"You don't know what you are saying, " he said all but leaping a foot away in his move to step back.

I shrugged my shoulders uncaringly. It didn't matter to me that he didn't want to hear this. He asked. I answered. The rest was and will always be up in the air.

I knew he could never accept my love and return it. I would never ask that of him but it felt a relief. A load off my shoulders to confess this to him. To finally reveal my love for him.

"We have known each other since we were children, " I started to say. Lucian and I had been friends sunce we were todlers. He had been older by two years but still we got on like a house on fire. I had been tom boyish in my youth and that had fared well with his drive to strut right into trouble. Fist cuffs had been a normal part of routine through my childhood and then we parted. Hus family moved into the city. But still we met up at holidays, birthdays and other gatherings.

But time was the deciding factor. And we drifted apart as puberty kicked in. I grew introvert and shy why he became bold and brash. His incomparable looks only served to make him a catch that every girl strived for and we only drifted further apart. He didn't attend get togethers anymore and when he did he appeared roaring drunk or in a company of some hussy. I couldn't meet up with him then not in the company of family that had begun to look down at him disparagingly.

I could only step back and pretend I didn't notice. That I didn't know he was there. Breathtakingly beautiful and downing booze like demented soul bound for an attendence of some alcoholic anonymous meeting in the not too distant future. The clingy blonds he always seemed to gave in tow didn't help either. That they were never the same one only made lips twitter more disparagingly about his person.

In short he had turned from my best friend into the epitome of bad boy and all that too prior to his turning vamp.

I had left for college certain I would never cross paths with him again. Our deviations in life was that wide but that stormy night changed everything and then changed nothing at all.

I found myself stagnant in time locked in a hell of my own making. In love with Lucian and mourning the loss of my own heart over him.

But no longer. Revealing my feelings left me feeling strangely empowered. As if the burden lifted revealed unbound strengths that hereto had been hidden reserved undiscovered... untapped.

I found myself closing in the distance between us. Amused by the expression of confusion that lit across his attractive face. It didn't matter. His reaction didn't matter. I was determined to get what I have always wanted. At twenty three years of age, I had certainly waited long enough for it.

But no longer.

I would have it now. This very instant.

I would have my first kiss.

Off his delicious lips.