He should have been euphoric. He should have been leaping around for joy. He should have been feeling a lot of things. But he didn’t; he felt numb. How long had he waited? How long had it been? How long since he had last thought of giving up?

It had happened so fast, yet still his brain was caught in slow motion. He could not process, could not compute. It was like the room had been turned on its side; it was like a dream turned into a bad, clichéd joke.

Had it really happened at all? He could still feel both her touch and the sting of reality. Reality. Seeing her touch the other, kiss the other, embrace the other however willingly or unwillingly, he did not know. Since when had they become so star-crossed, he and Juliet? His Jules. He had been ready to let her go.

But then she had kissed him.

He, when standing alone in Declan’s living room, had felt rather small and insignificant amongst the wealth and grandeur. Shawn was of no consequence, like an insect, or perhaps an arachnid. Arthropod, Gus would have offered. It was all encompassing.

Shawn had talked, as he was prone to doing. Something about pictures and moments and random coffee shops. He had told her what he would do with raw honesty not even he knew he possessed. There was nothing to hide behind, no charade to maintain.

Juliet said nothing. She closed the gap between them. He felt her hand on his face, her lips on his. Cautiously, so cautiously, he had returned it. His heart had fluttered like the hooves of a hundred wild horses.

That had been a real kiss, not a friend kiss, and not just a conciliatory kiss. It was two parts longing, one part regret, all parts awesome. It was a kiss given to one when the other was dating somebody that wasn’t the recipient. It made no sense. Shawn was left reeling.

It was everything he’d been waiting for. So he should have been happy, ecstatic even. But all he felt was bewilderment, and he looked the part when she finally broke away from him. Bewildered wonder. Shawn had stared in mute disbelief.

He didn’t want to believe the kiss had been a mistake. He didn’t want to think it was some foolish impulse on her part. It had felt so right. He had wanted so badly for it to be right.

When Gus returned with Declan, he had been quiet, thankfully so. Shawn could not compete with Declan Rand, so he would not even try. Maybe Gus knew that. Maybe this was a pitying silence.

Shawn, in that prior moment, could have only been himself. And she had chosen him, for however fleeting a moment. He would never give it up. He’d already taken a mental picture, and he’d keep it forever. Not even could wild horses have dragged it away.

They left quietly, he and Gus. Shawn looked intently at the door. The topiary garden they passed through was less amusing while locked in a haze.

The moment was over. Nobody was stopping it from being over.

Juliet had kissed him. She kissed him.

“Shawn?” Gus finally spoke.

Shawn looked again back where they had come from.

“Shawn?” Gus tried again.

“What?” Shawn finally replied, returning briefly to planet Earth.

“You want to drive?”

“No.”

They were alone in Gus’s little blue car. Gus shifted it into reverse. Shawn cranked the window down and looked again at the house.

The question was finally asked. “Tell me what the hell happened in there?”

“Nothing.”

Shawn was never so succinct. Gus would not be fooled. “I will kill you, Shawn.”

Playing with a fray in his jeans, Shawn looked at the dashboard. He smiled wryly. He wasn’t feeling witty enough to deflect. “Gus, she kissed me,” he blurted out on a whim.

Gus started before biting his lip and focusing instead on pulling out of the driveway. “So what are you gonna do?” he asked at long last.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.” It was true. In fact, there was nothing he really could do. The choice was all Juliet’s. And to think that the choice had once been his.

Gus looked mildly distressed. “I don’t know which soap opera we’re trapped in, or what alternate universe we’ve been thrown into, but this has got to stop.” Looking over at Shawn, he could see his friend was gazing despondently at the passing scenery. “Life’s too short, you know.”

“I can’t let her go, Gus.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“I just want her to be happy.”

“I know you do.”

The sun hung low in the sky, hovering near the shoreline. For once, the two friends did not speak for several moments.

Again it was Gus who broke the silence. “So how was it?”

Shawn smiled. “Better than I’d ever imagined.”