“What was that?” I pull Dane aside with a hushed hiss when he comes inside to help dump the plates in the kitchen behind me, turning on him with bubbling anger. Finally able to get him alone and have this out with him.We just spent the last half hour working in weird, strained silence taking down notes from websites after Tyler’s joke about porn, and it’s been simmering and ruining my calm. I don’t know why such a dumb thing has me so mad, but it does, and I feel like he should have said something other than brushing it off earlier. All he did was change the subject. It was hanging over me like this deafening arrow pointing at us and making me uncomfortable sitting with him. It was icky, and I couldn’t stop looking at him and thinking about why he would watch that smut.“What was what?” Dane slides past me, yawning and so beat he looks ready to fall over. Seemingly not tense and mulling over anything like I was. He seems oblivious, and it somehow triggers more rage in me.He eyes me
“What? What does that mean? Do you think I’m some sort of magician who might bewitch you and jump your bones when you’re least expecting it… pretty sure hooking up with someone is a two-way thing. How about…. Kayla, as long as you don’t try getting into my bed, we’ll be cool, okay?” He is mad.His mood has turned pissed at me, and it riles my hackles and gets my temper up. Defensive that he’s turning this and pointing the finger at me so shamefully, while mentally, I am seriously having some kind of weird breakdown over his fucking outfit.“Don’t say it like that… like if I got in your bed, you wouldn’t stop me… what are you even saying?” I feel like he’s just ripped open my brain and caught a whiff of my unpure thoughts, and this is my punishment. My face must be scarlet with how it’s burning, and I’m so defensively guilty.“Oh my god… are we really doing this?” Dane slams his bottle down and storms at me so fast I trip backward in alarm, but he doesn’t stop. He grabs me by both arms
“Are you okay? You are really distracted and haven’t heard a word I have said for the last ten minutes.” Elisa brings me back to earth with a bump.“What?” I blink at her, pulling my thoughts back to the present, and look around, confused that I must have zoned out. The sun is beating down on us in this rare deserted patch of surf and sand. We’re having a very rare day of fun and downtime at the beach, and my head was a million miles away.“Earth calling Koala….. you have been like a zombie all morning.”“I’m sorry, it’s just….”Just what?That since yesterday, I have been fixated on my stupid brother and churning over every moment and interaction we have had all year to examine them and see if I do, in fact, have a crush on him. Picking apart my reactions to him and replaying yesterday like a stuck record. It’s totally screwing with my head.“Just…” Elisa tries to coax the end of my sentence out of me, staring at me with puppy dog eyes and the sweetest expression, and I crumple and b
“No… sit own, Elisa. Fuck off, Dane. Keep out of this. We were already here, and I have no reason to get up just because she demanded it…. You have no right to tell us to leave…..”“Pretty sure he just did, honey,” Charmaine smirks, and Alice does too, both eyeing me up like the cat who got the cream and my face flames. All thoughts of confusion and possible crushing on this asshole die a death at his obnoxious feet, and I know this will only escalate with the rearing of wounded pride and crushing pain in my chest.Dane glares at me, his gaze locked on mine in an unflinching show of dislike as though trying to intimidate me into leaving. Standing there like some thug boy, shielding those two bitches and acting like I’m an outsider who came to cause trouble.My throat constricts, and I have to swallow hard to get my saliva down, hands sweaty from whatever this is.Elisa is right.In all the years we have known one another, Dane always steps in and shields me when things happen at schoo
As I pull out our class notes, I slide into my seat, eyes on my bag in front of me. Overly aware of students shuffling in, I refuse to look up and watch for the one person I don’t want to see. I’m uptight, irritated, and trying not to count down the seconds he walks in. I have managed to avoid Dane in other shared classes all day and pretended he doesn’t exist, but I can’t in this one. He has to sit and work with me, and I am so not over yesterday at all. I am still nursing a lot of bruised feelings, confused emotions, and a simmering grudge, and the last thing I need is more drama.Elisa yawns, balling her fist in her mouth and slumps down beside me with a gentle thud on her desk. Her body heavy, nestling her head on her arm dramatically and staring up at me with those cute puppy dog eyes. She looks so done with today too.“I’m so tired. We should have gone to sleep earlier.” She lets out a long exhale. Her figure slumped more with every passing second.“We ate too much sugar to sl
This library is the quieter of the three we have in school and is only manned by one staff member. It’s mainly used for class releases like we are doing, not the busy ground floor catch-all where they keep most of the school's books. This one is more like a computer lab with a few bookshelves.I pick a table in the far corner, the most distant from the door, next to a row of four computers with their secluded desks. We can browse the net if needed, but no one will bother us over here.“Ummm.” Elisa draws my attention with a weird noise and then subtly waves her finger at the door behind where I have sat, and I automatically turn to see what she’s spotted.Tyler walks in with one of the girls Charmaine sits with normally while Dane wanders in behind, holding Charmaine's hand as they peruse the room to look for a seat. Charmaine is all push-up cleavage and the shortest of skirts, practically dry-humping his side. The sight of them that way winds me, and I swallow down a heaving lump tha
