Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

front door.
I braked, pressing in the clutch, and put the car in first
again, sitting there. She hadn’t needed help to the door that
night I took her out driving, so I assumed she was okay.
But she just sat there, her face turned down a little.
“When will I see you again?” she asked in a timid voice.
I didn’t know how to answer that. I was busy tomorrow
night, and I’d be going back to school a couple days after that.
I would see her again.
Or…
Maybe. I didn’t know.
Jesus, why was she asking? Were we in a relationship or
something? Was this a date?
I knew this would happen. She’d have expectations.
Yes, I wanted to see her again. She was mine. In our
secluded, secret little world, she was mine.
I wanted to watch her dance, and I wanted to steal her
away a thousand more times to feel her excitement and fear
and live through how vulnerable and sweet she was, but…
I wanted to keep her happy, pure, and innocent, too. I
didn’t want to ruin her.
The more time we spent together, and the older she got, the
more this would turn into something else. We’d eventually
fuck, and she’d make demands I couldn’t fulfill.
When she found out who I was, she’d run.
“Is it because I’m blind?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“Is that why you hide yourself from me?”
I glared over at her, resenting the shimmer of tears in her
eyes as she tried so hard to hold back the little tremble of her
chin. So sweet. So sad.
“She was right, wasn’t she?” she mused, her tone with a
strange resoluteness to it. “I may still want what I want, but I
have no control over people who don’t want me to have it.”