Free The Chosen One by T. B. Markinson Page A

pulled her hand and lips away. “I’m sorry. You’re freezing.” Resting her forehead against mine, she gazed intently into my eyes.
    “I don’t care,” I whispered.
    She smiled, and our lips joined again.
    We continued kissing for what seemed like forever, blowing the 210-second record out of the water. Her hand slipped back under my cream Ralph Lauren tunic top, her fingertips trailing up and down my back.
    When her hand cupped my bra, my eyes snapped open.
    Was I going to pop my cherry in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery? I couldn’t decide whether it was creepy or cool, given the setting.
    As if in tune with my thought, she put the brakes on.
    But she still gazed at me with a terrifying intensity as she trailed a finger down the side of my face. “Ainsley, I’m sorry.” Her voice brimmed with uncharacteristic emotion. “This… this isn’t a good idea.”
    “What isn’t? This?” I motioned to the grounds and almost offered to check us into a hotel.
    She clasped her rain-soaked hands around mine. “I want to be with you. I really do, but…” She stared up at the sky, at a loss for words. “You don’t know me, really.”
    I let out a nervous chuckle. “But I want to. I want to know everything about you, Maya Chandler.”
    “About Maya Chandler, right? That’s impossible for you, of all people.”
    “Why?”
    “Ains, we come from two different worlds.”
    That was the point where she decided to give me a nickname, just as she was pulling the rug out from underneath me.
    “But we don’t have to live by two different rules.” Does that sound as lame to her as it does to me?
    She sighed, dropped my hands, and turned her back on me, with an air of finality.
    “I’m not good at letting people in, giving them a chance,” she said over her shoulder. For a brief moment, she paused, and I thought she might turn around and rush back toward me. She didn’t.
    I wanted to scream at her to come back. My mouth opened, but no words came out. I stood unprotected in the rain, miserable, alone.
    Seconds that seemed like a lifetime passed before I came to my senses. I plucked the umbrella off the muddy path, shook loose the leaves and dirt, and followed Maya’s tracks to my car. I unlocked the doors and we both slid inside, not speaking. Her teeth chattered, and I kicked up the heat to dry us off.
    Maya sat motionless in her seat. I didn’t put the car into gear. Instead, I waited for her to elaborate, to say anything.
    Only silence filled the car. The most unbearable silence pervaded my ears.

Chapter Seven
    My fist pounded on Fiona’s door.
    “Hold your horses, will ya?” Fee shouted.
    When she opened the door, I fell into her arms, sobbing, “We kissed.”
    Fiona’s arms encircled me. “What’d you do? Bite her tongue off or something?”
    “No,” I wailed. “But I might as well have. She ran away.”
    “Right,” was all Fiona said as she shoved me inside. “Sit. I’m going to get you a change of clothes and make some tea. Did you walk all the way back in the rain?”
    After I’d dropped Maya off, I’d parked my car near my dorm and walked the two miles to Fiona’s apartment across the Charles. I had hoped the rain would wash away the pain and bring clarity. Neither had happened.
    ***
    “Tell me again. Her words exactly,” Fiona said.
    “She said she wanted to be with me, but it wasn’t a good idea,” I responded, holding back a sob. Our first kiss had been better than perfect, but the feeling didn’t last. “And when I said I wanted to get to know her, she said that wasn’t possible for me.”
    I sank into Fiona’s plush couch cushions, feeling no comfort. Fee’s Boston terrier, Grover, was spending the day with her, instead of at Fiona’s mom’s. Grover sat on my lap, resting his head on his front paws and staring up at me with mournful eyes. I scratched his ear.
    “For you specifically?”
    I shrugged. “I didn’t think to clarify.”
    Fiona tapped her cigarette against the