I walk up the steps after parking my car in our sweeping drive, focused on finding my house keys when I hear the telltale thrum of Dane’s bike pulling up into his spot behind me. I don’t turn to see his black deathtrap sleek machine pulling up, but I would never mistake that awful sound.For once, he’s come home directly from school at the same time as me, and I stiffen and ignore it. I wonder why he’s broken his daily habit of taking off with Tyler after class and instead decided to grace me with his presence. I locate my keys, open the front door and shove inside the heavy oak, knowing the house is empty. He knows it too, as it’s not like we hadn’t been told.We are all alone. Our parents work late almost daily, and today is Monique's scheduled day off so she can see her sister on her birthday. She reminded us before she left this morning at breakfast, we had to make our own dinner, and my parents would be eating out.I’m tired, so I plan to cook, do my homework, shower, and have an
“Stay still and be quiet. If you want it to blister and hurt, then fine… if you don’t shut up and let me help.” His arms around me have me caged, and I admit defeat and stop fighting him.“Dane?” Charmaine's whiny voice breaks in, and it’s obvious she does not like how he’s pandering over me. I don’t think I would like to see my boyfriend this way over another girl. “I’m sure she can manage fine. Our food is coming. Let’s go upstairs.”“In a second.” He dismisses her with a low tone, still honed in on holding me captive, and I close my eyes and try to regulate my body and breathing. He’s got me hot and panicky, aware of every inch of him around me, and pressed in so tight I can feel what he has in his pants between my butt cheeks.How he cannot judge how weird and inappropriate this is, is beyond me. I am stiff and afraid to move because I can clearly feel every lump, bump, and muscle.Do dudes have no self-awareness? They walk around with that on the front of their bodies and lean it
Here I am, wallowing in pain and heartbreak, thinking that he, too, must be having a really hard time. It’s the only comfort I have been able to give myself in all of this, and yet it’s not even true. He’s over there living it up with another girl, making friends, and even going to school with her. The fact no one wants to tell me means it’s far from innocent, and I don’t want to believe he would move on so fast, yet something tells me this is his style.This is exactly the kind of shit Dane of the past would pull.Didn’t he try throwing all in with that shrew Charmaigne in an attempt to dislodge my feelings for him? Maybe knowing we can never be together, he has gone down the route of replacing me as fast as he can. Don’t they say the faster way to get over someone is to get under someone new?He slept with other girls in his past to try and forget me, and now here he has a ready-made wannabe girlfriend living in his new home. If he really wanted to get over me, she is the perfect st
School was tougher today than yesterday. I think it’s the inability to sleep and the slow loss of Dane’s belongings and possessions at home, feeling like I am trying to grasp onto fine dry sand and can’t keep it between my fingers. Every time I close my eyes, I see him, and the overwhelming sadness stops me from being able to shut off my brain and roll over this mess again and again until I feel like I'm going slowly insane.I never knew love could be so awful.“You okay?” Elisa interrupts my spaced-out mood and pulls me back to the burger in my hand that I have barely touched. Sighing as I stare back out the window blankly at my jeep parked nearby and nod.“A million miles away. Sorry.”We decided to come out and eat after we dropped off my paternity test at the lab out here, only ten miles from home. Tyler had something to do with his friends, so Elisa and I decided to hang out here, take in some scenery, and try a burger bar to take my mind off of things.It wasn't hard. I put a sw
“I know, I know…I’m working on it. I never thought your mom would take it as badly as she is and dig her heels in. I’m sorry it seems like we’re stalling but it’s just you know how she can be. She needs time to calm down and change her mind.” Bryan looks weary all of a sudden, and now my anger dims a slight tiny fraction at his attempts to douse my fire, I cannot deny that he seems unnaturally pale today.A tiny hint of empathy and maybe even concern peeks out, and I try and push it back down into the pits of hell and remind myself that these two humans deserve anything they are going through. I don’t want to feel anything for either of them.“Maybe you should ask yourself why she is stalling….maybe you need that test as much as I do.” I point out, appraising his expression and seeing real fatigue etched on his face for the first time in as long as I can remember, and I wonder how much of a mental toll it's taking on him, too. Maybe he does have doubts, or maybe losing Dane this way h
I’m tired already, and it’s only eleven AM, and another class is starting. I regret coming back today, given last night I barely slept and instead cried myself raw on Dane's empty bed. Draped in the hoody that he wore the first time we took Elisa to the cove and staring at the mountain of boxes Monique packed up to send abroad for him. A symbolic tower of everything that is him ready to be sent far away.His room felt like she had stripped all personality that was Dane from its very air, as though he never existed in this space. Even his smell was gone, and as I lay there on the uncovered mattress, I couldn’t move or leave, and sleep wouldn’t take me. Just a useless heavyweight of flesh tethered to the last place he dwelled and unable to move on.I feel like I am now existing in an eternal zombie state, caught between numb and excruciating pain at any given moment, and my mind is anywhere but on school. But I know I cannot keep existing this way. Dragging out and holding onto nothing.
