“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
I stare into the tree-lined edge of our property as I balance on the swing I have perched my ass on. I’m not swaying but focused on the sunny parts in the distance even though I am in the concealed shade to get some thinking time. It’s been here as long as I can remember and used to be the spot Dane and I would come to when we had something to say to one another. Secluded and pretty, with no direct view from our house. Not that it’s why I am here today. I just needed head space and have no idea where he is. My mood is weird, and coming home from the few days I spent with Elisa to do schoolwork before we go back on Monday didn’t help me focus.I sigh and rest my temple against the cold chain to my left, tucking one leg under me and leaving the other to dangle while I pick at the cuff of my sweater. Lost in a nothing trance of not thinking but feeling deflated and depressed with a foggy mind. I had a lot of time the last few days to mull my entire life over, and I am so done with this
“Because I couldn’t.” Dane's words are breathy, and he pushes off the bar and paces forward, so his back faces me. He stops a little away at the opposite leg and sags. “When my mom told me we were going to the UK, I thought this was it…. I could end this, whatever this is, and we could forget each other. Put the mess of our parents, all that shit, and my feelings for you aside. A lot of space and time between us, and it would fade away. We could move on, and I would have an excuse not to come back anymore.”I pause, staring at his tall, muscular form, watching him tense up, and listen intently to the hoarseness developing in his words with every sentence. Killing me with his presence and the topic of this conversation as though we’re merely chatting about the weather. And not our hearts.“But she made you stay….” thus further ruining his life. Making him push harder and colder so I would stop bothering him. Progressively getting wilder and dating more girls as he went. I wonder if tha
“I’m tired.” I sigh and slump down into my seat in English class. Our first lesson on the first day back from break, but my usual energy for school is absent. It feels like I haven’t slept in days. I don’t want to be here for once, and I have a growing dread and subtle anxiety about seeing Jordan and his friends again. It's been quiet for a few days, but I know it will be awkward when he arrives.“You spent the last two days of the break at the animal shelter working like a slave and then still staying up to cram in extra study time. You need to take more downtime, Koala. It’s not good for you to occupy your waking hours with constant work.” Elisa pats me on the shoulder before sliding out her books and pencil case, and I stretch my arms up over my head, yawning and trying to loosen my stiff body. Closing my eyes to savor the exquisite sensation of relaxing all my muscles.“You sound like my mom…. I know, okay. It’s hard to relax when downtime gives you too much thinking space.” I kno
“Coming. Practicing his apology speech in the bathroom mirror for the fiftieth time.” Dane smirks when I glance back his way, and he subtly nods at the back of Elisa’s skull.“Ahh.” I haven’t said a word to her since I talked to Tyler because I want it to come from him before I figure out how to console her. Not screw up whatever it is he ends up saying by telling her too much. I turn back and go back to flicking through the papers.“You two look cozy.” Charmaine's bitchy tone in front of me makes me bristle all over and lift my chin in time to see her slamming by. Obvious hostile bad mood as she glares at Dane in passing and then throws her hair extensions over her shoulder before hobbling to a seat further back. All seduction and kissing up to him are gone now she’s on his dumped list.I flicker another glance back at him, but he’s looking down at the notes I handed him and seems oblivious to her. Disinterested in her attitude, and it gives me a weird sense of calm.I get a slight s
“I’ll see you in biology, don’t be late.” I remind Elisa as we part ways at the break bell. Walking out of our shared economics class and see Tyler hovering near the hallway as he waits for her. He seems nervous and is shifting from one foot to the other and throws me a half smile as we lock gazes. I frown, give him the ‘you better not fuck this up’ glare, and quickly remove it before Elisa turns to me.“What should I say to him?” Elisa flashes me a panicked, wide-eyed look. She is already second-guessing agreeing to see him, and I pat her head as though she’s the cutest puppy. She wouldn’t be her if she were not crippled by anxiety at every point in life.“Nothing. The whole point is he has something to say, and even if you stand and stare like a mute, that’s fine. Don’t cave to him. Listen, nod, and leave… let him suffer. He was the one acting like a moron, not you.” I urge her onwards with a little push to her butt and watch her cautiously walk towards him at a snail's pace. She ke
“How many high school girls grow up still in love with their boyfriend from age seventeen? The statistics speak for themself. So if we’re not doing this because of some noble idea that you can’t give me a future, then stop. We might not even last a month. We’ve never done this before. There’s no guarantee we would ever last, so thinking of the future is stupid.”I know how lame it sounds, but I can’t think of how else to convince him to give me a chance.Do I really believe we have no future? I don’t even know, but I don’t care. I understand why Romeo and Juliet threw caution to the wind to steal the moments they had before it all came crashing down. This longing for him won’t subside until I have him in the way my heart is screaming for. I want the now and screw what will happen later.“What are you doing?” Dane leans in with accusation, eyes narrowed and irritation evident. There is a static buzz about him that a storm is brewing, yet he doesn’t intimidate me. A hint of the more ag
“I’m going to bed, mom. Goodnight.” I pick up my glass of milk and the copy of Romeo and Juliet I am reading and head for our lounge door. It’s late evening, and we just sat through hours of my mom’s favorite series in a binge session. She had a rare afternoon off when I came home from school, and wanted to do something together.“Is there still no response from him?” My mom is fluffing the couch cushions before heading to bed. It was just the two of us tonight, as Brian had a work dinner, and Dane never came home.“No. His cell is ringing out, and he isn’t replying to my texts.”Dane is doing what Dane does. After our talk, he dodged me all afternoon at school and blanked me at leaving time. Acting like a cold, ignorant jerk when we crossed paths in class. He went off with Tyler and hasn’t been seen since. Reverting to behaviors of before, and I don’t know why I'm letting it upset me. I should never let him get to me when he starts acting like a prize asshole.My mum checks her watc
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