MATEO || bxb

- 16 -

| Camden |

I don't know why an almost kiss had made me spiral so much as it has. I thought it would make me happy knowing that perhaps Mateo liked me as much as I liked him but being interrupted when we were so close to such a perfect moment felt like the world interfering because it doesn't want us together.

My disappointment was immeasurable and leaked out of me in the worst of ways. Thoughts of 'am I good enough?' attacked me from every angle. Wondering if we're just not meant to be because if we were perhaps my mother would have called just a few moments later.

And now, hours spent thinking about an almost kiss was making me feel scared and anxious for if another opportunity arises for it to happen again. And what would happen if we did kiss? Would I hate it? I haven't kissed anyone in so long that I didn't even know if I liked it anymore. I'd been completely celibate since last summer and now I almost kissed someone, and I couldn't figure out if I should be excited or scared, or glad that maybe I didn't have a chance to embarrass myself because what if I've completely forgotten how you even kiss someone.

I should be excited that Mateo wants to kiss me. But I wonder now that we've had some time apart if he realised it would have been a mistake and he'll tell me as such the next time he sees me.

Or if we do kiss, what happens after? I go on holiday with my family in a couple days so what if we kiss and then we spend time apart and my heart would surely grow fonder but what if his grows further apart from mine. What if he meets someone else when I'm not here? What I meet someone else somehow?

So many what ifs. It was tearing my brain apart.

I wish he had been able to kiss me in that moment when I hadn't expected it at all. I wanted so badly to kiss him.

I've wanted to kiss him for so long my heart aches even thinking about it.

But now that I know it might actually happen, the anticipation is killing me. My brain cannot stop firing theories in every direction and all I need is to know exactly what will happen.

I mean, would he become my boyfriend?

No. I was definitely not ready to have a boyfriend, like an official title. But I wanted something. I wanted an 'us'.

Cam and Mateo.

But what if it all just ends in heartbreak no matter what happens? We could get together and then hate each other one day and always wonder what it would have been like if we had just remained friends.

I hate this feeling of never being enough. Mateo would have always been enough for me, but he deserved someone who could give him so much more than I could, especially at this moment in time.

Mateo deserved the fucking world.

And after the almost kiss, we just pretended it never almost happened. Adrian came home and we hung out and ate food and it was all I could do not to look at Mateo because if I looked at him too long, I could physically feel myself leaning forward. I wanted to reach out and touch him, his hand, and bring it against my heart and show him how fast he made my heart beat.

I remember one night when I was younger, he'd just gotten his first girlfriend and I'd cried myself to sleep the night I found out because I was so desperate for him to be mine and it felt like it would never happen. That younger version of me would be so disappointed that I hadn't pulled Mateo aside somewhere quiet and kissed him already. This present version of myself was also disappointed that I hadn't done that.

But then the night had ended, and Mateo said he was finally ready to go home. We thought he would have stayed a day or two longer, but by the time it finally got dark he was getting quiet and fidgety. I wondered if he was just aching to get away from me and if so, I wondered why.