So short that his tall body has to bend in a little. Like it would if he were to look at me from that close a distance.
This girl is not Sarah.
This girl is someone else and when that someone else reaches up her bare arm and flutters her delicate-looking fingers over his square jaw, a jaw that is shadowed due to the low light in that nook of his and under the rim of his baseball cap, I freeze.
Then she goes ahead and moves her fingers back and forth on his jaw.
And… and I don’t know what to do with myself.
All I know is that even though it’s dark and all I can really see is the outline of their bodies, I know that she’s scratching the invisible-to-me stubble on his face.
Which makes him smirk.
The smirk that I’ve been watching from afar for eight years now. The smirk that makes me go all breathless even when it’s not directed at me.
Because his smirks and smiles are for Sarah.
So why’s he giving it to someone else?
Someone who’s clearly not my sister.
The love of his life.
The girl tries to touch it, that smirk. She tries to touch his smirking lips with her thumb, but Arrow grabs her wrist at the last second.
He stops her, leaving her thumb hovering at the edge.
But she isn’t deterred.
She goes on her tiptoes, presses her body against his and murmurs something close to his lips.
As shocking as that is, it’s even more shocking when Arrow says something back, and whatever he says makes the girl stretch her body further.
A second later, she’s touching him with her lips.
And he’s letting her.
A second later, my sister’s boyfriend, the guy I’ve been in love with, is kissing her.
A random girl in a bar.
A girl who’s not my sister.
I can’t…
I can’t believe that this is happening.
I can’t believe that he’s kissing someone else.
That I’m standing here, in this strange bar, with sad songs blasting overhead, watching him kiss someone who’s not my sister.
I refuse to believe it.
I shake my head even.
If I keep shaking my head in denial, all of this will go away. I’ll wake up from whatever nightmare this is.
But it doesn’t go away. None of this goes away. In fact, he’s kissing her harder now, like things are heating up.
They’re heating up so much that even I can feel it.
Me.
The girl who’s never been kissed.
Somehow through all the confusion and tingling on my own lips, I manage to take a step forward.
Then another and another. Until I’m walking toward them.
Until I reach them. I reach him.
Until I’m in that little corner as well.
It smells of booze. It smells of him, spice and vintage leather.
My favorite scent.
I’m so close to them and my presence is such an intrusion in their dark, private corner that the girl jerks apart from him, snapping her head in my direction.
As much as I want to see her and find out who she is, I’m watching Arrow.
I’m watching him detach himself from the girl, bit by bit.
Slowly, he lifts his face up and away from hers.
Then, he takes a moment to sigh, as if irritated, followed by turning his head to look in the direction where the interruption came from.
Even then, his detachment isn’t complete.
He still has one of his hands wrapped around the back of her neck.
I glare at that hand. It looks big and bad and seductive.
Finally, he shifts his face, cocks his head in a way that the shadows from his baseball cap vanish and I can see him.
I can see his bright blue eyes.
Eyes that remind me of lazy summers and bike rides in the sunshine.
Only now they’re dark.
They’re almost navy and he glances at me with them.
“You.”
Before I can respond to that though, he detaches himself completely from her, takes that big, bad, seductive hand off her neck and asks, with slight annoyance and surprise, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Even though more important things are at stake here, far more important things, I still breathe out a sigh of relief when he moves away from the girl he was kissing.
But I can’t be relieved, can I?
He was kissing a girl.
A girl who isn’t my sister.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” I ask, frowning, stumbling over my words. “What the fuck are you doing here? Who is she? Where’s my si –”
“Can you give us a minute?”
Arrow swallows up my words when he speaks and for a micro-second, I think he’s speaking to me. But he’s turned his head and his eyes are directed at the girl.
I finally glance at her as well.
She’s drunk.
That’s the first thing.
The second thing is that even though Arrow’s moved away from her, she’s still leaning into him.
It bothers me.
That she’s still attached to my sister’s boyfriend.
But I guess it’s more for balance than anything else.