“Friend.”
He says that word in a low growl and I flinch.
Oh shit.
That’s the worst thing that I could’ve said.
I shake my head and dig my knuckles into his body. “I didn’t mean it that way. You know I didn’t. Arrow, he was just –”
My words get cut off when he steps away from me.
It happens so suddenly that I can’t quite believe it. Wasn’t I holding him tightly? Weren’t my fingers fisting his shirt?
How did he break that hold so easily?
Like it meant nothing, me holding onto him.
Like I meant nothing.
And then he takes one last look at me before spinning around and leaving.
He’s leaving.
He’s just… walking away. He just came back from LA and somehow appeared at the bar and now he’s leaving.
Because I was stupidly dancing with a guy who meant nothing.
Oh God.
I rush after him when I see him stepping out the front door. I come into the night and frantically, look around.
He’s walking around the bar, probably headed to the alley that connects to the parking lot in the back.
“Arrow. Stop,” I call out.
But he doesn’t.
I didn’t expect him to, honestly. So I pump my legs harder. He’s taught me a lot about running in the past couple of weeks and I use that to my advantage now and reach him just as he gets past the row of big black dumpsters.
I go around him and put my hands on his stomach again.
“Arrow, please. I didn’t… I didn’t do anything,” I tell him, getting close to him, fisting his shirt once more even though I know it won’t make a difference.
But that’s all the more reason to do something because he’s just so harsh and sharp right now.
“You let him put his hands on you,” he says, roughly, tightly.
The light in the alley is questionable.
There’s a little bulb somewhere a few feet away from him, though his shoulders that seem to have grown overnight are hiding it.
And the moon is reddish as always in his presence but it’s so far away tonight that it leaves Arrow in shadows and mystery.
Which I totally hate.
“Arrow, listen, okay? Listen.” I pull at his shirt, looking up at him. “I was just sitting there at the bar and this song came on. And Will, the guy you saw me dancing with, he told me he was a Lana Del Rey fan and he just pulled me up for a dance, okay? You know how much I love her and –”
He leans over me then, sort of coming out of the shadows where I can see him clearly.
I can see the tight peaks of his cheekbones. They jut out of his face, of his angular, stunning face, like pieces of cut glass.
“Did you like his hands on you?” he asks, his eyes alive and bright with darkness.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Did you like it when he spun you around and pulled you against his body?”
“No, Arrow. I didn’t.”
“No? So why the fuck were you laughing?”
“Because I was imagining you, you idiot.” I shake his shirt. “Because I was picturing you in my head.”
A mystery of an emotion passes over his face, quick and short-lived and I get closer to him.
The tip of my soccer cleats crashes with the tip of his polished boots and I blurt out the very first thing that comes into my head, “I will never do that to you. I will never ever do something like that to you, okay? I’m not…”
Her.
I’m not Sarah.
I don’t say it but he hears it.
Because the mysterious emotion that passed over his face washes over his body too. His tight, hard body that sort of jerks slightly before he takes a step.
Toward me.
Or more like, pushes me back with those tips of his boots while he advances forward.
“Picturing me,” he says, his voice gravelly, referring to my earlier statement about imagining him while dancing and ignoring what I said to him just now.
Ignoring my sort-of declaration about loyalty.
“Yeah.” I nod, still clutching onto his shirt, almost tearing off the buttons with my forceful hold. “I was imagining it was you. That you were the one spinning me in circles and dancing with me.”
“You were.”
“Yes. And then you came in and I couldn’t believe it.”
“Why?”
“Because my wish came true.”
“What wish?”
“You,” I whisper with all the love in my eyes, while his are turbulent.
“I’m not anybody’s wish.”
You’re mine. You’re my wish.
You’re my Arrow.
“I waited for you this whole week.” I swallow, telling him the truth, letting it shine in my voice, on my face. “And I was… I missed you so much.”
“You missed me,” he repeats in a strange tone, as he keeps advancing on me, as he keeps pushing me back.
I whisper, “Yes. A-and I was worried.”
“Worried about what?”
I was worried that you’d get back together with her.
That you’d become the old Arrow and that I’d lose you.