42. Lost for the Moment

“Stop it, Chris.”

The three words slap me over the face and yank me off Kelsey.

I suddenly feel awful and wonder what’s wrong.

I sit next to her feeling like a complete jerk.

She takes my hand and holds it.

“Listen—I’m sorry—it’s just …” Kelsey’s eyes are big and bright and sad. “This just doesn’t feel right.”

“I didn’t mean to do anything—”

“You didn’t. It’s fine. This is fine. I just—I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of where this is headed.”

Obviously she knows that the cabin is empty. I told her that my mom wasn’t coming home tonight, and Kelsey accepted my lame reason why. Visiting some relatives down south. Oh, okay.

“It’s not that I—Chris, you know how I feel.”

I nod. But I already know what she’s going to say, and I realize that I’ve been pushing it.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I’m just—this—I don’t feel comfortable.”

I hate hearing this.

“If there’s anybody—anybody—I want to feel comfortable around me, it’s you,” I tell her.

“I’m not talking about being around you.” Kelsey seems to be closing up like a folding table. “It’s here—now. I just—I can’t.”

I shake my head. “No—I know. I wasn’t asking. Or wanting. I’m sorry—I just for a minute—I’m sorry.”

She sighs.

“What?” I ask.

She’s wondering what she’s doing with a jerk like me.

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

Her hands cover her knees as if she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s wearing a skirt.

Oh I’m such a moron. A typical guy jerk.

“You’re going to think I’m such a prude,” she says with tears in her eyes.

“What?”

She looks down but doesn’t say anything.

Kelsey is crying.

I take her hands. “Kelsey—please—I am so sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

“I shouldn’t have—I should have thought a little more.”

“It’s me.”

“No, it’s not,” I tell her, forcing her to look at me.

“Yes, it is.”

“No. No, look—I’m not going to make you do anything and I knew that I probably shouldn’t but I swear you showed up at my door looking like this and all night long that’s all I’ve been thinking and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I’m really sorry.”

Her eyes meet mine, and she gives off a beautiful little shy smile. “Nobody has ever made me feel like that.”

“Like what?”

“Pretty.”

“Kelsey, you’re more than pretty.”

“Stop.”

“I mean it.”

“Jocelyn was more than pretty.”

To hear the name now hurts all of the sudden.

It seems to slap me again on the face.

“I just—I just don’t think it’s right.”

“I know,” I blurt out. “And that’s fine. I wasn’t going to—I just—I was just kinda lost. For the moment. I’m sorry.”

“I like being lost,” she says. “With you.”

I still feel like a complete jerk.

“Look, Kelsey—I don’t want you thinking that I’m just another guy.”

“You’re probably not going to talk to me tomorrow.”

“What? Why?”

“I just—the whole thing about saving myself. I don’t even want to bring up the M-word. It sounds just so …”

“Okay?” I add.

“I was going to say Amish.”

We both laugh, and it’s a nice break.

“I think you’d look pretty hot in a bonnet,” I tell her.

“Stop it.”

“No, I’m serious. Forget wearing a skirt. You put on a bonnet and watch out.”

She laughs. I put my arm around her and hold her close for a minute.

I admire this girl.

I know the reasons why she feels the way she does. She doesn’t tell me them. Instead, she apologizes to me. And I know—I could feel it—how she feels toward me. It’s there in her eyes and her face and in everything she says and does.

She believes that going too far is wrong.

Yet she’s not trying to prove her point; she’s just living it out.

“I wish I could stay here,” Kelsey tells me with her head leaning on my chest.

“Yeah.”

Pretty soon after that, I walk her out to her car. The pitch black doesn’t seem as dreadfully lonely, not with Kelsey here.

I hug her before she gets in the car.

“Are you angry?”

“No,” I tell her.

“Promise me.”

“I’m not. I swear.”

She gives me a look that says she doesn’t believe me.

“I had a great time tonight,” I tell her.

She still doesn’t believe me.

I kiss her and hope to try to convince her.

But as she gets in her car and closes the door, I wonder if that kiss was the wrong kind of way to convince her.

I don’t know.

When it comes to stuff like this, I really don’t know much of anything.