Inbetween by Tara Fuller ~ Scene from Cash's POV

Inbetween Scene from Cash’s POV: Tara Fuller Guest Post
The world came back fuzzy and dark. My head throbbed so hard I could feel my heartbeat behind my eyelids. What the hell had happened to me? The last thing I remembered was being on my second beer, and half way through some Cold Play song Marc was trying to teach me. I definitely hadn’t had enough to make me feel like this. It had only been two beers, right? Damn it, I couldn’t remember. Maybe the paint fumes were finally starting to get to me. Familiar fingers combed through my hair and I forced my eyes open.

“Cash,” Emma said softly, the space between her eyes creased with worry. “Are you okay?”

I squinted up at her and blinked. “What happened?”

“You…um…you passed out.”

Sitting up, I rubbed my head, trying to place my surroundings. As soon as I was up, the headache set in with a vengeance. “Shit. I feel like I got hit by a truck. How much did I drink?” I scanned Emma’s room, feeling like I was missing some important piece of a puzzle. “And how did I get over here?”

I glanced over at Emma and everything went still. Her mouth was open, but no sound came out. Her hands were trembling, fingers twisting the bottom of her shirt, trying to keep still.

“Hey…” I reached out to touch her arm and she jerked away, as if my fingers were flames. She wouldn’t even look at me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Her voice broke half way through the word. It was all I needed to hear to know there was a whole hell of a lot more than nothing wrong. I ran my hand over my chest trying to remember what I’d done to piss her off but…I looked down. Where the hell was my shirt? My eyes kept moving down to my half-unzipped jeans, then back up to Emma’s face. Her lips full and pink. Her blond hair messy. Shirt twisted out of place.

Oh, hell….no, no, no.

I scrambled back and the bed disappeared underneath me. I shot back up, breathing hard, and met Emma’s gaze. “What…what did I do?” I motioned between us. “What did we do?” I stumbled, backing away from the bed until I hit her vanity. My heart felt like it was about to pound through my ribs. Everything was about to change. I knew it. I wasn’t ready for it. Emma kept her gaze on the wall behind me refusing to look at me.

“You didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Em.” I shoved my fingers through my hair and leaned on the vanity. I rubbed my fingers over my lips and the taste of peppermint exploded on my tongue. I glanced down at the tube of Emma’s peppermint chapstick rolling across the vanity and groaned. “I can taste that peppermint lip crap you use, for God’s sake!”

“Cash…”

“Look at you. You can’t even look at me.” I strode forward and reached out to touch her, but stopped. Was this even okay anymore? The way she was flinching away from my touch said it wasn’t. Panic tore through my chest.

“Please tell me what I did. Please? I’m sorry, Em. I am so—”

“We kissed, okay?”

I froze at the sound of her words. I knew it…but hearing her say it made it real. I was so not ready for this to be real. It’s not like I hadn’t thought about it, but when I thought about it…it was later. This was supposed to come much later for us. Not now. Not when I was still just a screw up that didn’t deserve her. God! The fact that I couldn’t even remember kissing her for the first time just showed how much I didn’t deserve her. I dind’t realize I was holding my breath until she started talking again.

“You were drunk. And we kissed. And now…now we’re going to forget it ever happened. Okay?”

“Did I hurt you?”

“God, no!” Emma grabbed my hand and pulled me down to sit beside her. “It…it was just stupid, okay? It didn’t mean anything. Right?”

I let my eyes wander over Emma’s face. The face I’d fallen asleep staring at more nights than I could count. I knew she meant something. But did this mean something? Did she want it to mean something? Suddenly the bed seemed way too small for the two of us. There wasn’t even enough air in the room. I finally found the words and said, “Do…do you want it to mean something?”

Emma sat back, brows pulled together. “N-no. Do you?”

It an instant I saw what it could be like. To be with her. To kiss her again and remember it. To crawl in through her window at night and it be something more than escape. And in another, I saw a million ways I would screw it up. And if I screwed it up…if I went there with her, that would be it for us. I wasn’t ready to take that chance. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready. I needed her too much. Emma was my best friend. My family. Losing her wasn’t an option. Finally I shook my head.

“No. I don’t want to ruin this. I don’t…I can’t risk losing you, Em. If I ever went there with you…” I swallowed and dropped my gaze. “I’d ruin it. I would.”

“Hey.” Emma nudged my leg, and smiled a little. “You didn’t ruin anything. I’m still me. You’re still you. And we’re still us. Nothing’s changed.”

About Tara Fuller: Tara Fuller writes novels. Some about grim reapers. Some about witches. All of course are delightfully full of teen angst and kissing. Tara grew up in a one stop light town in Oklahoma where once upon a time she stayed up with a flash light reading RL Stine novels and only dreamed of becoming a writer. She has a slight obsession with music and a shameless addiction for zombie fiction, Mystery Science Theater, and black and white mochas. Tara no longer lives in a one stop light town. Now she lives with her family in a slightly larger town in North Carolina where they have at least three stoplights.

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