Katherine tried following his movements, but it proved too difficult, his anxiety too present and uncomfortable to watch. Instead, she looked at everything except for him: her hands between her knees, her well worn flats, that strand of hair that fell from behind her ear to dangle in front of her eye. She should have just told him to stop, that he didn’t have to say anything, but some bizarre sense of entitlement or a genuine need to hear it spelled out in order to understand stopped her.
She hadn’t expected for him to agonize so much over this, hadn’t thought that she’d somehow hurt him with her useless babbling, her thinking aloud. She felt a stab of guilt, and she wanted to just forget about explanations and comfort him, but she didn’t really know how. She wasn’t good at that, had never been able to find the right thing to say, and it seemed darkly and ironically fitting that she remained speechless in a moment where something desperately need to be said to break the unsettlingly familiar silence.
She was about to just struggle to find the words for him, but he spoke first. She looked up at him expectantly, and if he had been looking at her rather than at the window, he would have seen a pleading sort of hope rather than rejection in her expression. The idea that she would reject him, could even if she wanted to, was absurd. She hadn’t really said anything to him, but at least to her, it was obvious. She had been confused, but she hadn’t meant for it to sound like she was rejecting him when that was the last thing that was on her mind.
I was missing something and that it was you… her expression softened, cheeks flushed, and that alone erased any doubts about this that she had had. It was quite possibly the most romantic thing that had ever been said to her though from anyone else, it would have taken all her self-restraint not to roll her eyes. But from James…
She didn’t have time to reflect on that now, the look he was giving her claiming all of her attention. “James, no, no it isn’t,” she objected, more forcibly than she had intended. She moved to stand in front of him, resisting the urge to reach out and touch him. “James, it has always been you. I’ve tried, fuck knows I’ve tried, to change that, but I keep coming back to you.” She paused as she glanced away from him for an instant, biting back a wry smile. She turned back to him, needing to look at him, hoping that it’d somehow help him understand. “I don’t think that anyone has ever meant half as much to me as you have. So no, it’s not too late at all.”
She felt stupid and embarrassed saying all of that to him, but she didn’t know how else to express herself other than speaking as bluntly as she could. The irony wasn’t lost on her though: two people who made a living out of an ability to be articulate, well spoken, and convincing unable to find the right way to put their thoughts into words.
So why bother with words at all.
She shook her head slightly, breaking eye contact again. Trying to shake off any sense of déjà vu, she stepped forward hesitantly. She paused, searching his face, before she pushed caution to the wind and leaned forward to kiss him softly. She pulled back a moment later, hesitant though to actually move away from him, to look at him and wait for some sort of reaction.