead and looked me over. "What's wrong? You don't have a fever." The downside to having a doctor for a mom was that it was nearly impossible to fake being sick. "No, it's not that. Just cramps," I lied. "Oh, okay. Well, there's Tylenol in the bathroom cabinet and I can bring you up a wheat bag if you want," she offered. "No, that's okay. Thanks, Mom." I smiled at her reassuringly and hurried upstairs. I nearly had a heart attack as I entered my room as Shea was lying on my bed, reading one of my books. He had fished it out of one of my boxes. I was glad he hadn't found a pathetic romance. Instead he had found one of my books from English last year. It was a novel about a man infected by a curse that turned him into a monstrous creature. It was all about inner turmoil, conscience, and truthfully, a little horror. My teachers had found tonnes in the books to have us churn out dozens of papers. "This seems really inaccurate," Shea commented casually, as though it wasn't weird for him to just be hanging out in my room. I snatched the book from him. "Of course it is. It's made up fantasy." I placed the book on my nightstand. "What are you doing in here?" I demanded to know. "Just wanted to make sure you weren't running off back to New York or something while I wasn't looking," he murmured in reply. Shea rolled onto his side, facing me. He looked so comfortable. I wanted to sit down beside him, lay down beside him, but I was too nervous. Instead I awkwardly chose to sit on the stool in front of my dresser. Shea seemed to think this was an odd choice, too. He sat up on my bed and cocked an eyebrow. "Won't you sit by me?" "I don't want you to get the wrong idea," I confessed quietly. I heard Shea sigh exasperatedly, and quicker than anything he was kneeling in front of me. We were at eye level. He was mere inches from my face. I stopped breathing. My stomach lurched, and my heartbeat took off. "Sara, I am capable of having things on my mind other than sex," he said firmly, but I could sense in his tone that he was getting frustrated with me. "You've told me that you're not ready for that kind of relationship and I accepted it. Were we having the same conversation? Was I speaking German?" He was frustrated with me. He didn't like repeating himself. I pushed him away from me, and action which startled him, and I stood up and crossed the room to my window, the furthest place in my room from where he was standing. "Don't be a jerk, Shea," I willed. "I'm an insecure person, I'm sorry. I've never had a boyfriend before. I've never even had a boy have a crush on me before! This is all new. And this," I motioned between the two of us, "isn't normal. You've established that. You need to cut me a little slack. I mean, Cece told me that she had sex with Jamie within three hours of meeting him! How is that supposed to make me feel?" Shea exhaled. "I'm sorry. You're right," he conceded. "I have a tendency to expect that whatever I say is accepted." "I noticed," I replied sarcastically. "Why is that? Why do people listen to you like they do?" Shea shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Charisma?" He seemed genuinely bemused which was weird. "I'm good with people, I suppose. I'm influential. People listen to me. So, I guess it's different for me when I say something and you don't accept it." Was he really so popular that people just followed him and obeyed him? I had seen people with popularity bully before, but I didn't think that was Shea's agenda. Shea got up from the floor and opened his arms, displaying transparency. "I told you the honest truth, Sara. I don't care if you want to move at a snail's pace. I don't care if all you want to do is hold my hand. So long as it's my hand your holding, I'm okay with that." He came towards me slowly, like a man who was trying not to spook a horse. "I can't be away from you. This connection between us is the realest damn thing I have ever felt." I felt the exact same way. Since Shea had offered me the love at first sight explanation as to what I was feeling, things were rapidly becoming clearer in the foggy mess that was my brain. All I knew was that Shea was important to me. It was important that he was in my life. I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around his waist. He reciprocated immediately, holding me tightly. Goddammit, this felt natural. "I can't promise I won't ever be insecure again. You have really pretty friends." Shea laughed. "Have you looked in a mirror lately?" he retorted. "You are beautiful, Sara. You are not of this world." I could have literally choked on my own tongue, I wanted to cry. Nobody had ever said that to me before. I wasn't sure if Shea had blinders on or not, but he believed what he was saying, and it meant a lot that he saw me that way. His grip on me tightened. "And I find it utterly impossible that no guy has ever had a crush on you. I think you'll find that any guy with working eyeballs is well aware of you, believe me." I laughed. "And, just quickly," he added. "Please, never mention my sister's sex life to me again. I like to live in a pretend land where I believe that nothing but homework happens in the bedroom down the hall from me."