“Just one more, please.” Elisa is tugging me towards the pool's edge and brandishing her phone high. The girl is on a selfie mission tonight, and I am being dragged around like some underpaid model. She’s slowly getting used to being in heels and a dress and keeps turning heads now she has relaxed. She looks knockout, and I’m sorta mad Tyler isn't here to see it.“I’ll take one with you.” Jordan shrugs in and moves up behind me to nestle shoulder to shoulder, and I inwardly recoil. His body heat travels up my naked arms and over my ass and back as he hunches my way to get in close. I am not too fond of the sensation.He’s been ultra attentive since we arrived a couple of hours ago and keeps following me about like a puppy, and it’s grating on my nerves. I am trying to be nice, but it’s suffocating that I can’t seem to gain breathing space from him. I feel like if I stay alone with him for more than a few seconds, he might get down and propose. He’s never been this clingy at school, an
I type like a crazy woman trying to stab my fingers through the screen and send him a response.“I can date and hang with whoever I want, seeing as my confession was rejected, and now I think I’m over it. Don’t dare come at me when your choices of lover are the scraping-the-barrel variety!”I’m furious, blood bubbling in my veins, and Elisa sits quietly before taking my cell from me when I hold it out as a way of explanation. I have no words while I am sitting here stewing with rage. My head is bubbling with blood rushing through my ears, and my body tingles with excess nervous energy. I wish that dumb asshole were here tonight so I could march to him and have this out face-to-face. Not an hour away in some cabin hiding behind texts.“So…. he’s jealous? See, told you he likes you. I figured it would be a reaction like this as he isn’t shy when he’s crazy mad.” Elisa shrugs, not fazed by what he sent, and I snatch it back from her. She seems a little smug that whatever social experimen
Elisa and I are vegetating in the tv room this morning. Tired from a sleepless night but trying to ignore its obvious reasons. Neither of us can be doing with drama today. Last night affected us more than either cares to admit, and we can hardly deny those two boys have a serious hold on our hearts and mental state.How did it get like this?Neither of us has turned our cells back on as we made a deal to keep them off until tomorrow to give Dane time to cool off and realize what an idiot he was being. That all of that was stupid. I don’t think we dare to go round two on angry, jealous boys who have lost their ever-loving minds.Elisa is acting guilty, curled up and pouty like she caused all this, but I won’t hear of it. All she did was post pictures of us dressed up and having fun with our classmates. There was nothing wrong with that, and even though I didn’t understand her intent, it’s not like any of it was purposely posed to try and get at Dane. Those photos were natural and held
Eyes locked on with a forceful meaning behind them, and I inwardly recoil. Dane is trying to eat into my brain and mark his territory, and I’m at a loss for words. He’s trying to remind me that I already claimed to love him, so I have no right or ability to accept any other guy. All my bravado dies a death as adrenalin piles up, a bad case of flutters and weak legs have me a jittery mess.“Tell him….you don’t like him like that. You’ve never liked him like that….that you will not date him!” Dane’s words are poison-tipped knives being fired at me from close range. Precise and threatening as he leans in closers to my face, making a point of almost coming nose to nose with me, and my vision blurs slightly with the influx of nerves he gives me.He's being the same asshole that sent those texts last night. A person I have never seen him be towards me. It makes me nervous and unsure about how to handle him.“I…… what are you doing?” I answer him in a feeble whisper. Aware of the lack of oxy
I pad into the kitchen around one am, unable to sleep tonight and clammy with it. It’s unusually hot, and even with aircon, I am stifling.Elisa went home hours ago after hiding in my room all day and avoiding Dane and Tyler. She has no courage to face whatever it was he wanted to say. Luckily my mom came home around noon to work, which meant the boys made no attempts to come near us. Dane had the sense to keep his head down around her, especially with a face that looks like he has gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson.I don’t bother turning on the lights, seeing as we have nighttime downlights over the counters casting a subtle glow, and I quickly get myself some milk and heat it in a pan on the stove. It takes a minute, and I decant it into a mug before clearing up my minimal mess.I always feel like an intruder in my own home when I come down here after dark. I have no idea why and it makes me unusually quiet while going about my business and then tiptoeing to leave the kitchen with my
Because I asked him to….. What is that even supposed to mean?Was that why she cried at school?That was days ago, over a week ago.Surely he didn’t break up with her the day after I confessed my feelings and asked him to get rid of her? If he did, why is he only telling me now? That makes no sense, given how he reacted and his disappearing act.I can’t formulate a reply to his question because I have no idea why he’s like whatever he thinks he is. He has me so confused that I’m standing gawping at him like a moron and silently unraveling a spew of crazy thoughts.Did he just confess to having feelings for me?Surely not.“You said…” It’s all that comes out, trying to pull back everything he said to me these past days and all the reasons he would never like me, but none of this makes sense. Unsure where to start or which rebuff and rejection speech I should remind him of. I’m suddenly lightheaded and majorly confused about how I should feel or think.“I know what I said.” He finally p
I am still so pissed about what Dane asked of me in the middle of the night. Banging around the kitchen while I make myself a snack, mid-study day at home, and I’m getting angrier the more I think about it.Who does that?Admits to having feelings for the person you know has feelings for you, but drawing a line and a no-date ban while asking them to never date anyone at all so they can handle their emotions. He has some nerve. That’s next-level rejection right there.If he hadn’t thrown Charmaine in my face so blatantly, rubbed it in, and used her, I might have been more open to us agreeing to a dry dating spell. Seeing no one while we respectively took care of our own emotions, but he offered nothing in comparison. He didn’t even mention it at all. Now I’m raging at the fact that he obviously intends to still date after all of that, and it’s just me who isn’t allowed.He is such a selfish and self-obsessed jerk.Do my feelings hold so little value?And who even does that to a girl? U
“You! We need to have words.” I stalk into Dane's room, startling the evasive Tyler with my snappy words, who is lounging on Dane's bed with a magazine. Eyeing him up with my fierce on and glad my beloved stepbrother is still downstairs doing whatever. He is probably raiding the kitchen for snacks, so he won’t be long. I have to make this fast. I don’t want him catching me here to corner me for his heart-to-heart.“Ummm…. Hey, Kayles.” Tyler seems sheepish, sliding his magazine off his lap and onto the bed before swinging his feet off the edge and sitting up. Not trying to get out of this. I guess he knew it was coming one way or another. He rubs his hand on his jean-clad thigh, making it obvious he has instant sweats at seeing me and avoids eye contact. His whole posture goes into submissive mode as he curls his shoulders and avoids looking at me directly. I have never seen Tyler nervous, but this is surely that.I close the door behind me and march towards him, hands on hips until I
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