“She went to the airport early to wait for Bryan…to avoid me, I guess. Things here have been strained and hard, and we have come to a silent cold war. I can’t stand being in the same place as her, yet she insists now we eat together again and won’t let me stay locked up in my room. She had a carpenter come and remove the locks….who does that?” It’s a tired accusation, lacking real vavoom, even if it still angers me that she did it. I have long since lost the fight I had to stay away from her at all costs. She is like a buzzing fly around my head, and it’s easier to obey and eat silently while ignoring her presence than have her hammering down my door.If she’s trying to force normalcy back into this house, then she shouldn’t hold her breath for it to happen.“Sounds like something your mom would do.” Tyler snorts, and I am starting to see that all these years, Dane has definitely colored his friend’s view of my mom. As polite as Tyler was when he was here before, I have never actually
“Oh my god, I missed you so much.” Elisa catapults herself into my arms, almost knocking me into our pool with the enthusiasm of an over-excited puppy, then nearly strangles me to death while simultaneously crushing my ribs. Her excitement is palpable, and her hug is overdue. I regret now giving her the silent treatment for ten days before being able to find the mental strength to tell her everything in a phone call. I had no way of verbalizing things without breaking down in hysteria until last night, and I knew Tyler would have told her already, but she needed to hear it from me. I have never gone silent on my best friend in my whole life or hidden away Dane style like his, but I needed time to process and grieve. This was such a huge thing that I spent too many days crying in bed until no more tears fell. I am exhausted and now exist in some odd dreamlike reality where nothing seems real.I think I am finally spent. Tears have dried up, and instead of the constant agonizing pain of
“You have to eat, open the door. We need to talk.”“Go away…. Leave me alone.” My anger and venom have not dissipated any; instead, it grows by the hour. Irritated by my mom’s lingering presence because she just won’t leave me alone.Her whiny, pleading voice only riles fresh anger in me, and I throw my pillow at my bedroom door in frustration. Annoyed by her presence, and go back to staring at my cell, waiting for a reply that hasn’t come. I feel like I am going silently insane, and time has come to a standstill. I don’t know what else to do but sit here and wait given my entire existence has been turned upside down and my hope for any future is so far away I cannot reach him.Dane has been gone for days, yet he hasn’t called, he hasn’t texted me back, and Bryan has been silent, too, like they were sucked into some soundproofed bubble where all contact has ceased. For me, anyway. I don’t know if my mother speaks to them because I can't stomach her at all, even for a second, to have o
“Bullshit…this is bullshit. You’re lying.” Dane erupts before I can really swallow down the words that have wounded me with a sucker punch to my heart. “You’ve always hated me, and I wouldn’t put it past you to stoop this low and lie….so I break up with Kayla.” He half yells, half accuses, straining forward to get in her face, and I can taste the growing despair and anger circling him like a cyclone. “I don’t believe you.”“This isn’t true…you would have told me…dad would have….” I trail off, whimpering the words as something clicks in my head and slices through me with speed and severity, making my legs tingle, and my limbs grow weak. “Is that why? Why has he been this way towards me for the past ten years?”I don’t want to believe this or swallow it down, but it’s like something just smacked me in the head and woke up the underlying doubts.It races through my brain and thunders through my entire body like a shocking cold wall of ice. Tingling my brain through my scalp, and even my
“Mom.” Is the only word I can gasp out as I push Dane off me at speed and scramble to right my bra inside my shirt and haul my shorts back into place. Shame flushing over my entire body that we just got caught this way, and I want the ground to open and swallow me. Mortified about what they saw us doing and yet, at the same time, hitting an all-time ‘oh shit’ moment because I don’t want this to be the end. I don’t want Dane to be sent to London. I don’t want to lose him this way.I have an urge to wail and run away, taking him with me rather than face the wrath of our parents like this. My limbs are already trembling in cold fear.Dane shifts away quickly, too, to tend to his pulled-around outfit, turning away directly to probably calm the boner, causing him an obvious trouser tent, and yet it’s like time stands still. The sudden eery, heavy atmosphere and tense silence as though the world has hushed and the only noise is my mother’s subtle simpering.Our parents are standing like a f