17

                                    

                                          
Scott stopped in front of the door to my room. I frowned. Was something wrong?
                          
"Mitch..." he began, his voice sounding shaky and nervous. "It was a great night. I wish we could do that more often..."
                          
I frowned. "We can, Scott."
                          
He shook his head, avoiding eye contact. Of course. He couldn't be with me, it was against the rules. Well, whoever made those rules should burn in hell, just saying.
                          
"It's complicated."
                          
"So..." I say, biting my lip. "This was a- a platonic date?"
                          
He nodded. "Yeah... Platonic."
                          
I nodded, too. He tilted my head up with his finger. He leaned in and kissed me, catching me by surprise. For a split of a second I didn't do anything, my eyes wide, but then I closed them and immediately kissed back with all passion that I had.
                          
We kissed for a few minutes until he pulled away. 
                          
"Goodnight, Mitchy."
                          
I bit my lip, hesitating to ask the question I had in mind. "Do you, uh... Do you want to stay?"
                          
He blinked. I suddenly remembered something that could maybe persuade him.
                          
"You wanted to talk to me about something. You said you needed time to think about it... Have you?"
                          
He nodded. "Y- yeah. I have."
                          
"W- would you like to tell me?"
                          
He nodded again. "Yeah, I- I do."
                          
He came into my room with me, shutting the door behind us. We sat down on the bed. I wanted to comfort Scott, take his hands into mine, rub his back, but I didn't know what to do. He might run away again, and I would never get him to talk. So I just sat there, waiting for him to start talking. 
                          
"It- It's hard for me to say that... But I think I've made a decision. One that's best for... you."
                          
"For me?" I was confused, but begged him through eye contact to keep going. He did.
                          
"Yeah... But I need to start at the beginning. You know how I told you my parents died...?"
                          
I nodded, now carefully taking a hold of his hand to rub my thumb over the back comfortingly. He didn't try to escape my touch.
                          
"They... They left, leaving millions on their bank account and-" His voice broke and he took a deep breath. I could see he was trying not to cry. I'd never seen him like this. "And their nine year old daughter." I squeezed his hand reassuringly. "And me. I was fourteen. I had to take care of my- of my nine year old sister. I was like a parent to her. I would try to give her everything. I was trying to make up for the time our parents didn't care for us." There were tears rolling down his cheeks and I ventured to carefully wipe them away. He didn't do anything. "We had everything," he continued. "We moved out of the house as soon as we could, and moved here. I didn't want us to be distributed into foster homes, so we tried to hide... And it worked. I dropped out of school, took the first job I could get even though we had a lot of money, but I didn't want to risk anything. Colleges are expensive, and I wanted her to be able to get into any college she wanted. Things went well for a while... We recovered, stopped grieving, and then I met Alex. He seemed like a man I could marry. He seemed perfect. But he wasn't. He absolutely hated my sister, but he didn't say it, it was obvious though. When I found out about his company, the Kirk Company, I was... shocked? He was only eighteen at that time. We seemed to be serious with our relationship, though, so he wanted to take the next step and turn Kirk Company into Kirk and Hoying."