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19

Author: L.T.Marshall
last update Last Updated: 2022-11-21 19:18:18

“Mine too.” Elisa chimes in and then reddens when Tyler casts a glance back at her and catches her eye with a soft smile. She tips her head down and pretends to be back on reading her website page.

Something they have in common, I guess. Both come from unbroken homes and parents who are sickeningly in love even though they were all high school sweethearts. Much like Dane and me, they are both also only children.

“We know plenty of functioning humans with good relationships. We just need to decide who to interview and in what format….. Do we have a sit-down and take notes interview… a paper questionnaire, or a video interview we can submit as research data.” I flip to the next clean page of the pad and pick up the pen, poised to continue. Laying down my half-eaten sandwich as work takes over.

“Is this how you always are?” Dane asks in what seems to be awed dislike…. “It’s just a shitty school project. We could just casually ask for a couple of tips and write the damn essay.”

“This shit
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  • Teen Drama   20

    “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

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  • Teen Drama   21

    “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

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  • Teen Drama   22

    “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

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  • Teen Drama   23

    “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

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  • Teen Drama   24

    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

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  • Teen Drama   25

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  • Teen Drama   26

    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

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  • Teen Drama   27

    “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

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  • Teen Drama   130

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    “Well, this is depressing.” Dane wheels his case into his old barren bedroom, gazing around at the emptiness even though all his furniture is still there. “It feels like someone else's room.”All the personality is gone without his things in here, and it smells like a fresh, floral hotel, thanks to Monique. His art, posters, pictures, trinkets and books are all gone, leaving empty walls, shelves, and surfaces where he used to have such an array of masculine things, more so after he moved in here permanently and brought it all from his mom’s house.“Imagine how it made me feel watching it get this way….you’re an ass.” I throw him a mock glare and get a kiss blown back at me.“I wanted you to miss me.” He winks and goes back to his case. In a happy mood ever since we started packing to come here.I gaze around, infected by his happiness, and yet sigh at the memories of being in here without him.Even the lack of his laundry tossed on the floor somehow makes this place impersonal. The be

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    “There’s a lot that this test result will change….I know now is probably not the best time to talk about where we go from here. You probably need to process it the same way we did, but I want you to know….I'm not going back to the UK. I’ll sort it out myself. Enroll back in school, find somewhere to stay, maybe with Tyler….” Dane sounds so far removed from the immature rebel of months ago who was forever making my life hell and living stupidly. He sounds like this experience has aged him so much.He has a sensible head on, his eyes set on the future and he’s not reacting one ounce to my mom. It’s like she no longer has any affect on him.“You’ll move back home, there is no argument in that. I’ll call the school and arrange for you to go in and re-enroll. I’ll call your mom and explain things. Don’t worry about anything. I told you, didn’t I… always your home and whenever you wanted to come back.”For being the fragile one here, Bryan seems to be the one most resigned and okay with thi

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    “Wait.” I tug Dane back by the hand he’s interlaced in mine, so he stops abruptly near Bryan’s room door, and I pull him to turn to me. Panick is overtaking my soul now we’re close to actually doing this. Walking in here it’s been growing inside of me like a building storm.All my bravado and anger have dissipated because I am so over trauma and tears in my life that I want to avoid any more conflict and run to hide instead. I think I have reached a point of fragility that my emotions don’t want to take anymore.My nerves are bubbling over, my heart is racing, and I'm swinging between cold and hot sweats that have my entire body flushed and trembling. I’m genuinely scared even though my mom is the one who should be.There is no more fight left in me. Not when the possibility of Dane being ripped away from me a second time is all too real, and that thought terrifies me more now I have lived it once. I can’t do that again. I won’t survive.“It’s going to be okay, I promise. We do this a

  • Teen Drama   124

    “Like what?” Hannah squeaks in outrage, crossing her arms on the table to lean in and peer at him, that he might be dissing the man of her dreams or her favorite band. Finding insult in that but nothing else he had said before this.“Your face,” Dane snaps back at her before flicking her in the forehead and pushing her back again.“Ughh.. See… Why is he like this? Is this what you put up with? How can you date him when he’s so awful?” Hannah throws her hands up in frustration, and yet all of this only makes me relax about what kind of relationship they had. If Elisa wasn't so feeble and gentle, I know this is how they would act together. At times, there are glimpses of it, but Elisa is too good-natured and cannot sass. There’s nothing in it.I can see the dynamic slowly opening up between them. She’s like an unwanted younger sibling he both doesn’t like but also does but is forced to take out with him. Annoyed by her presence, but I can tell they also have a sense of relaxed and comf

  • Teen Drama   123

    “You look nervous. Relax….What are you scared of?” Dane brushes my hair from my face for the third time, running a finger down my cheek before leaning in and pecking me lightly on the lips. Igniting the same burst of internal flutters, he always gives me, and a layer of warmth. Suddenly, in my world, everything feels right again, just having him by my side, but I still cannot escape this constant gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach.“Every time I have seen this girl, I was a bitch to her….I’m still not ok with the fact you spent the last month with her while ignoring me.” Try as hard as I might, I cannot quench the sense of nausea and dread while sitting here waiting for her to show up. “I feel weird meeting her this way and under these circumstances.”I should never have agreed to this.It’s a clean, bright diner near the hotel they are staying at and the hospital, so we intend to stay here until we’re ready to face our parents and work out a game plan. Hannah is a formality I

  • Teen Drama   122

    “Deal…. I want my boyfriend back how he was. I don’t want to remember any of this shitty separation. Can we get back together?” I ask stupidly even though it’s obvious we are already making up. I just need him to say the words to help with the insecurity I am feleing after how cold he was. “I want my boyfriend back.”“Technically, babycakes, we never broke up. Neither of us said the words so we don’t need to get back together. He shrugs like this is the most logical thing ever, and I lean back to scowl at him.He does not get out of his asshole past four weeks that easily. The boy really is trying to pull a fast one.“Really?” I ask in obvious, oozing sarcasm. “Because I remember clearly a certain boy telling me he was going no contact and not coming back from the UK before he blocked me on absolutely everything….that was a very final break up even if you never said ‘the words.’ You can’t be in a relationship with someone who moved abroad and refuses to communicate with you.” I point

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