Bright Midnight by Halle, Karina (ereader android TXT) 📕

in bed, unable to sleep, feelings ripping through me, leaving me hollow.

They are hungry feelings.

I feel reckless and wanting. Like I want to give in.

I’m reminded of a poem I read once.

She wants so much, too much

for things that don’t want her

for things that aren’t things

for hearts that aren’t hearts.

She wants so much,

that I give her all of me

and she barely notices

that it’s what she wanted all along.

6

Shay Then

Sex.

It’s all I think about.

All the fucking time.

And to be honest, I’m not even sure if this is normal. Everly and I talk about sexy very loosely. I know that she’s had sex with her ex, Jeff, but other than a few basic details, she never brings it up. Though she talks about dick all the time, it’s usually in a humorous way.

Then there’s my other friend, Jen Brown, who proudly sleeps around. She’d understand my crazy sex thoughts, but she has this way of making you feel particularly uncool if you ask her anything, as if you’re much younger and she knows everything. I’m not going down that road.

And anyway, I’m not going to talk to my sister about sex either. Hannah may be older, but I guarantee she’s a virgin too. I’ve never seen a boy around her, even now with her going to university. Sex, boys, makeup, alcohol—anything remotely cool and Hannah doesn’t even bat an eye. She’ll probably grow up to be the scientist who discovers the cure for cancer, but she won’t be able to find her own G-spot.

Not that I have. But I’ve tried. Cosmo magazines are a wealth of knowledge.

Then there’s my mother, whom I probably wouldn’t even speak to even if she were here with us and not acting like a fool over our father in Mumbai. Ever since she took him back (fuck, she didn’t even take him back, she begged him back after all he did to her. Who does that?), I’ve resolved to never take a word of advice from her again. Choosing dad over us—again—when she should be running for the hills and asking for a divorce.

I don’t get it, and the more I think about it, the angrier I become.

So maybe it’s a good thing I’ve got sex on the brain.

I mean, how can I not when I have Anders to distract me.

I’ve been seeing Anders for one month now.

We’ve only kissed.

Okay, I shouldn’t say we’ve only kissed.

His kisses are more than any kisses I’ve had before. They are soul-searing.

Imprinting.

And highly addictive.

Of course, he’s also felt me up more than a few times, and by a few times, I mean last night, and I wasn’t about to bat his hands away because he knows exactly what he’s doing with them. He doesn’t paw at me the way that Phil Hadzocos did when we were dating, as if my boobs were to be treated like a stress ball.

Maybe it’s because Anders is foreign and has that ridiculously sexy accent, and that gorgeous slim body, and those wonderful words he purrs into my ears.

You taste like stardust.

I have heaven in my hands.

You’re going to feel me even when I’m gone.

See what I mean about imprinting?

I’m sure his words are cheesy to some, maybe. But not the way he says it. Not with those intense eyes of his, the ones that rip through me, that taunt me with secrets I may never uncover about him. His words are him and I believe them with every part of me.

I want nothing more than to lose my virginity to Anders Johansen.

Some might even say I’m in love with him.

But how terribly tragic it is to be in love, especially when it’s your first. Because that can never work out. People don’t marry their high school sweethearts anymore, and if they do and they make it work, I’m sure they’re one of the lucky few. I’m a realist. I know what the world gives us. I know that if you fall in love once, you should be prepared to fall in love over and over again. With as many different people as possible. Because how do you know it’s love if you have nothing to compare it to?

But that’s why it’s so scary and why currently, as I sit in my bedroom, stacks of magazines in my feet, freshly painted toenails, I refuse to entertain the topic. I’m all about sex instead. Sex is easier to handle. I think. I hope. Because what if you fall in love, lose the guy and then later on in life, many loves later, you realize that first love was the only one to really stick.

Then what?

That can’t be me.

I refuse to fall in love with my boyfriend.

But mark my words, I will sleep him before the week is through.

7

Shay Now

I can’t sleep.

I toss and turn, my blankets wrapping around me to the point of near strangulation.

Ever since I checked-in to my hotel, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Anders. Not even for a second. I don’t even bother updating my social media or texting back Everly like I should, or emailing my mom like she asked.

I just pace around my room or stare out the window at the river below, wishing I wasn’t so alone.

Wishing I had said yes.

Stubborn. I’m stubborn and stupid. In the dregs of my subconscious, I know I’d been hoping, praying, that I would run into Anders, as much as I was hoping I wouldn’t. Now that I did, it feels so…petty…just to leave it like I did.

Maybe it was fate, maybe it wasn’t—but something tells me whatever force placed him on my path meant for something more to happen. After all these years, all the things I imagined saying to him, none of them were said. There was no closure. Nothing was resolved. All my run-in with Anders did was remind me that I had a chance to finally talk to him, put the past behind me, dare I say, get over him, and I was too