I told myself I wasn’t going to kiss Ella. I told myself there was something else going on with her, and I needed to know. I told myself we needed to untangle the messy emotions left over from the accident. I told myself a lot of things.

Yet, my body trumped my mind. With Ella’s body flush against mine as she rose up on her tiptoes and slid her hand into my hair, my brain simply stopped functioning. The moment her lips met mine, that was it. I couldn’t resist the sweet heat of her lips, the glide of her tongue against mine.

I didn’t know what first love was like for everyone, but I knew what it was like for me. Innocence didn’t quite capture it. When it came to Ella and me, there had been an elemental rawness to it, a purity. Everything was light and heavy at once. There were so many firsts that could never be repeated. So much meaning was carved into how I felt about her. There was that and then how things blew apart. Reality had crashed into us, leaving us behind in emotional disarray.

I’d wondered if we could recapture any of it because of how guarded she was now. But it melted away the moment we touched. She’d always been bold with a hint of wildness to her. Just as she was now. Her hand curled into my hair. On the heels of another gasp from her, I crowded against her, my hand gripping her hair almost roughly.

My need for her had been pushed down, forced into hibernation for too many years. No one else had ever quite measured up to it. I’d had a few semi-serious relationships, but they always petered out. Because I kept searching. Searching for something that came even remotely close to what it felt like when I was with Ella.

For a while, I convinced myself it was because of how things ended with us—at a time when we were both a mess and vulnerable for reasons that had nothing to do with our young relationship. And yet, they were tangled up in everything, including the end. Spiraling in my own grief of losing my best friend and worried about her, I could hardly think straight. I’d lashed out when she pushed me away.

And then felt nothing but years of regret afterwards. It had been so obvious she believed—for no logical reason—she somehow could have changed the outcome of that accident. We’d all been hurting, but she’d shouldered an extra burden, and I hadn’t known how to help her. I was too young then to navigate the emotionally tricky terrain.

The moment I’d held her again in the hospital last week, I’d remembered everything I’d missed. Now with her kissing me, our mouth’s fused together as if we were one, I couldn’t get enough.

My hand slid through her hair, down her spine, and cupped her lush bottom. Her perfect, heart shaped ass had starred in a few too many of my fantasies. She groaned as her hips flexed into me. I was rock hard and ready and had been at half-mast since I’d gotten close to her tonight.

I drew back, murmuring her name roughly, my lips blazing a hot trail down her neck, savoring every pant and whimper coming from her. A door slamming in the distance snapped me out of my lust-induced trance. I realized we were in the parking lot in full view of anyone coming in and out of the back of Wildlands. I couldn’t bring myself to draw away too far, so I stayed where I was. Pressed against her, I could feel her heart pounding against my chest, its beat as wild as that of mine.

Opening my eyes, I looked into hers, that rich green with tiny flecks of gold. Her lips were puffy from our kiss, her eyes dark. The air was heavy around us, alive and weighted with need and emotion.

“Come home with me,” I murmured.

Ella stared at me, her gaze hazy, but sharpening as we looked at each other. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she finally said.

“Tell me why it’s a bad idea.”

A little laugh escaped, her eyes widening slightly.

“Are you seeing someone?” I asked.

She shook her head sharply, a hint of bitterness flashing in her gaze.

I filed that away, knowing that there was more to every story with her.

“What about you?” she asked in return.

I shook my head. “No.”

We stared at each other, the air humming. I desperately wanted her to come home with me, but I sensed I’d be pushing too far and too fast for now. Yet, it didn’t change what I wanted.

“I want to say yes,” she finally said before going quiet. Her teeth snagged the corner of her bottom lip as she eyed me. Hope flared in my heart, while my body had plenty of its own ideas. “But my parents are expecting me home.” Something flickered in her eyes again. Worry, or fear. I wasn’t sure what. “Maybe we shouldn’t rush.”

There were all kinds of things I wanted to say, but I knew none of them were sensible. If there was one thing I didn’t want to do again, it was to put my heart out there only to have Ella stomp on it.

For all I knew, she was coming home on the heels of a break up and I was a potential rebound. So I stepped away from her, though it took an act of pure discipline to do so.

As I started driving towards her parents’ place, it occurred to me that the last time I’d actually been in a car with Ella had been the night of the accident. That recognition was a hard kick to my chest. It felt so familiar to be with her.