First Kiss

I had long daydreamed and thought about kissing her and touching her, but rationed in my mind that it would never happen, as the closest she would get to me was a tight hug and embrace, or resting her head on my chest as she slept. I reasoned that she was far too damaged from Ashes for me to even dare make a move on her, or I’d surely hurt her further.

But she got better, with my help. She learned to trust me, she ever-so-slowly gained her confidence back, and she began to find her voice.
She found her smile, too.
But I still wouldn’t dare touch her.

Until one night, a few months after Ari had ‘gifted’ me with her and her little sister, I had to run to the nearby shops for some groceries. It was okay if I left her alone for a certain amount of time, but I would never leave her for more than 20 minutes.

I returned to home about 15 minutes later, with Ari in tow, having stumbled upon him whilst I was out. He had come to pick up some items I owed him, but said he had to go to the toilet first. I shrugged it off and figured I would get undressed into my sleep-wear, as after he left, I would surely be going straight to bed.

I knew Sandi was long asleep, and could hear her snoring lightly in my spare room as I passed it and entered my own room.

I didn’t know where Kat was, so I figured she was either in Sandi’s room looking for something or in the kitchen.

Shrugging off my denim vest and letting it drop to the bottom of my mattress, my eyes scouted the messy floor for my sweatpants and a baggy shirt to wear. I spotted my pants as I peeled off my shirt, but as I was sitting on my bed throwing sheets and clothing about, searching for my shirt, I heard the door quietly squeak open and closed, and heard a small whimper. I frowned and looked over my shoulder, knowing it was Kat. I smiled softly, noticing she was wearing the t-shirt I was looking for, oversized for her frame.

“Hey hen, what’s up?” I cooed softly to her, noticing she was standing by the door with an unreadable expression.
She seemed to hesitate a moment longer before quickly pacing over to me, crouching down to crawl onto the makeshift-bed we shared. I pushed away my embarrassment of her seeing me shirtless to replace it with concern, knowing when Kat didn’t talk to me much, meant that she wanted an embrace, which would usually help relieve her of the memories that plagued her. 
She crawled towards me, and instinctively, I held out my arms for her, which is when she would usually dive into them and cling onto me.

But she didn’t. In fact, I noticed she was being extremely cautious, as if unsure of me. I frowned and beckoned her forward. “C’mon, sweetie, it’s alright.”

She breathed out, and began inching towards me again, but this time she surprised me. My legs were stretched out straight in front of me, and I expected her to cuddle into my side, but she didn’t.
Slowly, and ever-so-cautiously, she lifted herself, and gently positioned herself onto my lap, resting her arms gently around me as she buried her face into the crook of my neck.

I sucked in a breath and hid my reddening face in her white hair, gripping her close to me, and beginning to slowly stroke up and down her back in soothing motions and circles; I would always do this to calm her. Usually, she would grip onto me, holding on as if for dear life until she began to calm down; but she didn’t this time, instead, her fingertips gently traced up and down my back before raising up to my shoulder-blades and resting gently there, her breath tickling my neck. She was still feeling extremely tense and cautious, I could feel it. But she was relaxing.

And that’s when she surprised me further by pressing her lips gently to my shoulder. I began to slow down with rubbing her back, rather confused by her actions. She did it once more before raising her fingers to my neck, and slowly raising her head to face me. I noticed underneath her messy white hair she was red in the face and biting her lip. Her eyes darted around the room before they slowly, reluctantly, met mine, and they softened considerably. She let go of the hold her teeth had on her bottom lip, parting them slightly. And slowly, ever so slowly, she moved her body forward, closer to me, until our lips met gently.

Somehow, I managed to coax her even closer to me as I kissed her; now that I look back on it, it’s a nice, fond memory, if not slightly comical the way it ended; I had completely forgotten about Ari, and he had claimed his stuff by himself, and came into the room to let me know he was leaving. He was rather surprised upon what he had walked into to say the least, so he quickly departed, leaving Kat blushing a furious scarlet; later joked about how it was the best idea he’d ever had to get Kat to live with me.

Well, I had that to thank him for at the very least.
Since that first time, she kissed me a lot more.

Little pecks as she passed me in the hallway, shy kisses in front of her sister, welcome-home kisses, thank-you kisses, I-missed-you kisses, I-want-you kisses, please-stay kisses, surprise kisses, adoring kisses, lazy kisses and passionate kisses, quick kisses and long kisses, goodnight and goodmorning kisses, playful and angry kisses- all of them were beautiful, because all of them were from her.