Shelter for Aylin by Reina Torres

Author:Reina Torres [Torres, Reina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aces Press, LLC
Published: 2020-10-06T05:00:00+00:00

He was sure he hadn’t heard her right.

“Upset me?”

He didn’t know how to answer that.

“Yeah,” her cheeks were flushed with a rosy color that worried him. “I wanted to know if you were upset because I didn’t go to talk to the Chief and my mom earlier. Or was it something else I did, or didn’t do?”

Stillman shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“You don’t?” She sat back in her chair and shook her head, but he didn’t miss the look in her eyes. It was impossible to. “Then why are you avoiding me?”

He didn’t know what to say to her beyond the truth and thinking about the words in his head only made them seem like a thin excuse, even to his own ears.

“I must really look silly, right? I mean, I bet you don’t have a lot of women asking you to proms. Is that it? That I took forever to graduate from high school?

“You wouldn’t be the first person who thinks I’m going to be a burden, but I’m guessing it’s simpler than that. It’s just as simple as I’m a nice girl but you could tell that I liked you and you just don’t feel that way.” She huffed and shook herself. “I even sound like a kid. I don’t know what I was thinking- no I know that I wasn’t thinking around you, Still. I was feeling. I got attached and maybe that scared you.

“I know it scared me. I went from this really narrow world to suddenly having a whole bunch of people who care for me and that was new. That was so new, and it freaked me out a little, but I felt like you and I had this connection.”

He didn’t know what to say to her. He heard the truth in her voice, the conviction in her tone. He wanted to tell that she was right and wrong. Yes, they had a connection, he still felt it, but that was also why he was trying so hard to stay away.

He was only starting to realize how stupid he’d been, but now she was going out with someone. What was he going to do? Step in the middle of that? What if it went wrong? What if they went wrong?

She touched his arm and it was everything he could do not to pull her against him and tell her he’d been stupid, a stubborn jerk. Instead, he stood there and let her touch him, because he was helpless to do anything else.

“What can I do to fix this… this distance between us, Still? I just miss you every day.”

“It’s space you need, Aylin. This is an important time in your life. You’re making new friends. You’re working toward a degree and really planting your feet under you. You deserve to do all of that without someone weighing you down. Take this time to broaden your horizons.”

“Really? Broaden my horizons, Still?”

Listening to it, out loud, it did sound stupid.

“You sound like the college counselor at my high school.

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